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Cay Gibson
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My friend's son (studying for priesthood) sent me this today:
Death of a Language
Pope's Latinist pronounces death of a language
By Malcolm Moore in Rome, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 11:44pm GMT 27/01/2007
"For years it was derided by unwilling schoolboys for being "as dead as dead could be". Now, despite the Vatican's best efforts, the Pope's top adviser on Latin has reluctantly joined them by saying the language of St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas is almost extinct.
"It is dying in the Church. I'm not optimistic about Latin. The young priests and bishops are not studying it," said Fr Reginald Foster, 68, a Carmelite friar who was appointed the Papal Latinist 38 years ago by Pope Paul VI.
"He said priests were no longer compelled to study Latin at seminaries, and now found it impossible to read vital theological tracts.
"You cannot understand St Augustine in English. He thought in Latin. It is like listening to Mozart through a jukebox," he told The Sunday Telegraph. "We still speak Latin in the elevators and around the house in my monastery at San Pancrazio, just like 45 years ago. But nowadays the students don't get it, and I don't blame them – it's not their fault."
Full document here.
We are very lazy here with Latin. English from the Roots Up is about as good as it gets.  I'm worried if I show this article to my 13 yr old ds he'll shout, "Hurray!"
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Cay Gibson
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Elizabeth
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Why would he shout hurray? I think the article makes a great case for teaching Latin. What if you show him the article without the title? He's not saying it should be dead. He's saying it's sad that we aren't saving it from extinction. Students don't get it because they are not being taught. The solution is to teach more Latin.
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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Cay Gibson
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How's Latin study going at your house, Elizabeth?
I have yet to find something that will hold this child's attention and stick in his memory. We have a hard enough time learning English. Should have seen his essay paper we corrected yesterday. 
My dd, on the other hand, loves this stuff!
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Bridget
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My mom read an article recently about the lack of scholars in the ancient languages. According to that author, experts in ancient languages will be in great demand all over the world and will make good money since there will be so few of them.
I don't know if we will become scholars here but we are enjoying our Latin studies very much.
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Shari in NY
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We have a young Polish priest at our parish and he was recently joined by another young Polish priest here to learn English. The non-English speaking priest co-presided at mass in Latin and we received "Corpus Christi" instead of "Body of Christ" for a few weeks. Alas, his English is improving quickly and I expect he will be on his way soon. However, Latin is alive and well in Polish seminaries.
Shari in NY
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Cay Gibson
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Bridget wrote:
My mom read an article recently about the lack of scholars in the ancient languages.
I don't know if we will become scholars here but we are enjoying our Latin studies very much. |
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Do you know where this article is, Bridget? I'd love to read it.
I've encouraged my dc to learn a second language because I know there is always a demand for someone who is fluent in another language. I can foresee these children being at the forefront of the job market or, at least, have an advantage.
I hope I didn't say anything to imply that I'm happy about this article.  I have a dear hs friend who majored in Latin study in college. She taught a Latin course to our hsers until she had her new baby. I've thought of getting her to tutor my girls.
Garrett just doesn't like language. Period.  I call him my "man of few words." Funny though. We had a Spanish tutor come to the house last year and he actually loved learning Spanish. And he was good at it.  Probably because we didn't expect him to write full sentences in Spanish.
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Jenny
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We attend the TLM with the Fraternity of St Peter and Latin is alive and well and thriving! These beautiful young seminarians learning to offer the Mass as so many saints before them, in Latin!
Fraternity of St Peter
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Cay Gibson wrote:
How's Latin study going at your house, Elizabeth?
I have yet to find something that will hold this child's attention and stick in his memory. We have a hard enough time learning English. Should have seen his essay paper we corrected yesterday. |
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My four-year-old was belting out the Agnus Dei in Latin from the stall in the bathroom at the gym where Christian plays basketball. You should have seen the look on the face of the other mom  . The chants are going well. Prima Latina? Very slowly...
I do see the merit in it. I figure if I start them young enough and do a little bit everyday, they'll retain some of it. If God needs them to read Latin for the Church, I'm not going to stand in the way, but He's going to have sprinkle a generous amount of grace over the whole endeavor!
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Elizabeth
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Cay,
Christian doesn't like Latin and he doesn't like Spanish. But when I stop to think about it, he doesn't like to speak English either. He's just not a talker. And I'm really lowkey with him. But he's present in the room when I drill vocabularly and I've noticed that he's not lip-synching the Latin during Mass--he really knows those prayers. He's picking up the vocabulary despite himself.
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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Paula in MN
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We just started Latin in our home, based on a lot of the posts on this forum!
I think it is sad that it is dying out. It is a beautiful language, and it is the basis for so many words in this world!
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 Paula
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Jennifer Evans
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I originally started out using Prima Latina and the Latina Christiana 1. My children seemed to really like it. I started to find it hard to have enough time to do a full study. Plus, my children needed more work in the language arts category.... 
The homeschool program that I recently switched to suggested having the children listen and translate Latin chants for awhile and then go back to a more formal study. This has given me a chance to work on spelling, grammar etc. that really needed help around here.
The cd that she reccommended for the Latin chant comes from Our Father's House and is titled Minimum Repertoire of Plain Chant. I have them learning one new chant a month. The nice thing is that my younger children are picking up so much from this. It is wonderful to see them walking around the house singing the Latin chants.
God's Blessings!
Jennifer
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mariB
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I love the idea of the children learning the Latin Chants! We play Gregorian chant during school hours all of the time.
It seems to bring the Holy Spirit and peacefulness into the household.
We struggle with Latin too. Our 11 year old uses Latiana Christiana I and is mainly learning the vocabulary.
The 15 and 13 year old are using Henle Latin. We posted on the wall, where the computer is, the 5 declensions. They are memorizing the vocabulary very slowly. They can translate well from Latin to English,
but translating English to Latin. ('')
I cannot help but think that Latin is so important. I never took Latin in highschool, but took 4 years of French and I loved it! I was very blessed in the summer of my Senior year to go to Europe for a month and spoke French quite a bit. That was many years ago.
When we are studying Latin, a big part of me just want to switch over to French because I just want to take the easy route.
I'm open to any suggestions as literature takes the forefront in the school day and then Latin may happen or a lot of times it does not.(' ')
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St. Ann
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Every child that attends Gymnasium in Germany learns Latin.
It was always the first foreign language until a few years ago.
Now English is the first. In the 6th grade you usually have a choice between French and Latin in addition to the English.
Beginning next year all students will begin with English in the 1st grade and continue until they graduate from their particular schools either in the 9th, 10th or 12thgrades.
Dd1 has already decided to take Latin next year.
I am thankful for that.
In the 9th grade she adds either French or Spanish.
We could sing Salve Regina more often at home. I really don't know why we never do???
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marihalojen
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mariB wrote:
| When we are studying Latin, a big part of me just want to switch over to French because I just want to take the easy route. |
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Any thoughts/comments/suggestions on learning a foreign language and Latin simultaniously? Marianna has been exposed to French and Spanish and is desperate to learn Latin. I'm currently using a free Latin text and freebies from Classical Academic Press. What has happened though is she has taken and included the Spanish in the Latin.
For instance, pagina, paginae on one side of a card and page, pagina on the other, or via, viae and road, way, via. Even some of the longer ones narro, narrare, narravi, narratum and to tell, narrar, contar.
If nothing else, it has increased her vocab. But as we are only a light month into this, and I'd love to hear from others who might have done something similar.
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Natalia
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Jennifer,
My kids are studying both Latin and Spanish. We are using separate texts. When I quiz them on their vocabulary I do point the similarities but that is a far as I go in an effort to join the two. Sometimes I have them guess how would a certain Latin word would be said in Spanish.
They play off each other though. For example, my ds(9) was having problems understanding the concept of conjugating verbs in Spanish, so I was able to point out that it was similar to the declensions he was learning in Latin.
Natalia
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Natalia
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Jennifer,
that free text seems to have good explanations. We have been using LCI and my ds is finding the grammar part difficult to understand. I find that LCI's explanations are not very clear to him even when he uses the DVD. Maybe this text would complement the explanations. Thanks,
Natalia
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marihalojen
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I'm glad to hear your take on that text, Natalia. I'm definitely easing into this pool slowly, it is all so, well... foriegn to me!
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Cay Gibson
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What a timely subject this has become.
Last night my oldest dd came to dh and I saying she didn't think she'd be taking French her senior year. The teacher who she has had for the past three years has been ill and will not have the curricula/lesson plans for next year turned in time for the class to get AP credit. Kayleigh has taken French since third grade and I was devasted.
But Kayleigh insisted she doesn't need the foreign language credit anyway (how would she know since she doesn't seem to know what she wants to pursue in college ) but I hate to see that many years of a foreign language go down the drain. Well, perhaps not that dramatic. I know the fact that she's had this exposure is a wonderful thing. But it's kind of like Laura Ingalls never graduating from those little schoolhouses on the prairie. It's sad melancholy.
But...in the true spirit of youth  ...Kayleigh goes forward. She's actually excited to be done with French and is taking this opportunity to pursue a class that would be something she wants to do. She could still take the class but wouldn't get the AP option.
Her daddy suggested, if she was still interested in something in the medical field, she should look into taking the Latin class.
Now three years ago Kayleigh wanted to take Latin. She was all enthused about it. We suggested she stick with French since she'd come so far with it, was taking advanced classes, and could get that inevitable AP credit. 
And what did this child tell us last night while standing before us? "Dad, Latin is a dead language."
  
Just throw salt in my wound, why don'tcha?
I couldn't believe I was hearing this. So I drew up the article my friend's son had sent and we talked about it briefly. But Kayleigh was more focused on talking about what class she should exchange French for and, clearly, Latin is not on her list.
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Cay Gibson
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ALmom
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Cay,
I don't understand why your dd couldn't take the AP test. There are no requirements that you finish a certain class in order to take the test. All you need is a school willing to let her take it with them - and the money to pay for it. She could prepare for the test on her own. (Our biggest problem here is finding someeone willing to let us take the test with them).
Janet
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Cay Gibson
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Thank you, Janet.
I didn't even consider this. I'll mention it to her when she gets home.
She did take a test her 8th grade year (and passed it) to advance up a grade level in French.
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Cay Gibson
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4Real Forums : Across Time and Place
Topic: Death of a Language
