More matadors and fighting bulls and fewer students of Latin would be chanting:
Latin is a language,
Dead as Dead Can Be,
First it Killed the Romans,
Now It’s Killing Me.
All are dead who spoke it.
All are dead who wrote it.
All are dead who learned it,
Lucky dead, they’ve earned it.
Lex Canuleia –> a Roman law passed in 445 BCE that legalized intermarriage between patricians and plebians. This law was proposed by Gaius Canuleia to allow alliances between the two. Funny Anglicized word play in the video.
I love Latin. Learning declensions and conjugations has helped me to think and write better and more clearly. Perhaps learning any foreign language will do that. But having tried and failed at French, my experience says otherwise.
IF you really want to learn Latin, THEN go here:
https://www.youtube.com/ScorpioMartianus
There is a resurgence of Latin today, Pope Francis’ prohibition of the Latin Mass notwithstanding.
“I love Latin. Learning declensions and conjugations has helped me to think and write better and more clearly. Perhaps learning any foreign language will do that. But having tried and failed at French, my experience says otherwise.”
The first three chapters of “Gwynne’s Latin”, and the whole book “Climbing Parnassus” beautifully corroborate your opinions on the special ability of Latin to form thinkers and writers. I also love Latin.
BTW, I have a new saying in Latin that I give to any Democrat bloviating with Trump Derangement Syndrome:
Censeo ceterum autem Partem Democraticam delendam esse. Enim omnes Democratici ex Civitatibus Foederatis amputandi sunt!
I only know a few words of Latin – I can pray the our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be in Latin, and I can figure out some of it in my Latin Mass Missal thanks to the little Castillan Spanish I know. Castellano is really a modern version of Latin.
For all of the whining about Latin done by English speaking Catholics past and present……they really do not understand what a cobbled together, patched with duct tape and bondo auto body filler, confusing mess of a language English really is. Yes, English did away with feminine, masculine and neuter… we don’t have a feminine wall or a masculine floor and verbs are far more easily conjugated but the rules have as many exceptions as there are rules and English just absorbs words from other languages, keeps the foreign pronunciation and goes on its merry way.
LQC- lot of Latin in the Pope’s funeral. Not certain that it was indicative if anything, but interesting.
At the two all female high schools I had 2 years of French and 4 years of Latin. At a secular university I was put in 3rd year Latin. The professor knew I had gone to Catholic school and always picked me to translate the bawdy lines in Latin plays and other writings. I think she enjoyed my embarrassment.
I still have my Latin textbooks and dictionary. I don’t mean to imply that I am at LQC’s level. Latin helps me learn new vocabulary.