The Ark and The Dove

On the utility of Latin

So many people are so dismissive of Latin.  "When would I ever use it?" they say.  However, I have found that the cost, in terms of effort spent learning it, has been repaid in savings of effort many times over, and this in only a few years.  Even though I'm actually not all that literate in the language, I feel like the far-future kid in the sci-fi story who figured out that you didn't need a calculator to do arithmetic and upon discovering this felt like he had mystical powers over numbers.

While it may be true that you will probably never write a letter in it or have a conversation in it, the fact remains that in the West, every intellectual system for the last 2000+ years has been founded, devised, or had its largest share of work done by people who spoke Latin. 

Not long ago I was forcefully reminded of this several times in one day, which is why it's in my mind right now.  I will list some examples that come readily to mind.

The Sciences: The terms you use for almost everything are Latin words, except for the ones that are Greek and the ones that are mixed Latin and Greek.  I remember one time in a geology class the professor passed out a sheet of important terms.  A friend of mine who was sitting next to me was distraught at the hours of studying ahead of her just to memorize all those terms.  Was she annoyed upon finding out that I already knew what they all meant!  "To me, those are just what those things are called," I explained.  Instead of being arbitrary symbols that seem almost like a hurdle to learning, as they seem to non-Latinists, scientific terminology is more often than not a positive help to me, a valuable shorthand that saves time and effort.

English vocabulary: People judge you by the words you use, and the vast majority the smart-people words come from Latin.  The other day I saw in a classroom a big list of SAT vocabulary the teacher had posted on the wall.  Every word except for one was a Latin-origin word.  I felt sorry for the poor kids who would have to sit down with lists and memorize them as arbitrary sounds and sequences of letters.  Memorizing roots is somewhat more efficient, but it didn't afford me the same depth as learning the language itself.  Purely aside from pragmatic considerations, having learned Latin, I now perceive English words and indeed the language itself to have a depth and richness I did not experience before.  When I see a Latin-origin word, it's like seeing it in 3-D where I only saw it in two before, or color when I had only seen them in black and white.  Whereas older books before often seemed to me to use language in a confusing way that took a lot of work to understand, now they seem to use it in a precise and enlightening way.  I enjoy the language now more than ever, and I enjoyed it a lot before.

English Grammar: All your grammar terminology are belong to us Latinists.  Want to guess why?  This is another case where the names of things can be a confusing list of arbitrary memorization, or just what those things are called.  Also, if you familiar with Latin grammar, English is a snap.  And when it is advantageous to use "me" and "whom" properly, you will understand how.  Some German friends of mine told me that they had the same sort of epiphany with German after taking Greek.

Foreign Languages: Latin is the basis for the Romance languages.  Everything I said about English goes for them, only more so (except that they don't have the Anglo-Saxon/Latin dichotomy thing going on the way we do).  Also, learning other languages that use cases is probably not so bad once you learn one.

History: I often hear serious students complain to me that their research is impeded by their non-knowledge of Latin.  Latin used to be the language of scholarship, and not everything has been translated.  I myself once had to do some research for an English paper and the only edition McKeldin Library had of the book I needed was in Latin.

Roman Catholic Liturgy: Want a better understanding of the prayers of the Mass?  To participate outwardly when in international settings?  Better learn some Latin.

Catholic Doctrine: Want extra insights?  The terminology thing I've been talking about definitely goes here - the Fathers and Doctors of the Church spent a great deal of effort in coming up with terminology and doctrinal formulas.  Often multiple senses of the words were intended.  Learning Latin will help you understand Latinitas, which will help you understand how the Church works.

That's just the utility angle of it.  So if I seem to be always talking about Latin and how great it is, you see that I'm not just doing so idly.

Have you ever wanted to...

...read Don Quixote in Latin?  Well, now you can!  Historia domini Quijoti Manchegui - trans. Ignacio Calvo.

Actually, as much as I love Latin, this makes about as much sense as reading Dante translated into Latin if you could read him in Italian.  On the other hand, if you want to be as certain as possible that people in the far future will be able to read it...

Latin Help III

Here are installments I and II, for a recap.  I had kind of forgotten I was doing this, but readers reminded me and requested more, so here goes.

I didn't get very far before I got sidetracked, did I?  I did the sign of the cross, Amen.  So the next part is the greeting.

The priest says "Dominus vobiscum" and the people respond "Et cum spiritu tuo."
This means "[The] Lord [be] with you.  And with your spirit." 

That's the short version.  More detail follows, if you're interested.

You have probably noticed by now that at Mass in English, the response is "And also with you."  If you are wondering why this is, the answer is that this is a complicated question and you should ask the bishops of the English-speaking countries and their organization ICEL.  The current English translation has a lot of issues which are hopefully being addressed right now as the ICEL bishops prepare a new translation.  I should take this opportunity to remind everyone that regardless of your opinion on the translation as we go through the text of the Mass, obedience is the mother of virtue, and at Mass you should not on your own authority deviate from the text given to us by the bishops, even for the motive of making it more like the edito typica in Latin, and still less to modify the Mass according to your opinions or personal tastes.  The Vatican II Constitution on the Liturgy is very clear on this.

Back to business.  Dominus vobiscum.  Et cum spiritu tuo.

Dominus means "Lord."  You use derivatives of this word all the time in English, such as dominate and dominion.  Vobiscum is really two words which are customarily written together.  Vobis is the form of vos (the plural "you") that you use with the preposition cum, "with."  I am not aware that vos/vobis has any cognates in English because English has no plural second person pronoun, unless you count regional dialect words such as "y'all" and "y'uns."  You may recognize cum from phrases such as "magna cum laude."

Notice some of the differences between how you say this in Latin and how you would say it in English.  It is not just the same as replacing each Latin word with the equivalent English word.  To begin with, word order.  In Latin, it is common to put cum later in the sentence than where you would expect "with" in an English sentence.  Adjectives, including tuo ("your") typically come after the noun, as in Romance languages.  Also, what's left out.  In Latin, the verb "to be" can often be omitted.  Usually it's "is" that is left out, but this phrase is (and similar phrases are) always translated "The Lord be with you."

Apart from grammar, these words were, of course, not carelessly chosen.  Think about the Old Testament and what it means when it says "The Lord was with" so-and-so or "the Lord was not with."  For the response, look at the close of Second Timothy (4:22).

Grammar stuff:

Tenere me suaviter

Mike sent the following to me:

News of the Weird first noted Professor Jukka Ammondt of the
University of Jyvaskyla in Finland in 1995, and apparently his twin
passions (Elvis Presley and Latin) have only grown stronger since
then. He performs Elvis' songs in the "dead" language that's far from
dead in Finland -- a country that features a regular radio newscast
entirely in Latin (drawing about 75,000 listeners), according to an
October BBC dispatch from Helsinki. Among the Ammondt-Presley
standards: "It's Now or Never" ("Nunc hic aut numquam") and "Love Me
Tender" ("Tenere me, suaviter"). [BBC News, 10-24-06]

How's that weird?

Latin Help II

I forget that in the experience of many people, Latin is chiefly a written language and not a spoken one.  For me with languages, reading, speaking, and spelling are so linked in my mind that they flow into and support one another, and I don't like to separate them unnaturally, but not everyone learns the same way.  Also, you are supposed to learn Church tradition chiefly by oral tradition and chiefly from dusty books, but unfortunately this has not been the situation for the majority of people in recent decades.

To try to help deal with uncertainty about pronunciation, here are some good pronunciation guides to pick from, one via EWTN, one from shrinesf.org, and one from NYU that gives a hat tip to traditional regional pronunciations.  If people are curious I can discuss the history of this at length in another post.  If it would help I can post some short sound clips of myself speaking Latin.  I tried to do this at one point but I felt so geeky recording myself that I stopped.  But for my readers I would go to the extra effort.  I could also try and find some clips of Fr. Reggie Foster so you don't think the way I do it is the only way - in my opinion, though it's not necessary to ape an Italian accent, English-speakers should beware of trying to bend the language too much to their own accents as American vowels sound particularly strange in Latin (and can make it difficult to understand).

Anyway, it may feel a little weird at first, but if you forge on, eventually it becomes your own and the Church's prayer becomes your own prayer in a new and deeper way.

Latin Help I

Ok, let's start with the beginning of the Mass.  The Sign of the Cross.  Please remember that in Latin the ends of words in Latin change to show you their relationship to other words in the sentence (the more you know about this the more precise your understanding will be). Thus you can vary word order and be very precise.  I am still working out a format for this.  For now, the nominative form of an inflected noun will follow in parentheses.  Also, Latin has no word for "a" or "the," so you must add them as appropriate when translating.

In nomine          Patris                et       Filii                   et      Spiritus            Sancti,  Amen.

In [the] name    of [the] Father   and   of [the] Son   and    of [the] Spirit    Holy, Amen.

Words you already know or may be familiar with:
In - just what it sounds like.

Nomine (nomen).  Related English words: nomenclature, nominal, nominate, name.  Meaning: name.

Patris (Pater).  Related Eng. words: paternal, paterfamilias, patrimony, patriarch.  Pater = father; patris = of [the] father.

Et.  Rel. Eng.: et cetera (lit. and other things); the plus sign comes from the "t" in "et." Et = and.

Filii (Filius).  Rel. Eng.: filial, Fitz- (in names), French fils.  Filii = of [the] son; filius = son.

Spiritus - knock off the "-us."  Spiritus = spirit; spiritus = of [the] spirit (looks just the same in writing).

Sancti (sanctus).  Rel. Eng.: sanctuary, sanctify.  Since "Sancti" goes with "Spiritus," it has to be in the same case (genitive in this instance).

Grammar stuff...

Latin Help

It is (or used to be) a common feature in newspapers to have a regular item on tips on English for people learning the language, such as this one by the BBC.

It is in this spirit that I'd like to make it a regular thing to post about Latin, since Pope Benedict has been working on getting it back into use.  You have heard, perhaps, that he now regularly leads the Wednesday Angelus in Latin, with the words on the big screens to help people who don't have it memorized, and has directed that the regular weekday Masses be celebrated primarily in the sacred language, not just the ones on special occasions.  And Cardinal Arinze, head of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, has recently challenged us to "take Latin out of the refrigerator."

If you read the Vatican II Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, you know that the Council called both for full, conscious, and active participation by the laity AND for Latin to be retained even while people's native tongues be given a place in the celebration.  So far the reforms of Vatican II have only been partially realized.  If you are like me, you have found the Mass in English to be very helpful in your spiritual life, and yet you would like to realize the fullness of Vatican II spirituality, rather than a partial (or worse yet, distorted) version of it.

I have found that to enjoy full, conscious, and active participation in the Church's own tongue, you do not have to be a genius in Latin or memorize tons of grammar - only a very basic working knowledge of it will afford you as much understanding as you are getting right now from the English translation.  Nor do you need to learn an entirely new vocabulary - with a Latin vocab of only 300 words (I have probably used well over 300 different words in this post) you can understand 95% of everything that is said (believe me, I counted).  Better still, you do not need to learn these words from scratch, because about 2/3 of English words come from Latin either directly or through French.

In these posts I do not plan to dwell on niceties of grammar; if I do, I will put that part in the extended post so that those who are interested can check it out.  Rather I will focus on immediate understanding and expanding the Latin you "already know" with an eye toward understanding the Mass.  My plan, at least initially, is to do an overview of the Order of Mass from beginning to end.

I am not a huge expert, but I am happy to share what I know.  If there are very knowledgeable people out there who can provide further insight on the nuances of words, please comment and share what you know.