Latin revival: cathedral courses find new fans of 'dead language' St Albans among cathedrals offering increasingly popular Latin courses, with participants aged 12 to over 80 Harriet Sherwood | Religion correspondent @harrietsherwood Monday 4 July 2016 10.17 EDT | Last modified on Monday 4 July 2016 13.26 EDT The introduction of Latin classes in some of England’s finest cathedrals has tapped into an unexpected enthusiasm for resuscitating a subject that many have considered to be “dead as dead can be”. At least half a dozen cathedrals have run short courses in Latin this year, with participants aged 12 to over 80. St Albans Cathedral is gearing up for two-week long summer schools in Latin and New Testament Greek following the success of short courses and study days over the past couple of years. Gloucester Cathedral is planning several weekend courses in the coming months. Tutor George Sharpley has taught beginners’ classes in Latin at Lincoln, Southwark, Chichester, Exeter and Ely cathedrals, as well as Gloucester. Sharpley launched his Latin in the Cloisters series this year. “I’d been reading about Charlemagne and the Latin schools he started in cathedrals and monasteries 1,200 years ago. It seemed a good time to echo that,” he said. In the first four months of this year, he taught 11 day courses. “One was quiet, but at the rest we had to turn people away. It was a step into the unknown, but the response has been pretty good. I get very excited about Latin, so I’m not surprised others do too.” Participants have been mixed, said Sharpley. “There are retired people and young people. Some have never learned any Latin. Many are simply curious.” At St Albans, Clare Coombe, the cathedral’s adult learning officer and a classicist, has found a similar range of participants. A five-week course of evening classes that ended last week included a 12-year-old and several people who were not native English speakers. Click here for the rest of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...hedral-courses-find-new-fans-of-dead-language
It doesn't surprise me that in this tumultuous age people are looking backward to more simple uniformity
I love Latin! Ich liebe Latein! Linguam Latinam amo. And therefore I will create a poll now and hope that this is allowed. A poll - not an ordinary thread. A poll is something special!
I prefer to call Latin a classical language rather than a dead one. I think there is great importance in preserving this language. I find it rather foolish that people think it no longer irrelevant. At school I was rather jealous of a cousin who went to school in a neighbouring town and was taught Latin. I am learning Latin know and I would love it if my local cathedral offered a course in Latin. From what I have learnt so far I appreciate how much it would have helped when I learnt French.
Having been raised speaking French, and with some passing Spanish under my belt, learning Latin helped me tie a lot of concepts together for both languages, while highlighting aspects of each thread of development.
Ah vous habitez au Canada! I wish I had been raised bilingual but as my parents only spoke English no chance of that. When I went to secondary school and first saw my timetable and saw 'French' on it I was dreading those lessons. However, from the very first lesson I loved it. When I was 18 I was able to go and live in France for a year and that brought me to near native-level fluency. Now many decades have passed and I'm extremely rusty.
The adult learning bit at St Albans has always been brilliant, and I'm pleased to see possible courses in Latin, which is only 'dead' in strict linguistic terms (ie very few first language users). It has never really died, any more than Anglo Saxon did. It just evolved.
I do, but I actually lived as a child in France, Francophone Africa, and then Canada. Canada actually forced me to relearn French as I had to adapt to the local dialects/ fight for proper grammar with my (English) French high school teachers.
Maybe as different as the Swiss German differs from the Prussian German. Btw: I speak Alemannic German - just as the Swiss do.
I do not know. (I never learnt German at school and although self-studying it now I struggle with it.) I think the difference may be more so. For example, I have no problem with French in Belgium, Luxembourg or Switzerland. I can understand French from African countries. Canadian French I cannot understand. I think it a far greater difference than say the English in the UK and USA.
Well, you've got 'official' Quebec which descends from old French, you've got regional variance in that province, you have North Shore NB, "Shiac", Nova Scotian, small communities in ON and MB with all different accents and more variance.
I am aware of this as I'm currently reading a novel set in Montréal. The main character is a fluent French speaker but struggles with the French of some of her colleagues and others. She is American not Canadian. The Canadian French I have heard sounded quite strange to me and I simply couldn't follow it. My French has grown rusty over the years but I can sufficiently get the gist but when I heard Canadian French it may as well have been a language I don't know.
I still get confused. Now the area I live in has a high population that speaks mixtures of Low German and Russian.
Where I live I think Asian languages are now in the majority. A universal language would be good. I'll not suggest Esperanto. They claim it's easy for everyone to learn. I doubt that very much because it's very Eurocentric. I think it would be difficult for a native Mandarin speaker to learn because the two are just so different.
I mean, we all know how that construction project turned out... Thank God for the Gospel and the Holy Spirit enabling understanding thereof across tongues.