A return to Latin or Ancient Greek?

[razoredge]

And I would never say that learning a new language would be "time wasted." But I do agree that for some it would be very difficult due to time and money restraints.

Thats what i meant "time to waste" not wasted time. Its a matter of priorities and motivation for the various priorities. Work, family and home projects leaves little time... doesnt make a person "stupid". I can even imagine in the case of college where ones study load could be great enough and then they might be working some and trying to have a social life. So now they didnt study up on their latin and "such a language itself would act as a litmus test to one's ability to engage in such discourse"

 

[Einherjar86]

Fair enough.

 

[Fenrisúlfr]

you're welcome to cease all further use of English if you really wanted.

φιλῶ Ἑλλινίζειν· ὁμολογῶ τῷδε.

 

[Vimana]

Callate.

 

[Fenrisúlfr]

Callate.

διἀ τὶ δύσκολος εῖ;

 

[speed]

Basically, what you're proposing is a return to medieval scholasticism, in which all academic and learned discourse occurs in a defined language only a select few can understand. Its an interesting idea. It reminds me of Kingsley Amis' THe Alteration.

Anyway, I think English may perhaps undergo a subtle but gradual change--specifically written English. The web and web language, the dumbing down and egalitarization of society, the increasing lack of any written discourse of literary culture, as well the internationalization of English--all these point to a different hybrid written version of English for the masses, and perhaps academic or overly techical English for academia and the professional classes.

 

[Vimana]

So you're basically saying its going to split into two different languages?

 

[Seditious]

http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978535
Daniel Coffeen talks about the pains of learning Greek. ...in one of the first six lectures. I can't for the life of me pin down which minute of which lecture though, lol, but I spent like 30 minutes on winamp trying.

 

[Vimana]

I had a friend who spoke Greek and he never said anything was difficult about it.

 

[Fenrisúlfr]

So you're basically saying its going to split into two different languages?

For all practical purposes, a more pronounced version of the transition from Attic to Koine Greek. This may be said on account of the loss of many grammatical subtleties, diction, and in many cases with regional dialects taking on local words where it suits. However, in this specific case, methinks a native speaker of one may wind up unable to understand the other unless spoken very simply. As English is the trade-language of so many areas, multiple dialects would emerge. All would be related to high-English, but many dialects would be estranged to one another depending on the local vernacular each dialect absorbed, as well as which (and how many) features are absorbed.

Languages have the uncanny tendency to evolve to meet the needs of their practitioners, what I advocate just also happens to be a retrogression. If one is speaking English, one is already speaking a fair amount of both Greek and Latin, it is merely hidden in the words themselves. Thus, it is not at all revolutionary; instead think of it as re-opening a venerable tome: dusty but still fresh in one's memory.

 

[Vimana]

More than half of our most commonly used words are Germanic, does German have a Greek or Latin root?

 

[Einherjar86]

Anyway, I think English may perhaps undergo a subtle but gradual change--specifically written English. The web and web language, the dumbing down and egalitarization of society, the increasing lack of any written discourse of literary culture, as well the internationalization of English--all these point to a different hybrid written version of English for the masses, and perhaps academic or overly techical English for academia and the professional classes.

I completely agree with this statement. I try my best to avoid internet slang at all costs.

 

[Einherjar86]

More than half of our most commonly used words are Germanic, does German have a Greek or Latin root?

English is essentially a combination of Latin and Germanic (from which came Olde English).

 

[Fenrisúlfr]

More than half of our most commonly used words are Germanic, does German have a Greek or Latin root?

No; thus why I said 'fair amount' in lieu of 'most', and what Einherjar86 said.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Origins_of_English_PieChart_2D.svg

Germanic languages neither afford flexibility of word order, nor lenience in declension.

 

[razoredge]

someone mentioned gender problems with English, I dont understand this? I learned some French and that was one of the most annoying things about it to me, everything had to be either fem or masc and I dont see the point or benefit. Sentence word arrangement was backwards as well. It was also a bit too limp wristed in pronunciation. Sounds fine when the French speak it.

 

[razoredge]

]

Germanic languages neither afford flexibility of word order, nor lenience in declension.

What do you mean by this word order ? English has many ways in which a sentence can be arranged, perhaps not if one clings to the 7th grade teachings of "proper English". Or do I miss what you are talking about ?

 

[Vimana]

Well gender can be a good thing because sometimes you never have to specify the gender for something because it comes with the words.

What I think he means by word order is in Latin "that cool is" and "that is cool" are both correct. But I don't see what benefit comes from being able to do that.

 

[derek]

It's an inflected language. That essentially means that the word endings indicate sentence meaning rather than word order. It allows for more inventive sentence arrangement. Latin is amazingly expressive.

As for bringing them back - no. Language is liquid, that's utterly integral to its nature.

Also, I should add that Latin and Greek both took quite some time to reach their zenith. English still has plenty of time.

 

[Seditious]

I had a friend who spoke Greek and he never said anything was difficult about it.

Ancient Greek--that which would be relevant as far as this whole 'like the wise ancients did it' thing, just as there's a particular kind of Hebrew people who want to learn to read the bible learn. that which "is together with Latin the most important historical languages in the European culture"

"The requisites are dedication and discipline. Although this course does not require any previous experience in foreign language study, if you have studied neither linguistics nor a highly inflected foreign language, be prepared to work extra hard the first semester. There will be some slightly unfamiliar grammatical concepts, and we must learn the technical names for familiar concepts as well. Learning any foreign language requires a lot of memorization, but learning Greek requires memorization in an analytical framework rather than a real-life framework."

in what I referred to he talked about these endless lists of words one had to simply memorize...no rule at all, just thousands of basic differences to remember entirely abstractly.

"You can do useful Spanish with a weenie vocabulary and a half-assed hold on the present tense. You can't stumble through any available ancient Greek till you've mastered all the tenses, all the cases, all the moods, all the word order.

Memorizing all this stuff takes a long time. Months. First year Greek courses are largely about you getting the rules tables memorized. So it takes months just to get to the point where you're ready to start learning anything useful. "

 

[Seditious]

I just finished the last chapter of Descartes' Method, and this seemed somewhat apropos just to throw in randomly...


"if I write in French, which is the language of my country, in preference to Latin, which is that of my preceptors, it is because I expect that those who make use of their unprejudiced natural reason will be better judges of my opinions than those who give heed to the writings of the ancients only."
- Descartes, A Discourse on Method (Chapter 6)