2w ago

Why do you learn Latin/ What interests you in it?

I'm curious to see your thoughts :)

Personally i learn it just for fun, and i like how similar romance languages are to Latin.

18 comments

I took it in high school because it was extremely useful for learning base words in English and etymology as someone who likes to read and learn. Also I like history and mythology.

I'm a collector of ancient coins, mostly Romans, so need to be able to read & understand the legends.
Currently trying to do the same with Greek but this feels a lot harder because there's so much difference between ancient & modern Greek.
- Very impressive! What is the value of a Roman coin, nowadays? I always wondered about that.
  
  Hehe, it's usually the first question people ask. The answer is: it varies incredibly from one coin to the next, depending on rarity and quality. Most people assume that since these coins are between 2000-1500 years old, it means they must be priceless. But the reality is that the Roman empire was around for a VERY long time and had a vast economy. They minted millions upon millions of coins, probably more than any civilization until our modern days.
  You can have silver denarii or antoniniani ("double" denarius) for as little as 15-20 bucks. The really rare ones go up to the high hundreds and even the low thousands for silver and bronze. Golden coins (aureii) are more rare but usually in great condition, but will set you back several thousands in even the low spectrum.
  If you really just want "a roman coin" and the only requisite is that it's genuine, you can get late Roman bronze coins for like a buck a piece, or a couple dozen at most for very nice specimens. Just be careful with Ebay and the like, lots of counterfeit going on there. If you go for the cheaper coins though, there's little chance of fakes since they're simply not worth faking.

Tbh, it isn't an active pursuit for me. I picked up a little via medical terminology, and the colloquialisms that have crept into english usage. So, I'm always interested in more little tidbits to pick up, but I don't put a ton of time into doing so. Full on filthy casual.
- Eh that's okay, Latin is mostly learned for fun anyway. And i think it's fun being able to read old scripts and talk in an obscure language.
  This community actually helps me learn Latin, due to me having to research for posts and interacting with you guys in Latin.
  Glad to see this comm is big enough for me to actually get replies, last time I tried this I got 0 replies in 24 hours 😂
  
  It's definitely a slow community :)

I don't know much grammar-wise, but I have a huge mental collection of random words. I'm an etymology nerd and being a native speaker of a romance language, most words come from Latin

It's fun, imo. I taught it at the middle/high school level for a few years.
- Ecce, in pictura est puella Romana

My main focus is Indo-European studies. For IE there are three "big" languages: Latin, Ancient Greek, and Sanskrit. Among all three, Latin is the most accessible for me as both my L1 and L2 are Romance (Portuguese and Italian respectively).
Plus there's something emotionally fulfilling on understanding the past, and noticing that human nature is still the same. Catullus' poetic persona as a horny teen, Cicero pondering about the nature of the things, Apicius the foodie, Jerome and his obsession for an accurate but clean translation, Octavius... well, behaving like the politicians of today. And to understand those people we need to understand their language, at least a wee bit.
(I often joke about this by saying that "what the Romans called «merda» [shit] is still merda today.", as the word is still the same in PT and IT. It doesn't work in English though.)
- Same, but I want to learn a language of every type before my time comes. I'm native at Arabic and it is really interesting hearing other semitic languages, I understand 5-10% Hebrew and 40% of Maltese (some people even consider it a dialect of it lol)
  I want to learn at least one Slavic, romance, Germanic and sinaic language. My choices for them are ukrainian, Latin and Esperanto, Dutch and very basic Chinese since logographic languages interest me :) (ofc I am not learning all of these at once lol, these are languages I am interested in)
  And Roman senators/writers were hilarious, especially Catullus. It's interesting to see how these people are human like us and had day to day lives and are not some ancient alien race we treat them as.
  
  Your focus is way wider than mine! I do have an interest on a few non-IE languages (mostly Guaraní; it would be actually useful in my case), but my current focus is on Sanskrit.
  The thing with Maltese vs. other Arabic varieties reminds me a lot Sardinian vs. other Romance varieties - insular leftovers from a branch of the family that is gone elsewhere (Siculo-Arabic for Maltese, African Romance for Sardinian), with people arguing if they should lump it together a nearby variety (Tunsi for one, Italian for another). But sorry, I digress.
  It’s interesting to see how these people are human like us and had day to day lives and are not some ancient alien race we treat them as.
  Exactly! Specially in the Romance cultures, people see them as some sort of "ultra-civilised ancestors, with a refinement that was lost over time", just like aliens. But once you dig through their texts and lives they become more and more relatable, you know? (Just like that Sumerian fart joke. Or Aristophanes foul wordplay.)

sorta peanut gallery. saw this in all and I had to take a few semesters in catholic grade school. Never really learned it though.
- That's cool, i never knew they taught it in catholic schools
  
  I don't know if it is anymore but they had a few things that were for classical learning and sorta tradition. Like calligraphy when I went was optional but I believe just a few years before it had been mandatory to have it for a semester or two.
  
  roman catholic, roman latin

I couldn't learn it. When I wanted to, in college, the university had an enrollment process that went by year: seniors got to start enrolling in classes at 8, juniors at 9, and so on. Some classes had extra constraints, and because we had a law school, the fucking law students got priority enrollment in Latin classes. In 4 years, I did not once successfully get a spot in a Latin class.
Then I graduated and my career took over and I didn't have energy or interest in night classes, and there are few subjects I can successfully learn the self-help way; languages aren't among them.
So, I lurk here and wait for retirement, and maybe before I die I'll be able to conjugate "to buy".
Oh! Insult on injury, my wife's career is regulatory affairs which is legal-adjacent, and she was able to take a couple of years of Latin.

18 comments