I took two years of Latin in the seventh and eighth grades and about all I can remember is how to sing "Popeye the Sailor Man" in Latin.:) Some acheivement huh? At least my grandchildren are entertained by my "talent"
Latin does help with the understanding of other romance languages and with the grasp of word meanings as "Word A Day" points out below.
Did you take Latin in school?
I have posted previously about "Word A Day" but it has been some time ago and perhaps some of you missed it. This is an interesting free email service for those of us who love language and learning "new" words in a fun way.
Click on the link above and go to the site to sign up. You will enjoy it.
Here is a sample: today's email "Word A Day"
"According to a story, probably apocryphal, former US Vice President
Dan Quayle once said, "I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and
the only regret I have is that I didn't study Latin harder in school
so I could converse with those people."
Latin is a dead language. No people speak it as their everyday language.
The area south of the US is called Latin America because most of the
people down there speak Spanish or Portuguese, both derived from Latin.
Latin took its name from Latium, a region in ancient Italy. Various
dialects of Latin eventually blossomed into the Romance languages: French,
Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish, while Latin itself faded away.
Fortunately, you don't have to travel to Latin America to use this
week's terms from Latin. They have been borrowed into English and are
now part of the language."
de novo (day NO-vo) adverb
Anew; from the beginning.
[From Latin de novo (from new).]
Today's word in Visual Thesaurus: http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=de+novo
-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
"Living things were not created de novo, but evolved."
David P. Barash; Does God Have Back Problems Too?;
Los Angeles Times; Jun 27, 2005.
Lots of times you have to pretend to join a parade in which you're not
really interested in order to get where you're going. -Christopher Morley,
writer (1890-1957)
Discuss this week's words on our bulletin board: http://wordsmith.org/board
Remove, change address, gift subs: http://wordsmith.org/awad/subscriber.html
8 comments:
Talk about taking Latin in school, my wife studied the language for six years in middle school and high school and another four years in college. She did end up teaching Latin in high school. But there weren't enough kids to justify her job, so she also taught English. There must be something in her genes, because our 11-year grandson is now taking Latin in the sixth grade--and enjoying it, he says.As for me, I avoided it like the plague. And maybe that's why I'm often forced to consult my wife on matters of proper grammar usage, even after working as a journalist for 40 years.
Chancy, I get Word.a.Day and as you have probably noticed, I get most of my quotes from there. It is a very good site!
When I was in highschool, I took Latin for six years. When my daughter started highschool, I sometimes helped her with her Latin and although I had not touched a Latin book for over fifty years, I ended up being much better than her and enjoying it. I was amazed that I remembered that much.
I didn't take Latin, but I love linguistics, and I've read a lot about how English evolved. I've understood that classical Latin was spoken by almost no one--that it was used exclusively as a literary and scholarly language. Is that true? I am going to check out Word a Day.
I never took a language in HS...just lots of business courses. I've always been sorry I didn't...though I must admit...I don't think I would have taken Latin...it always seemed one of the hardest languages to learn. I give kudos to anyone who took it for several years.
Chancy...I'm still laughing that all you can remember is "Popeye The Sailor Man." For some reason that just hit my giggle switch.
Joy
The fact that I remember "Popeye The Sailor Man" in Latin makes me smile also and it has entertained my 6 grandchildren over the years. :)
I too took Latin .. I think it was for one year .. in grade nine. Don't remember very much of it. :-)
sum lumen projectum nautae
sum lumen projectum nautae
I'm Popeye the sailor man.
Loved Latin in high school, we were fortunate in my small East Texas town to have a Latin scholar in our high school, Mrs. Eunice Hart.
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