7 ms·

Latin Lives

72 points by diodorus 12y ago

guard-of-terra 12y ago
To complement, here is a [parody] metal song in Latin. Press "Play". http://iramen.ru/spisok/stramosljabi_alba-potentia.html http://iramen.ru/spisok/stramosljabi_alba-potentia.html (can't comment on the quality of language tho)
- pluma 12y ago
  There's actually a number of bands in Germany that uses various old/dead languages including Latin. In most cases they are just musical adaptations of historic texts, though, not novel works entirely. As far as rap music goes, I particularly enjoy this[0] interpretation of the "love" song "Ich was ein chint so wolgetan" (it's actually about rape, from the perspective of the victim[1]). It's alternating between Middle High German and Latin. [0]: http://mp3.pm/song/13460415/Schelmish_-_Ich_Was_Ein_Chint/ http://mp3.pm/song/13460415/Schelmish_-_Ich_Was_Ein_Chint/ [1]: http://lyrics.wikia.com/Helium_Vola:Ich_Was_Ein_Chint_So_Wolgetan/en http://lyrics.wikia.com/Helium_Vola:Ich_Was_Ein_Chint_So_Wol...
  - schoen 12y ago
    This kind of verse is called macaronic verse (or makkaronische Dichtung in German). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaronic_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaronic_language I think the Wikipedia article's coverage of the German/Latin macaronic verse tradition could use some more detail.
- drdaeman 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_with_Latin_lyrics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_with_Latin_lyrics
amelius 12y ago
I took Latin in high-school but I always wondered what Latin would have sounded like.
- hurin 12y ago
  It's hard to tell with dead-languages; for example we say "chi" in english, but most grammars list χ as aspirated.
  - Tomte 12y ago
    The pronunciation of Latin is extremely well studied and mostly known, including changes throughout its history. Unfortunately it's quite far away from the pronunciation I've learned in school. (and what Americans usually use seems to be even farther away)
- kylebgorman 12y ago
  We can deduce facts about how the Romans pronounced Latin sounds by: * descriptions of the sounds by the Roman grammarians * wordplay, onomatopoeia, spelling errors in graffiti, etc. * the way in which sounds from other languages (particularly Greek) were adapted into Latin * the way in which sounds of Latin were adapted into other languages * comparative reconstruction of the Romance languages * evidence from metrical poetry, which provides particular clues about consonant and vowel length A very readable book on is W. Sidney Allen's _Vox Latina_. [edit: meant to reply to immediately following sister of this post.]
  - mattlutze 12y ago
    I'd never thought of using misspellings from graffiti as a pronunciation clue, but it seems so obvious. I wonder how anthropological linguists would someday treat modern rap and hip-hop. In German, for example, it's not uncommon for the artist to slightly or not-so-slightly mispronounce words to make them fit a rhyme. Would that help or hinder a study?
    - zhte415 12y ago
      > Would that help or hinder a study? I imagine it would help. If evidence for that mispronunciation happened consistently, it would be taken as a dialect, class, geographical or cultural thing (or subculture). If it happened consistently over a very short space of time (and there was surviving evidence) it could be confused as a blip, or fashion. Example: I'm constantly perplexed why 'where' is spelt as 'were' by so many, but I imagine there are a sufficient number of English-speakers' accents (or a sufficient amount of speakers of a single accent to be significant) where the two words sound similar enough to spell them out on a keyboard as the same.
jacquesm 12y ago
The article doesn't seem to mention this at all, but Latin definitely lives: it's called modern day Romanian. There are many differences but if Latin survived anywhere into modern times it would have to be Romania. I had some Latin in high school and that came in surprisingly handy, much more so than in other Latin derived languages.
- agumonkey 12y ago
  Funny how Latin sounds so prestigious, while Romanian (even though the word clearly claims, well, Roman ancestry) has no such bling to it. Only because I was exposed to it by a Romanian student I got to know this, otherwise Romania's image made me think they used a slavic language.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    It's a weird mixture actually, there are quite a few Slavic influences, and even a bit of Greek. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgar_Latin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgar_Latin
    - spiritplumber 12y ago
      In fairness, Latin got a lot of Greek in it in Imperial times.
- Leszek 12y ago
  Sardinian is considered to be closer to Latin than Romanian, and arguably Italian and Spanish are closer to Latin too. According to a book that I haven't read[1], but is cited by Wikipedia[2], "A 1949 study by Italian-American linguist Mario Pei, analyzing the degree of difference from a language's parent (Latin, in the case of Romance languages) by comparing phonology, inflection, syntax, vocabulary, and intonation, indicated the following percentages (the higher the percentage, the greater the distance from Latin): Sardinian 8%, Italian 12%, Spanish 20%, Romanian 23.5%, Occitan 25%, Portuguese 31%, and French 44%." [1] Pei, Mario (1949). Story of Language. ISBN 03-9700-400-1 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardinian_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardinian_language
schoen 12y ago
I was at Reggie's class in 2008 where he got sidelined for medical reasons and which turned out to be the last summer session in Rome, but somehow I didn't know the story of how Paideia had picked up the torch. What a delight. Gratulor his qui tantum honorem magistro fecerunt et faciunt.
mathattack 12y ago
I am a natural skeptic of much of the whining in the humanities. (It sounds too elitist and unmeasurable to my ears) That said, this seems like a very interesting way to connect both modern and ancient culture.
tomwalker 12y ago
I have a friend that is a historian. He was visiting a monastery in Macau to view some very old texts brought by the first Portuguese priests. They were under the care of a very old priest who spoke Cantonese and some Portuguese. My friend spoke Portuguese but they were not getting very far so he tried Latin. They conversed in Latin fluently for the rest of his time there.

72 points by diodorus 12y ago

To complement, here is a [parody] metal song in Latin. Press "Play". http://iramen.ru/spisok/stramosljabi_alba-potentia.html http://iramen.ru/spisok/stramosljabi_alba-potentia.html (can't comment on the quality of language tho)

pluma 12y ago
There's actually a number of bands in Germany that uses various old/dead languages including Latin. In most cases they are just musical adaptations of historic texts, though, not novel works entirely. As far as rap music goes, I particularly enjoy this[0] interpretation of the "love" song "Ich was ein chint so wolgetan" (it's actually about rape, from the perspective of the victim[1]). It's alternating between Middle High German and Latin. [0]: http://mp3.pm/song/13460415/Schelmish_-_Ich_Was_Ein_Chint/ http://mp3.pm/song/13460415/Schelmish_-_Ich_Was_Ein_Chint/ [1]: http://lyrics.wikia.com/Helium_Vola:Ich_Was_Ein_Chint_So_Wolgetan/en http://lyrics.wikia.com/Helium_Vola:Ich_Was_Ein_Chint_So_Wol...
- schoen 12y ago
  This kind of verse is called macaronic verse (or makkaronische Dichtung in German). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaronic_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaronic_language I think the Wikipedia article's coverage of the German/Latin macaronic verse tradition could use some more detail.
drdaeman 12y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_with_Latin_lyrics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_with_Latin_lyrics

amelius 12y ago

I took Latin in high-school but I always wondered what Latin would have sounded like.

hurin 12y ago
It's hard to tell with dead-languages; for example we say "chi" in english, but most grammars list χ as aspirated.
- Tomte 12y ago
  The pronunciation of Latin is extremely well studied and mostly known, including changes throughout its history. Unfortunately it's quite far away from the pronunciation I've learned in school. (and what Americans usually use seems to be even farther away)
kylebgorman 12y ago
We can deduce facts about how the Romans pronounced Latin sounds by: * descriptions of the sounds by the Roman grammarians * wordplay, onomatopoeia, spelling errors in graffiti, etc. * the way in which sounds from other languages (particularly Greek) were adapted into Latin * the way in which sounds of Latin were adapted into other languages * comparative reconstruction of the Romance languages * evidence from metrical poetry, which provides particular clues about consonant and vowel length A very readable book on is W. Sidney Allen's _Vox Latina_. [edit: meant to reply to immediately following sister of this post.]
- mattlutze 12y ago
  I'd never thought of using misspellings from graffiti as a pronunciation clue, but it seems so obvious. I wonder how anthropological linguists would someday treat modern rap and hip-hop. In German, for example, it's not uncommon for the artist to slightly or not-so-slightly mispronounce words to make them fit a rhyme. Would that help or hinder a study?
  - zhte415 12y ago
    > Would that help or hinder a study? I imagine it would help. If evidence for that mispronunciation happened consistently, it would be taken as a dialect, class, geographical or cultural thing (or subculture). If it happened consistently over a very short space of time (and there was surviving evidence) it could be confused as a blip, or fashion. Example: I'm constantly perplexed why 'where' is spelt as 'were' by so many, but I imagine there are a sufficient number of English-speakers' accents (or a sufficient amount of speakers of a single accent to be significant) where the two words sound similar enough to spell them out on a keyboard as the same.

jacquesm 12y ago

The article doesn't seem to mention this at all, but Latin definitely lives: it's called modern day Romanian. There are many differences but if Latin survived anywhere into modern times it would have to be Romania. I had some Latin in high school and that came in surprisingly handy, much more so than in other Latin derived languages.

agumonkey 12y ago
Funny how Latin sounds so prestigious, while Romanian (even though the word clearly claims, well, Roman ancestry) has no such bling to it. Only because I was exposed to it by a Romanian student I got to know this, otherwise Romania's image made me think they used a slavic language.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  It's a weird mixture actually, there are quite a few Slavic influences, and even a bit of Greek. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgar_Latin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgar_Latin
  - spiritplumber 12y ago
    In fairness, Latin got a lot of Greek in it in Imperial times.
Leszek 12y ago
Sardinian is considered to be closer to Latin than Romanian, and arguably Italian and Spanish are closer to Latin too. According to a book that I haven't read[1], but is cited by Wikipedia[2], "A 1949 study by Italian-American linguist Mario Pei, analyzing the degree of difference from a language's parent (Latin, in the case of Romance languages) by comparing phonology, inflection, syntax, vocabulary, and intonation, indicated the following percentages (the higher the percentage, the greater the distance from Latin): Sardinian 8%, Italian 12%, Spanish 20%, Romanian 23.5%, Occitan 25%, Portuguese 31%, and French 44%." [1] Pei, Mario (1949). Story of Language. ISBN 03-9700-400-1 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardinian_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardinian_language

schoen 12y ago

I was at Reggie's class in 2008 where he got sidelined for medical reasons and which turned out to be the last summer session in Rome, but somehow I didn't know the story of how Paideia had picked up the torch. What a delight. Gratulor his qui tantum honorem magistro fecerunt et faciunt.

mathattack 12y ago

I am a natural skeptic of much of the whining in the humanities. (It sounds too elitist and unmeasurable to my ears) That said, this seems like a very interesting way to connect both modern and ancient culture.

tomwalker 12y ago

I have a friend that is a historian. He was visiting a monastery in Macau to view some very old texts brought by the first Portuguese priests. They were under the care of a very old priest who spoke Cantonese and some Portuguese. My friend spoke Portuguese but they were not getting very far so he tried Latin. They conversed in Latin fluently for the rest of his time there.