Latin as the Language of the People: part II

[Claudius]

I know I put this up before but seeing as how almost no one is willing to move to one of the unihabited islands around Kyushu with me so that we can all speak Latin together I have a new idea and the more I think of it, the more I think that it would work.

If you want Latin to come back into use, like really come back visibly strong as I hope for we could do the following.

Step one (though maybe not first): Learn Latin. It actually is not a hard language, even an idiot like me can learn to be fluent.

Step two: move to within walking distance of a Church.
Even if the Mass is not in Latin there, just do it.

Step three: addopt some sort of identifying mark, like a lapel pin that is in the shape of the letter L for Latin.

Step four: Identify the other people who have moved close to the Church and who wear the L shaped pin. Greet them and converse with them in Latin.

Step Five (only for when your Latin is high enough) : dedicate yourself to conducting all your private and personal matters in Latin to the best of your ability. No slacking.

Step Six: Gather together at the Church every evening to say vespers together. Even if the doors are locked by this time, you can say vespers outside or in a cemetary if one is attatched to the Church.

Step seven (for when the group of Latin speakers I big enough) : ask the local priest to start offering at least on Mass a week in Latin and show him that there is in fact a very stable group of believers who are willing to support the Church and who live near the Church and go to the Church every day. They all know Latin to some degree and so if the Priest needs help learning Latin, the faithful would be happy to instruct him.

Please tell me what you think and give me feedback (the constructive kind of course.)

 

[Joannm]

I know I put this up before but seeing as how almost no one is willing to move to one of the unihabited islands around Kyushu with me so that we can all speak Latin together I have a new idea and the more I think of it, the more I think that it would work.

If you want Latin to come back into use, like really come back visibly strong as I hope for we could do the following.

Step one (though maybe not first): Learn Latin. It actually is not a hard language, even an idiot like me can learn to be fluent.

Step two: move to within walking distance of a Church.
Even if the Mass is not in Latin there, just do it.

Step three: addopt some sort of identifying mark, like a lapel pin that is in the shape of the letter L for Latin.

Step four: Identify the other people who have moved close to the Church and who wear the L shaped pin. Greet them and converse with them in Latin.

Step Five (only for when your Latin is high enough) : dedicate yourself to conducting all your private and personal matters in Latin to the best of your ability. No slacking.

Step Six: Gather together at the Church every evening to say vespers together. Even if the doors are locked by this time, you can say vespers outside or in a cemetary if one is attatched to the Church.

Step seven (for when the group of Latin speakers I big enough) : ask the local priest to start offering at least on Mass a week in Latin and show him that there is in fact a very stable group of believers who are willing to support the Church and who live near the Church and go to the Church every day. They all know Latin to some degree and so if the Priest needs help learning Latin, the faithful would be happy to instruct him.

Please tell me what you think and give me feedback (the constructive kind of course.)

Learning Latin may be easy if you have an ear and a flair for languages. I don’t. I have tried during several times in my life to learn Italian and even though my grandparents spoke it, I still could not get it. I passed French in HS by the skin of my teeth and now all I can say is Parlez vous Francais? I try to pick up Spanish but no luck. I can sing in Latin in the choir but even after so many years I cannot sing the words without the words before me. I am envious of those for whom learning another language comes easy. My friend picks up languages in a heartbeat and can speak at least 8.

I grew up with the Latin mass and never picked up the Latin.

 

[Ite_ad_Ioseph]

I just got the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Latin, third edition. Sections on nouns are great; verb sections, not so great. I just have to remind myself to pronounce it like Italian. So I’m trying.

Your profile says you know linguistics. Do you have a degree? I want to do something in college with linguistics, maybe a minor.
Pax

 

[Timothysis]

You should have a Step 8:

Look for the 1 out of 200 people who want to learn latin, pray in latin, and attend a mass said in latin.

Really, I don’t understand this fanaticism with the latin language.

 

[Claudius]

Learning Latin may be easy if you have an ear and a flair for languages. I don’t. I have tried during several times in my life to learn Italian and even though my grandparents spoke it, I still could not get it. I passed French in HS by the skin of my teeth and now all I can say is Parlez vous Francais? I try to pick up Spanish but no luck. I can sing in Latin in the choir but even after so many years I cannot sing the words without the words before me. I am envious of those for whom learning another language comes easy. My friend picks up languages in a heartbeat and can speak at least 8.

I grew up with the Latin mass and never picked up the Latin.

I understand your frustration. I have been learning and speaking Latin now for more then 10 years. It was not easy at first. And besides my own limited ability, the only Latin offered at my high school was to read Cicero. I did not like Cicero at all, not because his Latin was bad but because I just could not keep myself from imposing my modern day idea of ethics and morals onto his actions and judging him to be a very bad man indeed. I was largely alone in my opinion and in my understanding of Latin in High School and college. I had to sustain my own study with no one to speak with and language is for communication.

The biggest thing with learning Latin was to learn to turn English OFF. I had to stop allowing myself to translate, not on the page, not with my mouth, not in my head. I decided that I would understand in Latin or not at all. I also started to read Latin out loud. Do not read silently. I learned some of the psalms in Latin and started an Ad Hoc Litrugy of the Hours and eventually built it up to the full Liturgy of the Hours in Latin which I pray now.

The problem with moving from English to say, a Romance Langauge is mostly to do with pronunciation and vocabulary.

Not so with Latin. Moving from English to Latin is about the same problem involved with moving from English to Japanese. Grammar is of a different kind. Word order doesn’t mean anything. That is not to say that a sentence doesn’t have a natural word order but unlike English, it just isn’t linked to the meaning of a word. The normal word order in Latin is Subject (though it is usually dropped) Object and last the verb. The verb acts as a spoken period and lets people know that the sentence is over.

A Latin word is built on sounds (of course right) but the sounds that make up the word change in order to tell us if the word is a subject or an object or something else in the sentence. The way to learn Latin is to practice saying the different ways that the word can be built and then practice putting them into a sentence.

Then you start learning sentence patterns that you can instantly call to mind and plug any word you want into it.

If you are interested in learning Latin I can send you a ton of materials as well as stuff I have put together myself. I currently teach Latin at my Church.

 

[Claudius]

I just got the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Latin, third edition. Sections on nouns are great; verb sections, not so great. I just have to remind myself to pronounce it like Italian. So I’m trying.

Your profile says you know linguistics. Do you have a degree? I want to do something in college with linguistics, maybe a minor.
Pax

I am currently working on my master’s degree in linguistics. I teach English and Latin in Japan. I currently can speak to one degree of conversation or another Five langauges. I am litterate in several more languages, notably the Biblical ones of Greek and Syriac. I am working on others as well that include Hebrew and Coptic. Slavonic, Armenian and Ge’ez are on the list to get done but I can only do so much at one time. I will say this, Coptic Grammar is of a kind that is so easy to learn that if vocabulary were not an issue, it could easily mistaken for one of these planes languages that are supposed to be manufactured to be easy to learn.

The first thing I do with students when we start learning Latin is the alphabet. In America even I did this since Latin Letters look identical to English letters but the sound is often different. So we start from scratch.

I would suggest you take some English and re-write it as if it were written by a Catholic Latin speaker. “I am here” will change to “Ai am hir.” This helps to get the hang of pronunciation as well as breaks you of wanting to pronounce Latin words that have been borrowed into English in the English way. I would also suggest you get a book that does not use macrons but does have accent marks. The reason is that macrons do not always show the correct accent as they are only ment to show vowel length. Accent marks are the best tool besides memorization to knowing the difference between 3rd conjucation verbs (the majortity) and 2nd conjugation verbs. With 3rd conjucation verbs, I suggest learning the perfect almost as a separate verb from the present. After a long time your brain just begins to figure out how to link them and how to form new ones in the same manner but I have yet to say anyone explain the exact way to do this artiicially yet. I certainly can do it but I could not explain it for the life of me.

If you are going to get a degree in linguistics you might be interested to know that speaking a second langauge that you are not fluent in yet makes you body physically tired. Doctors know the reason for this but again, I could not explain it properly. A lot of learning Latin, or any second language, is building up an endurance for that language.

 

[Claudius]

You should have a Step 8:

Look for the 1 out of 200 people who want to learn latin, pray in latin, and attend a mass said in latin.

Really, I don’t understand this fanaticism with the latin language.

Honestly, I don’t understand the hatred of Latin. Why can’t poeple adopt it as their language for personal matters? I speak Latin at home with my wife, largely because she can not speak English.

You could have attacked any other part of the plan, such as moving within walking distance of a Church (like orthodox Jews) or going to Church everyday to say Vespers (in Latin to build knowledge of the language and also community among speakers) or any other part but you specifically went after the Latin. Now Latin seems a prime point in all of this but the ultimate goal is to increas holiness in the community, among individuals and in the Church at large.

You would not go to a Coptic village and tell them “Gee guys, I just don’t understand the obsession with Coptic, why don’t you all just learn Arabic and get on with it already?”

You would not go to north Lebanon and tell them that they have to change from Syriac to Arabic.

You would not go to Israel and tell them to adopt Arabic, nor to Ethiopia nor to Armenia.

Some have called for the Church of Greece to adopt modern Greek yet you would not go to Mount Athos and tell them to abandon koine Greek.

Even if it seems reasonable to go to Russia and tell them that liturgy in modern Russian should be allowed (and it should) that does not mean that they should ABANDON the Slavonic language which they use.

There is a big difference between allowing a vernacular (as the Church should) and abandoning our linguistic hearatiage. The Second Vatican Council did not mandate the abandoment of Latin. Latin should have pride of place. The Popes did not mandate the abandonment of Latin, and indeed even the current Ordinary Form of the Mass can be said in Latin without any permission from anyone. All that is needed is a priest who knows how to do it.

 

[Claudius]

On a side note, a very clever person could make a lot of money from this.

Latin learning materials to sell. L shaped lapel pins, Liturgical books in Latin. I could probably sit here and think up one hundred products that could be geared to just this nitch in the market should it form.

If they do move to within walking distance of a Church and do not want to let go of the land easily, it could drive up real estate values in the area and these homes then could become good investments. Also, it would create a Catholic, specifically a Latin Catholic, high density neighborhood around the Church. The unifier would not be race, or ethnicity or social standing or wealth, but religion and language.

Besides, even if someone is the only person to do this in their city, it still helps them to increase in holiness, which is always good even if done alone. It isn’t the only way to increase in holiness but certainly is a way and a good way in my opinion.

If someone is not the only, but say many people take this route, then we will see a neighborhood form that could change the face of a city and the Church. Other people who go to that Church, though they should not be pressured, just might want to join into the group. Will there be party crashers, sure, but at the end of the day, no one can tell you that you can speak and pray in Latin in the privacy of your own home, group of friends or neighborhood.

I often do not understand the thinking of some traditionalist Catholics who seek the isolation route. They move to the country side and attend small churches to make sure that they can have the Mass in the Extra Ordinary Form. This is good and all but I think it give Latin a more appropiate place to move close to the Church and show that Latin isn’t cultish or scary. It is a language like any other language except that it has recorded in itself the great works of the Church.

Just reading the Benedictus Dominus in English then changing to the Latin convinced me that Latin expressed the beauty of this cantacle more fully. Not that English is bad or that the Church should abandon English, I just don’t want English Mass forced on me. I would prefer to go to Spanish Mass, or as I do in Japan, go to Japanese Mass. Many Japanese would not want Latin Forced onto them and the point of this is not to force anything onto anyone, but to allow what is allowed. I am still Catholic and any English speaking Catholic is still Catholic at the end of the day and we recieve the same Lord Jesus at the same Mass and so we are all ONE body regardless of langauge. At the same time, I just don’t see the reason to ABANDON Latin all together. Even if I am a very small minority, I still want Latin. It is my language. It would be a hard sell to say that Mass should be in Klingon but not so hard at all to call for Latin. Latin is part of the Catholic Culture.

Just imagine though, two families, three, five, ten, walking to Mass on Sunday morning. They greet each other in Latin and speak in Latin outside the Church before going in, even to recieve the sacraments in English, but still the showing is there. Other people get interested.

If a Boy who is a Latin Catholic wants to marry a Girl who is an English speaking Catholic, well probably the priest would want to the marriage in English for the benifit of all. If however, a Boy who is a Latin Catholic and a Girl who is a Latin Catholic meet (because they live within walking distance to each others homes and go to the same Church within walking distance to both) and then later they want to get married, I don’t think the priest is going to say the they have to use English. That creates a perfect reason to have a Latin Mass right there.

Give a community like this a few generations and we would see the cemetary begin to show their family names. They would become linked to the area. Perhaps one of these would become famous and people would come from all over the country, indeed the world to take part.

The basic thinking of such a community would be very Catholic. They would not need a translation of Humanae Vitae, but could read it directly. They would eventually just expect that Mass should be in Latin. It would become just part of the expected way of thinking. My own opinion is that every Catholic should be bilingual at least and this would certainly set that up to happen with ease.

Imagine a protestant moving into the neighborhood. He goes into a convienence store and the clerk greets him in Latin. He responds that he can only speak English so the clerk greets him in English. The protestant then notices that all the packages have Latin labels. He wouldn’t understand the reason for it. Imaginve further that he is the kind of protestant to stand in front of a Catholic Church to preach. The Catholics walking to Mass would hear him and comment about him in Latin. The protestant would look like a fool. Eventually, the protestant will have to learn Latin but then all his protestant theology goes out the window and he has to become a Catholic. It is hard to force protestantism onto someone who understands (correctly) that the Catholic Church is automatically right because the Church is the Pillar and Foundation of the Truth.

“So, will you go to Mass with us?”

“I’m not a Catholic.”

“Oh, really, why not? I can’t imagine that someone actually isn’t Catholic. That just doesn’t make any sense. Are you here to try to take our faith away from us? Oh dear, I wonder what my father would think if he saw me talking to you.”

A protestant proof neighborhood that was safe to raise your kids as good Catholics in.

Also, if this kind of think can work for Latin Catholics, as it is already working for Orthodox Jews, it could also be a plan to build up Eastern Catholics in America and we may eventually see Catholicism as the main religion in the United States the way we recently overtook Anglicanism in English. God willing, may it come to pass.

 

[aninquiringmind]

Claudius,

Wow! You’ve really put alot of thought into this! …Mindblowing!

I think that you might be able to help me with a related topic. I work in factory where I am, unfortunately, constantly in close contact with several people who are quite vulgar and anti-religious. I sing to myself in order to drown them out! I sing “Ave Maria” alot; it’s one of my favorites and none of them know what it means!!

I’ve always been attracted to Latin. There is something special about it to me. I want to learn some common prayers in Latin. I would love to be able to pray the rosary entirely in Latin! Additionally, in my work environment, it would be my own private language with God!! I could pray verbally all day long, and my co-workers would have no clue!!!

Would you please help me with this goal? I don’t have any money that I can spend on learning materials and would love to get a little free instrution on-line!!

Thanks,
Laura

 

[consumedconvert]

I, for one, prefer Esperanto, but I can’t find a Priest who can say the OF in Esperanto. Even though Vatican Radio actually broadcasts in Esperanto!!



Okay, so I don’t speak a word of Esperanto…

 

[John_Higgins]

Let’s see, why not do the Mass in Klingon? There are a number of books of the bible in Klingon.

Here’s John 3:16:

3:16 vaD joH’a’ vaj loved the qo’,
vetlh ghaH nobta’ Daj wa’ je
neH puqloD, vetlh ‘Iv HartaH Daq
ghaH should ghobe’ chIlqu’, 'ach
ghaj eternal yIn.

I guess there’s no word for eternal, so the translator does what Babelfish does when it encounters an unknown word.

Anyway, the point is, there is more interest and more speakers of Klingon than Latin.

John

 

[Timothysis]

Honestly, I don’t understand the hatred of Latin. Why can’t poeple adopt it as their language for personal matters? I speak Latin at home with my wife, largely because she can not speak English.

I never said I had a “hatred” of latin. I said I don’t understand the fanatacism that people have with latin.

I have seen some here say that latin is a “sacred” language. Am I to understand that the language of Nero, Caligula and the entire population of a barbarian civilization is “sacred?”

The intensity of your reply is yet another example of the fanatical approach that some have about certain topics. I used to attend a music discussion page where the Beatles were heralded as the greatest musicians the world ever knew. If anyone suggested otherwise, they got the same fanatical, emotional response that you gave in defense of latin. Excuse me, but I just don’t get it.

Personally, I would love to be able to comprehend latin, and also greek, french and maybe one or two others, but I was raised with english. Every Sunday morning at Mass we pray the Agnes Dei. I know the words and I know what they mean, but somehow it just doesn’t “reach” me, for lack of a better word. When I go to confession, I would much prefer to hear the priest pronounce absolution so that I actually know what he’s saying and can reflect on it.

But if latin is what you want then, by all means, go for it.

 

[consumedconvert]

Claudius,

Wow! You’ve really put alot of thought into this! …Mindblowing!

I think that you might be able to help me with a related topic. I work in factory where I am, unfortunately, constantly in close contact with several people who are quite vulgar and anti-religious. I sing to myself in order to drown them out! I sing “Ave Maria” alot; it’s one of my favorites and none of them know what it means!!

I’ve always been attracted to Latin. There is something special about it to me. I want to learn some common prayers in Latin. I would love to be able to pray the rosary entirely in Latin! Additionally, in my work environment, it would be my own private language with God!! I could pray verbally all day long, and my co-workers would have no clue!!!

Would you please help me with this goal? I don’t have any money that I can spend on learning materials and would love to get a little free instrution on-line!!

Thanks,
Laura

If you would like to learn the Rosary in Latin, there is an easy solution! The recently published Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, promulgated by Pope Benedict, isa tremendous, and tremendously underrated, learning tool. It is the first universal Latin-Rite catechism meant specifically for laymen. As His Holiness mentions in the introduction, the CCC was meant primarily as a tool for the Bishops. The Compendium is much smaller, has full color Christian art and discussions of that art, and in the back has diverse prayers, including the Rosary–both in Engish and in Latin! Also included are some very beautiful Eastern Catholic prayers. When will the rest of the Catholic world become aware of this skinny but essential resource?

 

[consumedconvert]

Claudius mia amico, vi havi a nobla scholars spirito!

That phrase is in Esperanto, a kind of pigion language invented by a rather interesting fellow who intended it to be the international language (you know what happened next). It means, “My friend, you have a noble scholar’s spirit.” Indeed, you dream for the betterment of mankind and attempt to single-handedly pave the roads to get us to a better society. I admire the scholar’s heart.

But I’m afraid your suggestion that Latin become a second language–in the sense that Japanese or Spanish is a seond language for some–is, in a word, (name removed by moderator)racticable. If you can get the average laymen, who puts in a forty or fifty hour week, to study a foreign language for an hour, half-hour, or even fifteen minutes a night after he gets home from work, eats dinner, and puts the kids to bed, well, you are a better motivater than most.

Although I hate to say it–I loathe to say it! But I find it true, so I truly must say it. It has been said often enough before. Latin is a dead language.

Don’t get me wrong. It is a relatively widely used and known dead language; and, a very very useful dead language, particularly (if not now almost exclusively) in matters of religion. But then to some, so is Ancient Sanskrit, and no one I know of is arguing that Anient Sanskrit lives.

Latin is dead, so it is static (except, of course, for the smattering of words that the Vatican’s official lexicographer scribbles down in his dictionary every year, to be peered over and used–or ignored–for use in future Church documents–but that’s neither here nor there). Static languages are useful. If I call something a “pretty little thing” you will have little idea what I’m talking about. Is it beautiful? Is it trite? Is it small? Is it annoying? But if I say “pulchellus parum res” (someone decline that for me please), then I suppose you will know exactly what I am talking about. Modern Latin has little slang; and everything has been defined, and definitions refined, by generations of scholars/. But then, I am no Latinist.

Suffice it to say that Latin was not taken from the American Catholic because in a very real since it was never his to begin with. Yes, some knew the Mass, perhaps even the entirety of the mass, in Latin; some laymen, I suppose, could recite it. But that doesn’t make one a Latin speaker any more than my being able to make heads or tails out the movie Cyrano de Bergerac with the subtitles turned off makes me a Francophone. I am not nor likely will I ever be a Francophone, even if I memorize the entire film.

In short, your idea is extremely beautiful and useful in theory. But then, so was Esperanto.

 

[Claudius]

Claudius,

Wow! You’ve really put alot of thought into this! …Mindblowing!

I think that you might be able to help me with a related topic. I work in factory where I am, unfortunately, constantly in close contact with several people who are quite vulgar and anti-religious. I sing to myself in order to drown them out! I sing “Ave Maria” alot; it’s one of my favorites and none of them know what it means!!

I’ve always been attracted to Latin. There is something special about it to me. I want to learn some common prayers in Latin. I would love to be able to pray the rosary entirely in Latin! Additionally, in my work environment, it would be my own private language with God!! I could pray verbally all day long, and my co-workers would have no clue!!!

Would you please help me with this goal? I don’t have any money that I can spend on learning materials and would love to get a little free instrution on-line!!

Thanks,
Laura

I have tons of stuff that I can send you and I am always happy to teach myself. I once taught a Russian girl who knew English how to read Latin entirely over MSN Messenger.

There is a pretty good book for just what you are looking for called Let’s Read Latin that also comes with an audio cassette. However, if you don’t have any Latin instruction prior to getting this book, it will take you a long time to even penetrate the book a little bit.

For your situation, I would say that you should memorize the Ave Maria, (which sounds like you have already) and then work of the Pater Noster and the Credo. I would suggest the Aposle’s Creed before the longer Niciene Creed. Once you have all three prayers down you are ready to start praying the Rosary in Latin. You can even use the Rosary to help you learn the Prayers. Say Fifty Pater Nosters by reading the prayer off of a page and you will remember it for the rest of your life. For the Creed what you do is write it down on paper and say the prayer a few times lingering on each set of words and thinking about the meaning, not the English meaning but just the basic meaning. Then say the prayer outloud a few time. Then erase the first line. Say the first line (even though it is now erased) and then continue with the rest of the prayer. Then erase the second line and repeat until you can say the whole prayer without looking at anything.

I personally pray the Rosary in Latin when I am walking to the train station to go to work.

My personal belief is that anyone who wants to learn Latin can learn to pray and dare I say communicate in Latin in Three Months. That isn’t saying they will have great skill with the communicating part but the most basic forms and prayer can be easily learned by the end of a week and the rest of the three months is learning to recongize why the prayers mean exactly what they mean and why we say certain things in Latin one way but not another way.

Also you can go to this web site (even though it teaches Classical Latin you can learn your noun and verb forms here. Just remember not to use the pronunciation listed there but the Catholic Pronunciation)

utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/latol-0-X.html

 

[Claudius]

I, for one, prefer Esperanto, but I can’t find a Priest who can say the OF in Esperanto. Even though Vatican Radio actually broadcasts in Esperanto!!



Okay, so I don’t speak a word of Esperanto…

I have heard of some priest who have said that perhaps the Church should Change to using Esperanto. Others have said the using Esperanto would be the same as using Klingon, since it is a man made language with no natural base or native population it is not sutible for Mass. I don’t really have an opinion on that myself. I am very happy with Latin.

 

[Claudius]

Let’s see, why not do the Mass in Klingon? There are a number of books of the bible in Klingon.

Here’s John 3:16:

3:16 vaD joH’a’ vaj loved the qo’,
vetlh ghaH nobta’ Daj wa’ je
neH puqloD, vetlh ‘Iv HartaH Daq
ghaH should ghobe’ chIlqu’, 'ach
ghaj eternal yIn.

I guess there’s no word for eternal, so the translator does what Babelfish does when it encounters an unknown word.

Anyway, the point is, there is more interest and more speakers of Klingon than Latin.

John

I disagree. The interest in Klingon is very small in fact and gets smaller every year. The interest in Latin has always out paced Klingon even in the hight of people’s Star Trek fandom. This is one of those myths that gets thrown around from time to time. I have even heard it said that more poeple can speak Klingon then Navajo but it just isn’t true. There are far more Coptic speakers then there will ever be Klingon speakers and Latin has five times as many speakers as Coptic worldwide. Latin is currently on its way up and Klingon is now showing its age and unsuitablity as a tool for communication and at least in my part of the world is a novelty to know about but not to know at all.

 

[Claudius]

I never said I had a “hatred” of latin. I said I don’t understand the fanatacism that people have with latin.

I have seen some here say that latin is a “sacred” language. Am I to understand that the language of Nero, Caligula and the entire population of a barbarian civilization is “sacred?”

The intensity of your reply is yet another example of the fanatical approach that some have about certain topics. I used to attend a music discussion page where the Beatles were heralded as the greatest musicians the world ever knew. If anyone suggested otherwise, they got the same fanatical, emotional response that you gave in defense of latin. Excuse me, but I just don’t get it.

Personally, I would love to be able to comprehend latin, and also greek, french and maybe one or two others, but I was raised with english. Every Sunday morning at Mass we pray the Agnes Dei. I know the words and I know what they mean, but somehow it just doesn’t “reach” me, for lack of a better word. When I go to confession, I would much prefer to hear the priest pronounce absolution so that I actually know what he’s saying and can reflect on it.

But if latin is what you want then, by all means, go for it.

Let us understand each other. You want to recieve the sacrements in English. I would not dare stop you. I would raise an eyebrow to Klingon, but English is ok if that is what you want. It isn’t what I want.

I was raised in South Louisiana in a French speaking family. We are from a tribe of American Indians who became French speakers. One of the things that was always taught to me was how the White People tried to force English onto them. I myself was even paddled in school for the crime of speaking in French. English was “THEIR” langauge, not “OUR” langauge. Everyone knew this and understood it. The Indians said so and the White people said so. It was just understood that we were different. If I came home from school and spoke to my father in English he would accuse me of turning White on him, then would go on and on about how I must feel that I am too good to speak in French and how I must now be expecting everyone else in the family to become my servants. This was hard kind of double discrimination for a kid to live with. Now I am a Catholic and I have put behind me all of the “craziness” that was my childhood. I speak English and teach English. But at the same time, I prefer Latin. It is my langauge. It is my mark of giving up the things of racism and social injustice that I grew up with and taking on the responsibility to be a Catholic and live according to a higher standard.

Even as an adult I have never really been accepted as a true “American”. I have a college education and I can speak English rather well so I don’t get this too often but my two brothers are constantly asked from which country they came from. It would appear that if your skin color is not either white or black enough and you don’t speak the English well enough and your religion (in my case but not my brother’s) is not protestant enough, then you just aren’t American enough to be counted. Speaking Latin is a rejection of this kind of thinking and is a sign from me to others that I consider it more important to be Catholic then to be American or any race.

 

[Claudius]

Suffice it to say that Latin was not taken from the American Catholic because in a very real since it was never his to begin with. Yes, some knew the Mass, perhaps even the entirety of the mass, in Latin; some laymen, I suppose, could recite it. But that doesn’t make one a Latin speaker any more than my being able to make heads or tails out the movie Cyrano de Bergerac with the subtitles turned off makes me a Francophone. I am not nor likely will I ever be a Francophone, even if I memorize the entire film.

I know what you mean. I also know that what I am talking about is not for everone.

English Grammar and Latin Grammar are in theory directly opposed to one another. This makes Latin very hard for English speakers who can not think outside of word order to comprehend. However, almost because of this, if an English speaker can get the hang of Latin, it opens the doors to so many language possiblities. I very quickly began to see that It would be far easier for me to translate to and from Latin then English any day. Coptic to Latin, no problem. Coptic to English, well, I can make something but is it correct so that most English Speakes will understand what I am trying to say, maybe not.

Besides, for me the Latin is the great important issue but other good fruits could come about from this. Even the Catholics who decide to move next door to a Church can’t speak Latin, think about what they have done. They have made a big dicision. It isn’t the average Catholic who is going to follow this plan. Even if they just can’t get the langauge to do (but I believe Latin to be a very easy language to learn) at least they are taking huge possitive steps to increase in holiness. Imagine a neighbor hood of Catholics who are at least “trying” to learn Latin, who all live near the Church.

Again, we have seen this kind of thing work over and over again for Jews and now we even see in Israel the first stages of a final sucess in bringing Hebrew completely back to life.

Maybe there really just isn’t anyone else out there who loves the Latin as much as me but I sure wish there were and I will continue to try to get as many people (especially Catholics) to learn the langauge that I can.

We do need to christionize the English language properly. A lot of words and idioms in the English language are set up to discourage people from accepting the One True Faith that is only found in the Catholic Church. I keep a list with me to show students English words that mean almost the exact opposite of what the Latin word they come from means. English has been “tinkered” with to assist the Anglicans pull poeple away from the Church. Protestants are not making up every manner of new phrase or idiom to dazzle people. At the same time, the Catholic Church when doing Mass in English sometimes doesn’t put enough thought into how they arraing the words.

Have you ever been in Mass and just had to cringe when you heard some of the ways the the words are put together. You understand what they are trying to say but you know full well that a lot of people are going to take it the wrong way on purpose. I once was attacked as a Christ hater becaue in the Catholic Church the Mystery of Faith was sung to sound like “Aleluja Jesus is dead.” These protestants don’t miss any opportunity to insult and reprimand us.

We do need to re-Christianize the English language if we are to have any hope of teaching correct Christianity to most Americans, but at the same time, at least for me, knowing my faith in Latin is a huge help and encouragement.

I began my life as a Christians largely as an English speaker and I was instructed in English and I attended Mass in English and I learned the Liturgy of the Hours in English. However, almost from my first day as a Catholic, I started to study Latin. It is the language in my home among my family, the language I pray the Liturgia Horarum in and the Langauge I hope to see used again as the Mass in at least one Church in my new city.

My proposal is mostly with American Catholics in mind but even here in Japan where I live now this could be done. The Japanese collective mentality would even purpetuate it. There use to be several islands west of Nagasaki where Latin was spoken by Catholics who hid there. It took the second Vatican council and the Mass changing to Japanese for them to think that it was ok to send their kids to public school and learn Japanese as a first langauge. Most Japanese Catholics today would not want to go back to Latin, but some miss it and some want it.

I do not seek to replace Japanese as the language of the Mass in Japan. But all of us as Catholics should hold on to the good and useful heretage that has been left to us. It is our language now.

 

[Timothysis]

Let us understand each other. You want to recieve the sacrements in English. I would not dare stop you. I would raise an eyebrow to Klingon, but English is ok if that is what you want. It isn’t what I want.

I was raised in South Louisiana in a French speaking family. We are from a tribe of American Indians who became French speakers. One of the things that was always taught to me was how the White People tried to force English onto them. I myself was even paddled in school for the crime of speaking in French. English was “THEIR” langauge, not “OUR” langauge. Everyone knew this and understood it. The Indians said so and the White people said so. It was just understood that we were different. If I came home from school and spoke to my father in English he would accuse me of turning White on him, then would go on and on about how I must feel that I am too good to speak in French and how I must now be expecting everyone else in the family to become my servants. This was hard kind of double discrimination for a kid to live with. Now I am a Catholic and I have put behind me all of the “craziness” that was my childhood. I speak English and teach English. But at the same time, I prefer Latin. It is my langauge. It is my mark of giving up the things of racism and social injustice that I grew up with and taking on the responsibility to be a Catholic and live according to a higher standard.

Even as an adult I have never really been accepted as a true “American”. I have a college education and I can speak English rather well so I don’t get this too often but my two brothers are constantly asked from which country they came from. It would appear that if your skin color is not either white or black enough and you don’t speak the English well enough and your religion (in my case but not my brother’s) is not protestant enough, then you just aren’t American enough to be counted. Speaking Latin is a rejection of this kind of thinking and is a sign from me to others that I consider it more important to be Catholic then to be American or any race.

I’m from South Louisiana, too, and am, in fact, still here. Mom and dad are from Avoyelles parish, so I know all about the french vs. english conflicts. Our last name is Ducote (there’s some french for ya!). Yet, I can’t speak a lick of it.

The question here concerns latin. First off, I admire your ability to speak it. I wish I could, but I don’t desire to spend the time to learn. Frankly, I’m more about learning jazz guitar. I’m perplexed at the reason for the latin.

Just a little while ago at Mass we prayed the Agnes Dei. I know the words, know how to say them, but it just doesn’t mean much to me because I don’t know what the individual words mean or their conjugations. I’m not advocating removal of the latin Agnes Dei by any means. In fact, it is just about the right amount of latin that I like in the Mass. You’ve given us your reasons why you prefer latin but they aren’t apparently shared by too many others, and that’s fine. The conflict arises (to me, anyway) when people come across with a “latin is better” type attitude.