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Pup7
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My mother took Latin in high school - secular high school - in Virginia from 1949-1953.
My dad took it - but he was a cradle Catholic and went to Catholic school his whole life.
She considers it a waste of her time to this day. I can do more with the hacked Spanish I still remember from my three years in high school than she has ever done across a lifetime with Latin.
There’s a reason it’s not taught like it used to be. We have other languages more vital to the economy and to national security (Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish…etc) and only so many hours in a school day.
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TheAmazingGrace
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Who cares?
I really don’t have much of an opinion on the EF Mass proper (never attended one), but the fetish for Latin that so many people seem to harbor bewilders me to no end. Now, if people were insisting that the Mass should be performed in Aramaic (Jesus’ native tongue) or Greek (the lingua franca of Antiquity), that would make a lot more sense, since it would actually establish some cultural kinship between modern believers and the first Christians (the majority of whom did not speak Latin). Even so, uniformity does not guarantee solidarity.
I really don’t have much of an opinion on the EF Mass proper (never attended one), but the fetish for Latin that so many people seem to harbor bewilders me to no end. Now, if people were insisting that the Mass should be performed in Aramaic (Jesus’ native tongue) or Greek (the lingua franca of Antiquity), that would make a lot more sense, since it would actually establish some cultural kinship between modern believers and the first Christians (the majority of whom did not speak Latin). Even so, uniformity does not guarantee solidarity.
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Pup7
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I’m out of likes, @TheAmazingGrace. Just wanted to let you know you deserve one and that I agree. 
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TheAmazingGrace
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I took Latin in college. Really wish I’d went the Spanish route.
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TheAmazingGrace
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Aw, thanks Pup!
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Pup7
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Yeah I wish we’d had French. My husband is fluent in French and German. He could help me work on it at the least. But even the rudimentary amount of a still-used language has served me better than my mom’s Latin.
I’m not saying I agree with it for certain - but I mean we’re not learning how to speak Sumerian for the same reasons. It’s dead.
Before someone verbally hacks into me, I mean in general. Not in the Church.
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anon10271182
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Spanish will be easier, for studying Latin. So will Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, etc.
And English.
And English.
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Pup7
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Time and money.
No one has that.
Oh and people actually wanting to take it in large enough numbers to actually support it.
No one has that.
Oh and people actually wanting to take it in large enough numbers to actually support it.
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TheAmazingGrace
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True…but I never really used it outside of school, so I kinda forgot most of it.
Lol.
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Canvas
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I didn’t mean to suggest the Eastern Churches ever used Latin.
I think the Orthodox also are using more English, at least in the US. Most Russian Orthodox liturgies are moving away from being strictly in Church Slavonic.
I think the Orthodox also are using more English, at least in the US. Most Russian Orthodox liturgies are moving away from being strictly in Church Slavonic.
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JackMcCoy
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Well said.
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stpurl
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My ex husband (rest his soul) took Spanish. High school , college, grad school. Never, never, never could remember from week to week, constantly failing, retaking, just scraping by.
Some people are not gifted when it comes to language.
I had a friend in high school who wanted to take French. Did actually pretty well with it for a while, but gradually wound up pretty much ‘going in a different direction’. So we can be gifted or adequate, but wind up not choosing to use.
Had another friend who took Spanish because it was supposedly ‘the easy language’. hated it, really hated it, made his and everybody who was around him–teacher, fellow students, probably parents and siblings as well–MISERABLE. He actually was pretty good at it, but he simply did not want to learn. It wasn’t a choosing not to use though, it was a real choosing NOT TO EVEN TRY. . . as a punishment for those who ‘forced’ it on him.
And yet another friend wasn’t the sharpest puella but she took Latin. She worked very hard, especially given that back then Latin was not what the kids ‘on the wrong side of the tracks’ took. And while she never became an important ‘personage’, the lessons she got were more than simply Latin itself. She learned perseverance. She learned that she could defy expectations --her own as well as others. So even though it was harder for her, she wound up receiving a hundred fold ‘reward’ for her effort.
It isn’t just about whether you ‘can’ do something, it’s about what you ‘do’ do with something.
Some people are not gifted when it comes to language.
I had a friend in high school who wanted to take French. Did actually pretty well with it for a while, but gradually wound up pretty much ‘going in a different direction’. So we can be gifted or adequate, but wind up not choosing to use.
Had another friend who took Spanish because it was supposedly ‘the easy language’. hated it, really hated it, made his and everybody who was around him–teacher, fellow students, probably parents and siblings as well–MISERABLE. He actually was pretty good at it, but he simply did not want to learn. It wasn’t a choosing not to use though, it was a real choosing NOT TO EVEN TRY. . . as a punishment for those who ‘forced’ it on him.
And yet another friend wasn’t the sharpest puella but she took Latin. She worked very hard, especially given that back then Latin was not what the kids ‘on the wrong side of the tracks’ took. And while she never became an important ‘personage’, the lessons she got were more than simply Latin itself. She learned perseverance. She learned that she could defy expectations --her own as well as others. So even though it was harder for her, she wound up receiving a hundred fold ‘reward’ for her effort.
It isn’t just about whether you ‘can’ do something, it’s about what you ‘do’ do with something.
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anon10271182
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Well it’s still being taught in private schools that follow a classical model. And at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge, etc. So it has some perceived value for academics.
And being an educator myself, I can attest to the lack of knowledge of both Latinate roots and affixes today. I’ve worked at over a hundred public schools and I can recall exactly one where a lesson in Latin and Greek components of English was taught.
And being an educator myself, I can attest to the lack of knowledge of both Latinate roots and affixes today. I’ve worked at over a hundred public schools and I can recall exactly one where a lesson in Latin and Greek components of English was taught.
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dochawk
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That’s what happened to my spanish . . . I was borderline fluent when I left. We used college texts and used 2/3 a book a year (normal high school rate isa 1/2)–and accidentally skipped what we should have used in our third year!.
So I had two years of spanish and south american literature, in spanish, and the equivalent of something like seven years of high school spanish or four years of college . . . at Santa Clara, they were willing to put me straight into upper division classes, but I never had time to fit one in.
Then practicing law in San Diego, not a single person who I need to rely upon my by then broken spanish (and their broken english) could actually afford a lawyer.
Decades later, doing immigration law, it slowly came back, to the point where I was dropping at least a couple of lines of spanish without my translator.
Still, all in all, if I had it to do again, I’d have taken 4 years of latin rather than spanish in high school. OTOH, Cortazar remains my favorite author, but he’s just not the same in translation.
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Pup7
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What? My mother has no use for the Latin she took. Ever. She did fine in it, she just doesn’t use it. I used Spanish when I took her to Europe ten years ago far more than she’s ever used Latin.
I did just fine in Spanish. I just happen to have taken it 30 years ago and don’t speak it on a daily basis. My husband speaks fluent French. It would be super handy if I had even a rudimentary knowledge of French because he could help me maintain it. I can understand far more Spanish than I can speak, so I know if it had been French I took in high school, I’d be in the same position with a speaker at the ready.
I’m not sure what that story was for, other than being interesting. I’m aware of life lessons. I’ve had more than a few myself.
You can attest to a lack of knowledge and I would bet you can also attest to a lack of funding and time in a day. Spanish is far more useful to the average high school kid in 2018. If you want a Romance language degree, good. But a public school has to think of its populace. The high school I went to could afford ONE foreign language, so it picked the one that was the most useful for our area - Spanish.
I don’t mean Duke and Harvard and Yale. I mean Local Public High School in Podunk, USA, where they have to prepare students with a specific base level of knowledge so they can continue their education.
I did just fine in Spanish. I just happen to have taken it 30 years ago and don’t speak it on a daily basis. My husband speaks fluent French. It would be super handy if I had even a rudimentary knowledge of French because he could help me maintain it. I can understand far more Spanish than I can speak, so I know if it had been French I took in high school, I’d be in the same position with a speaker at the ready.
I’m not sure what that story was for, other than being interesting. I’m aware of life lessons. I’ve had more than a few myself.
I’m talking about public schools, not schools for people who can afford them. Colleges and universities (especially the elite) have very little to do with what the average school system can realistically support.
You can attest to a lack of knowledge and I would bet you can also attest to a lack of funding and time in a day. Spanish is far more useful to the average high school kid in 2018. If you want a Romance language degree, good. But a public school has to think of its populace. The high school I went to could afford ONE foreign language, so it picked the one that was the most useful for our area - Spanish.
I don’t mean Duke and Harvard and Yale. I mean Local Public High School in Podunk, USA, where they have to prepare students with a specific base level of knowledge so they can continue their education.
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TheAmazingGrace
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Gratias tibi ago.
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dochawk
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Absolutely.
The vernacular has been normative in the East since, well, 33. As a diaspora adopts he local vernacular, the liturgy should shift to that language.
Church Slavonic was invented by SS C&M specifically to be mutually intelligible to the various slavic tongues. I understand that it is closest to old bulgarian.
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LoyalViews
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This is true actually. Our local Russian Orthodox parish, offering services out of an Anglican Church chapel, uses English for about 50% of the service as a method of translating the heritage of the love of God in the old language, to those who speak the new language.
Personally I prefer the Latin Mass. My missal tells me what the priest is saying, and what I ought to respond and what it means. But yet the Church is the Church. While we might be erring from the institutional point, we can never say anything about the heart of the people at Mass. People love God. They recognise him - Protestant, Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, Mormon even. They fall absolutely in love with Him (even though the Mormons are a bit paganistic).
With that said it is our duty as Catholics to direct them towards the true God. To His Church. The one He founded. But with anything human, veins appear, and sometimes they rot. They often turn into diseases, but can you blame them? And yet people are raised into these traditions and love God as much as we do. It is human nature. It is absolutely the nature of a human to disagree. Then the blame is on them - if they had prayed enough, conversed with God the almighty, then they never would’ve departed from the Church. We’d have a universal Church then?
Heretics exist, and those are the people who rebel against God. Yet each of us suffer with our own desires. I sin often. Ye all do as well.
Personally I prefer the Latin Mass. My missal tells me what the priest is saying, and what I ought to respond and what it means. But yet the Church is the Church. While we might be erring from the institutional point, we can never say anything about the heart of the people at Mass. People love God. They recognise him - Protestant, Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, Mormon even. They fall absolutely in love with Him (even though the Mormons are a bit paganistic).
With that said it is our duty as Catholics to direct them towards the true God. To His Church. The one He founded. But with anything human, veins appear, and sometimes they rot. They often turn into diseases, but can you blame them? And yet people are raised into these traditions and love God as much as we do. It is human nature. It is absolutely the nature of a human to disagree. Then the blame is on them - if they had prayed enough, conversed with God the almighty, then they never would’ve departed from the Church. We’d have a universal Church then?
Heretics exist, and those are the people who rebel against God. Yet each of us suffer with our own desires. I sin often. Ye all do as well.
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anon10271182
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“She learned perseverance. She learned that she could defy expectations”
That’s one of the biggest pluses I’ve heard associated with studying Latin in elementary and secondary schools. There’s only one way to learn it–through persistent effort. And any teacher will tell you that a lot of kids today have no clue about academic effort.
That’s one of the biggest pluses I’ve heard associated with studying Latin in elementary and secondary schools. There’s only one way to learn it–through persistent effort. And any teacher will tell you that a lot of kids today have no clue about academic effort.
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