"some version of Latin" is right. Because, really, Latin is not Latin is not Latin. For a language that had such wide use for such an extended amount of time, learning one form of Latin, such as ecclesiastical, does not necessarily help much in understanding Ovid or Plutarch.
This is much the same as with ancient Greek. Knowing New Testament Greek is almost useless in understanding Plato or Homer. Even Classical Greek from extreme ends of the period differs substantially.
Re:Who speaks Latin these days?
by tragomaskhalos on Tuesday February 12, 2013 @01:29PM
(#5208550)
I think someone who had learned Koine would be able to have a decent go at Plato at least, the grammar is not so different. The biggest difference I can see is that the word order in the NT is a lot more regular - classical authors (in Latin as well as Greek) played around with word order a lot more than ordinary joes speaking the languages day to day, whereas the NT is a lot closer to how people would actually have spoken.
Actually, when koine Greek was first being critically examined, it was theorized that it was hardly Greek at all, but more of a hellenization of Aramaic. That was, of course, found not to be the case.
Yes, it is true that there is much structure in common between Koine and Classical, use of conjunctions, general grammar constructs. But for any real use of the language you quickly get into vocabulary domains that just do not intersect, or where they do intersect, the usage is quite different.
That said, a modern Greek can understand quite a bit of the New Testament, even though it's been around 2,000 years since it was written.
a decent knowledge of Latin
"Decent knowledge" is ambiguous. There is a huge difference between being able to read a language and being able to speak it. The OP is unusual in being about the latter.
Re:Who speaks Latin these days?
by Mvandenbergh on Tuesday February 12, 2013 @02:08PM
(#5208759)
>Latin is Latin is Latin. It's been the lingua franca (sic -- hey, three latin words already!) of European culture for almost 2000 years, hence transmitting and influencing each and every field of human knowledge.
The lingua franca of the Roman empire was actually Greek.
Latin is Latin is Latin. It's been the lingua franca (sic -- hey, three latin words already!) of European culture for almost 2000 years, hence transmitting and influencing each and every field of human knowledge. As long as we value European culture, there will be a consistent amount of people who have to speak some version of Latin. In most of Europe, you can't excel in law, medicine, philosophy, biology, history or theology without a decent knowledge of Latin, and it certainly helps even non-European scholars.
There will always be problems with "updating" what is essentially a fossilised language in order to include modern concepts, but the core language will survive pretty much forever, at this point. It's the "K&R C" of human languages.