The latin mass and similar languages

[Hokomai]

I speak English and my only other reasonably fluent language is unrelated to English. when I hear Latin I pick up the odd word because of my knowledge of its English cognate. Do speakers of Spanish or Italian pick up more meaning from Latin? How much more? Can they generally get an idea of what someone is talking about?

 

[Peggy_in_Burien]

I speak English and my only other reasonably fluent language is unrelated to English. when I hear Latin I pick up the odd word because of my knowledge of its English cognate. Do speakers of Spanish or Italian pick up more meaning from Latin? How much more? Can they generally get an idea of what someone is talking about?

I speak Spanish (Castilian, to be correct). I attend a Latin Mass. I can see some words in Latin that are somewhat similar in Spanish, but that might be that I have learned more Latin over my years of word study. I can’t hear very well, so this is in written Spanish/Latin that I can see the similarities.

When I was learning Gregorian chant, however, I needed to learn the proper way of pronouncing the Latin. I was, of course, using the Spanish pronunciation of vowels and consenants, which turned out is different from Latin. Plus, my spoken Latin, from pre-Vatican II days, was taught to me by Irish sisters, and it was waaaay out of whack!

 

[CB_Catholic]

I took Latin first, then Spanish in school. I remember that learning Spanish vocabulary was a little easier because of learning Latin, because of the Latin root words.

 

[Elisabeth51]

I speak English and my only other reasonably fluent language is unrelated to English. when I hear Latin I pick up the odd word because of my knowledge of its English cognate. Do speakers of Spanish or Italian pick up more meaning from Latin? How much more? Can they generally get an idea of what someone is talking about?

Interesting. I actually find my Latin helps me understand Spanish, so I would think it would work the other way, and I’ve been able to get the point of readings in Italian because of Latin.

 

[mfrances]

I speak English, Spanish and French, and I am fairly new to the Latin Mass.
English helps me the most with the meanings of words. If it doesn’t relate to the word in English then it usually relates to the word in Spanish (and often the French word will be really similar also).
French helps most with pronounciations. I have found a lot of similarities there.

 

[ProVobis]

I speak English and my only other reasonably fluent language is unrelated to English. when I hear Latin I pick up the odd word because of my knowledge of its English cognate. Do speakers of Spanish or Italian pick up more meaning from Latin? How much more? Can they generally get an idea of what someone is talking about?

I attended a Spanish Mass Saturday night and I found I could more easily follow in the Missal because of my knowledge of Latin and the Mass. I did not understand a word of the sermon, though.

I wish they had all missals in both Latin and the vernacular.

 

[OraLabora]

My mother tongue is French and that helps me understand the general meaning of the Latin. I do the Divine Office daily and I alternate Lauds and Vespers between Latin in French, one week in Latin and the next in French, which helps.

 

[Cristiano]

I speak English and my only other reasonably fluent language is unrelated to English. when I hear Latin I pick up the odd word because of my knowledge of its English cognate. Do speakers of Spanish or Italian pick up more meaning from Latin? How much more? Can they generally get an idea of what someone is talking about?

I grew up in Italy and I studied Latin is school for seven years. Pardon me and let me rephrase it, my Latin teacher and my parents expected me to study Latin in school for 7 years.
I haven’t touched it since 1976. Now when I help my son with his high school Latin I can read it on the fly and understand more than 80% without going to a dictionary or checking declensions and/or verb conjugations.
When it comes to the EF form of the Mass it is even easier because those prayers haven’t changed in a bit.

When you say talking in Latin, instead of reading, then it is a different story. If the Latin is spoken using the ecclesiastical pronunciation it is very easy but if it spoken using the so-called classical pronunciation then it becomes quite hard.

 

[Peggy_in_Burien]

I attended a Spanish Mass Saturday night and I found I could more easily follow in the Missal because of my knowledge of Latin and the Mass. I did not understand a word of the sermon, though.

I wish they had all missals in both Latin and the vernacular.

They did, “in the day.” My Abuelita and I would sit at the same Latin Mass (all there was pre-Vatican II); her missal was Latin on the left, Castilian Spanish on the right, while mine was Latin on the left, English on the right. Didn’t matter what country you were in, or what language you read, you could follow along.

 

[BertBlyleven]

I speak English and my only other reasonably fluent language is unrelated to English. when I hear Latin I pick up the odd word because of my knowledge of its English cognate. Do speakers of Spanish or Italian pick up more meaning from Latin? How much more? Can they generally get an idea of what someone is talking about?

Since I’m presuming you are talking about a priest speaking Latin, I’m sure anyone, even the deaf, have an idea of what he’s talking about…

I wouldn’t expect Spanish or Italian speaker pick up Latin more easily than an English speaker. I can read and translate Latin pretty well, and I’m usually lost when reading Italian. Latin is an inflected language, the others are not.

 

[YoungTradCath]

Italian and Spanish are also quite inflected compared to English. They are not as inflected as Latin is, but they are still heavily inflected compared to English.

 

[Kielbasi]

When you say talking in Latin, instead of reading, then it is a different story. If the Latin is spoken using the ecclesiastical pronunciation it is very easy but if it spoken using the so-called classical pronunciation then it becomes quite hard.

Perhaps you might think differently if you had been taught Latin in the public schools?

Here in the United States, until recent decades, Latin was a very popular course of study for students in all schools not just Catholic ones.

 

[ProVobis]

Perhaps you might think differently if you had been taught Latin in the public schools?

Here in the United States, until recent decades, Latin was a very popular course of study for students in all schools not just Catholic ones.

Latin has been making a comeback but it seems as if both Catholic and public schools teach more Classical Latin (Virgil, Cornelius Nepos, etc.) as opposed to Ecclesiastical Latin. The inflections (word endings) and vocabulary are the same but pronunciation and meanings to some words (deus, gratia, oratio, etc.) are more Christian in EL.

 

[YoungTradCath]

I watched Jeopardy last night and the final question was something like, “The Latin word meaning oafish.” All of the contestants got it wrong, and it was a teachers’ competition. One of the teachers was a Catholic school teacher and Alex said, “I assume you teach Latin at your school. Too bad,” or something like that. The answer was “Brutus.” I was dismayed because it’s sad that many Catholic schools don’t teach Latin anymore.

 

[Cristiano]

Perhaps you might think differently if you had been taught Latin in the public schools?

Here in the United States, until recent decades, Latin was a very popular course of study for students in all schools not just Catholic ones.

I was not making a general statement. I was referring to my own capability of understanding spoken Latin. The ecclesiastical pronunciation is much closer to the Italian pronunciation. I attended public schools, in Italy Latin was mandatory in public schools (religious schools were generally for misbehaving children). However, because of the cultural Catholic background of the country the pronunciation that was taught was the ecclesiastical one.