Should italian be learnt by catholics?

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Cat said:
I could probably spend months trying to learn Italian, and I would be lucky if I remembered how to ask where the bathroom is.
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I spent 4 years in Spanish class and this is about all I can remember! 😃

Oh, and I can count to 10 and say Grandma, but I learned that from watching Sesame Street & Dora the Explorer! (over and over and over…) 😛
 
I think Latin is the way to go, since it is the official language of the Church. I absolutely love our new Holy Father, but was disappointed when he prayed in Italian on the balcony right after his election. I wanted to join in , in one voice, as I’m sure many others did from various countries around the globe. Latin would have done the trick, at least for those who are familiar with basic Latin prayers.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI asked us to learn a basic minimum of Latin. If we all did that, it would be a great sign of universality and brotherhood.

Just having a so-so Spanish and Latin background can help one to pick up on/understand a good bit of the Italian homilies.

I sympathize with Cat…would that there were more hours in the day. And too bad my generation got a bit shafted in the transmission of basic eccliastical Latin (among other things).

Maybe our parishes can offer basic ecclesiastical Latin courses, emphasizing Mass parts and basic prayers.
 
Something needs to be said in favor of German.

In the area where I live there are a significant number of Hispanics. They have a sometimes irritating habit of conversing with each other in Spanish during a conversation with English speakers. I don’t think they mean any harm by it, but it’s disconcerting, particularly in a business context.

I have told this before, but I’ll tell it again. One banker and I became sort of impatient with that happening at loan closings. I was aware that he is Lutheran LCMS and that they sing hymns in German at Christmas, he being a member of the choir.

So I suggested to him that if the Spanish started in the middle of a transaction, I would turn to him and say the only thing I know in German: “Frisch weht der wind der heimat zu, mein Irisch kind, wo weilest du”. It’s from Eliot’s “The Wasteland” and means “Fresh blows the wind from the homeland. My Irish child, where do you wander.” I remembered it because I used to say it to my daughter while she was off in college.

The banker, of course, knew some German hymns, and he was to respond by simply saying the words from one of them.

Now, the speakers of one Romance language can understand a lot of any other Romance language, but not German.

So, it happened. In the middle of a transaction, the Spanish started among Hispanics, all of whom could speak English. I then turned to the banker and said “Frisch weht der wind der heimat zu. Mein Irish kind wo weliest du.” He responded with something or other in German; probably from “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” or some German hymn.

The Spanish stopped immediately and did not restart. We finished the thing entirely in English.
 
Cat said:
I think that someone else should give me money so that I wouldn’t have to work and then I would have time to learn multiple languages.

Kidding.

Actually, although I appreciate the OP’s enthusiasm, I have to be a wet-blanket and inform him/her that many of us are just not very good at learning foreign languages. I could probably spend months trying to learn Italian, and I would be lucky if I remembered how to ask where the bathroom is.
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Not a kidding matter. As a 40-year polyglot and professional translator, I can testify that foreign language acquisition and maintenance is very time-intensive.
Ridgerunner said:
Something needs to be said in favor of German.

In the area where I live there are a significant number of Hispanics. They have a sometimes irritating habit of conversing with each other in Spanish during a conversation with English speakers. I don’t think they mean any harm by it, but it’s disconcerting, particularly in a business context.

I have told this before, but I’ll tell it again. One banker and I became sort of impatient with that happening at loan closings. I was aware that he is Lutheran LCMS and that they sing hymns in German at Christmas, he being a member of the choir.

So I suggested to him that if the Spanish started in the middle of a transaction, I would turn to him and say the only thing I know in German: “Frisch weht der wind der heimat zu, mein Irisch kind, wo weilest du”. It’s from Eliot’s “The Wasteland” and means “Fresh blows the wind from the homeland. My Irish child, where do you wander.” I remembered it because I used to say it to my daughter while she was off in college.

The banker, of course, knew some German hymns, and he was to respond by simply saying the words from one of them.

Now, the speakers of one Romance language can understand a lot of any other Romance language, but not German.

So, it happened. In the middle of a transaction, the Spanish started among Hispanics, all of whom could speak English. I then turned to the banker and said “Frisch weht der wind der heimat zu. Mein Irish kind wo weliest du.” He responded with something or other in German; probably from “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” or some German hymn.

The Spanish stopped immediately and did not restart. We finished the thing entirely in English.
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Okay, this is my third :rotfl: this evening.
 
Dakota_Roberts said:
Catalan and Occitan are also major Romance languages. The former being spoken by over 11 million people, the latter used to rather common in south France, but France waged war on it such are the tyrannies of democracy.
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I’m sure there are a lot of obscure languages, though I don’t guess Catalan is all that obscure. One of the most peculiar things I ran across language-wise was from a Swiss woman; a very good English-speaker. I naturally assumed her native language was French, German or Italian. But no, she said, her native language was “Romansch”, which wasn’t any of the other three.

I had never heard of it. She explained that it was older than any of the other three and was not spoken by many, but was a combination of some Celtic language, an old form of Latin and some admixture of Germanic words; some really ancient and some less so.

And how can we forget Provencal, the original language for the Christmas song “Pat-a-Pan”? When one of my daughters was little, she was so taken with the notion that she took it upon herself to learn it in Provencal. I guess Provencal might be considered a sub-dialect of Occitan, though.
 
opus101 said:
I think Latin is the way to go, since it is the official language of the Church. I absolutely love our new Holy Father, but was disappointed when he prayed in Italian on the balcony right after his election. I wanted to join in , in one voice, as I’m sure many others did from various countries around the globe. Latin would have done the trick, at least for those who are familiar with basic Latin prayers.
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My disappointment in retrospect was that John Paul II didn’t use more Polish.

But I agree with you and some other posters about the Latin.
 
Mary_Gail_36 said:
Actually Italian derives from Latin.

The romance languages derive from Latin.

Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese and Romanian are romance languages.
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Yes, I was aware of that, which was why I was surprised and interested when it was mentioned that it was also Greek derived. But now, I know that apparently is not the case. 🙂
 
I would say if Catholicism is universal, why should one need to learn Italian or any other language?

If language is so important, why not Aramaic or Greek?
 
Ridgerunner said:
Something needs to be said in favor of German.

In the area where I live there are a significant number of Hispanics. They have a sometimes irritating habit of conversing with each other in Spanish during a conversation with English speakers. I don’t think they mean any harm by it, but it’s disconcerting, particularly in a business context.

I have told this before, but I’ll tell it again. One banker and I became sort of impatient with that happening at loan closings. I was aware that he is Lutheran LCMS and that they sing hymns in German at Christmas, he being a member of the choir.

So I suggested to him that if the Spanish started in the middle of a transaction, I would turn to him and say the only thing I know in German: “Frisch weht der wind der heimat zu, mein Irisch kind, wo weilest du”. It’s from Eliot’s “The Wasteland” and means “Fresh blows the wind from the homeland. My Irish child, where do you wander.” I remembered it because I used to say it to my daughter while she was off in college.

The banker, of course, knew some German hymns, and he was to respond by simply saying the words from one of them.

Now, the speakers of one Romance language can understand a lot of any other Romance language, but not German.

So, it happened. In the middle of a transaction, the Spanish started among Hispanics, all of whom could speak English. I then turned to the banker and said “Frisch weht der wind der heimat zu. Mein Irish kind wo weliest du.” He responded with something or other in German; probably from “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” or some German hymn.

The Spanish stopped immediately and did not restart. We finished the thing entirely in English.
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hahaha! :rotfl:

My mother will actually not speak to other people who know her other languages when she is around English-speaking people. (Different when we’re at parties where most of the people speak the language.) As a kid and teenager I used to think she was being rude whenever she’d do that. They’d ask her questions in the other language and she’d answer and ask questions back in English in front of me. I finally asked her why she did that and she thought it was rude to speak in another language in front of people who didn’t understand it. She felt it would make people feel excluded.

I agree with others that learning languages can be very hard for many people, especially as you get older. When you are in the country, depending on where you are, you can pick up the native language fairly easily, although for some that’s even too difficult. But if you are not constantly using it in everyday speech, you forget. Every time I come back from a long period over in Europe, my language comprehension is pretty good, but within a month, I lose it, although I can understand it ok when reading. It’s something that needs to be practiced.

I do wish that schools went back to learning Latin, though. I believe it can be very helpful in understanding other languages.
 
It would be way cool if the shofar were incorporated into liturgy , actually…
 
Cat said:
I think that someone else should give me money so that I wouldn’t have to work and then I would have time to learn multiple languages.

Kidding.

Actually, although I appreciate the OP’s enthusiasm, I have to be a wet-blanket and inform him/her that many of us are just not very good at learning foreign languages. I could probably spend months trying to learn Italian, and I would be lucky if I remembered how to ask where the bathroom is.
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Fr. Ronald Knox mentions the surprise of a Protestant colleague had Oxford who told him that he “just assumed” that Catholics made their confessions in Latin! Knox could just picture the poor priest thumbing through his Latin grammar trying to figure out what the penitent was confessing. . . .
 
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