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Re:Who speaks Latin these days? by grellas on Tuesday February 12, 2013 @12:03PM (#5207982)
The Familia Sancti Hieronymi (Family of St. Jerome), out of Florida, promotes the idea of Latin as a living language within the context of the Catholic Church.

I have no special connection with this organization except that, having struggled to learn Latin on my own for some years, my breakthrough came via the Cursus Linguae Latinae Vivae (Course in the Living Latin Language) offered by that organization, as taught by Fr. Suitbertus Siedl entirely in Latin (for a rich set of Latin-only materials offered by FSH, see http://www.hieronymus.us.com/Venalia/IndLatin.htm, with English translation of the offerings here: http://www.hieronymus.us.com/Venalia/IndEngl.htm).

The premise of the Cursus is that language is primarily an aural experience - hence, trying to learn Latin by translating words and sentences into another language such as English is a fundamentally poorer way to learn than by simply hearing and repeating it in the Latin itself even as one learns the grammatical rules and syntax. Asculte et alta voce legere (listen, and repeat out loud) is the command one hears throughout, along with Repetitio est mater studiorum. In each segment, there is a teaching from the ancient Latin of Rome, from historic Catholic Church materials, and from daily life. And you will hear Fr. Siedl vigorously proclaiming: "Lingua Latina non mortua est sed viva."

Take it for what it is worth. But clearly there are pockets within today's world where people take seriously the idea that Latin should survive as a spoken tongue and where their gatherings are held entirely in Latin. For anyone who wants to learn the language, it is well worth dipping into that world. A pretty fascinating place for those with an inclination to learn about it.

Re:Who speaks Latin these days? by fusiongyro on Wednesday February 13, 2013 @12:56AM (#5211665)
That's really cool. I have been tempted to try the Lingua Latina books, which argue a softer version of this thesis: that memorizing tables of inflections doesn't work as well as "immersive reading." I'm inclined towards this because, as a non-Catholic, my interface with Latin is textual rather than aural. It would be interesting to hear from someone who tried both.
Re:Who speaks Latin these days? by ScottBurson on Tuesday February 12, 2013 @01:10PM (#5208409)
Repetitio is mater studiorum

"Is"? :-)

Re:Who speaks Latin these days? by eric_bullington on Tuesday February 12, 2013 @01:16PM (#5208457)
Repetition is the source of all learning (literally: "repetition is the mother of studies").

EDIT: And you're right, obviously the parent comment should have written "est" in lieu of "is". Sorry, missed what you were pointing out initially.

Re:Who speaks Latin these days? by grellas on Tuesday February 12, 2013 @01:57PM (#5208687)
Now corrected. Thank you both for pointing this out. Just asleep at the switch, since I hope I know at least that much after years of studying this stuff.
Re:Who speaks Latin these days? by asveikau on Tuesday February 12, 2013 @01:19PM (#5208485)
> Cursus Linguae Latinae Vivae (Course in the Living Latin Language)

It's been a while since I studied it, but that looks like genitive case to me. I parse it as "Course of living Latin language".

Re:Who speaks Latin these days? by maw on Tuesday February 12, 2013 @01:28PM (#5208540)
Yes, it's genitive, but "course in" is more idiomatic English than "course of."
Re:Who speaks Latin these days? by asveikau on Tuesday February 12, 2013 @01:38PM (#5208607)
Sure, but an idiomatic translation of the genitive expression would probably drop prepositions entirely and say "Latin language course".