This very long email (click on Read More below to find out many things, including why the graphic is in French!) is from an individual who likes to be known as Avitus Gratius. He is a leading exponent of not only, reading and writing Latin but actually speaking like a real Roman! There's lots of useful information here. I'm very grateful to Mr. Nigel Coulton (who taught me Latin and Greek at school and who is now well-known as a skilled palaeographer) for passing it on. He says he's going to enrol in the classes and keep us updated. That would be very interesting to follow. SPOKEN LATIN: GETTING STARTED
As I always say, anyone who has studied Latin for a number of years, as you all have, possesses certainly all the grammar and a great deal of the vocabulary needed first to understand spoken Latin in most contexts, and then to actually speak it personally. All that is needed is some practical guidance and a little immersive exposure in order to activate a knowledge which is otherwise there albeit dormant or passive. First learning tools For most, Latin has so far entered through the eyes. For it to come to our tongues and become something spontaneous, it needs to enter through our ears, as languages naturally do. There are several methods available that incorporate audio material, but none to my knowledge is as efficient in providing communicative strategies and fostering actual spoken fluency as the following gem: • Clément Desessard, Lingua Latina sine molestiá, published by Assimil originally in 1966, and now under the simpler name of Le Latin, available through the medium of French (latest and best edition 2015) but also through the medium of Italian (2012) and German (2013): http://fr.assimil.com/methodes/le-latin-294#super-pack-livre-cd-audio-cd-mp3 (Please don't be tempted to get the book alone without the audio material. It would completely defeat the point.) I have so much trust in this method that I established the free on-line Schola Latína Európæa & Úniversális (2005) to help and support people going through it. We offer additional explanations, exercises, progress tests, and most crucially a forum for real-time answers to any queries by volunteer experts, all of them veteran alumni of the school who were directly taught by me and have been my colleagues for years, and whom you may actually know from their fruitful Latin careers. You will find doing this with us much easier than trying to tackle the long and considerably dense Assimil method on your own. There is a slow track (in 2 years) and a fast one (in 1 year). The latter, recommended to experienced Latinists like you, starts 18 September. My advice is to get hold of a copy of the method (book and audio) as soon as possible and give it a go with us! Think of it as now or never. • Schola Latína Európæa & Úniversális: http://avitus.alcuinus.net/schola_latina/ Experience after completing Desessard's Assimil method with the Schola Latína Európæa & Úniversális I would have three recommendations to make here. First of all, join the Grex Latiné Loquentium! This is the on-line active Latin mailing list. Traditional Latin Composition courses are very good, and I myself joined the Latin Composition option with much benefit; but anyone who is aware of the rôle of emotional involvement in learning will understand how much more efficient it is in order to develop your compositional skills to strive to put down in persuasive Latin your personal opinions in the context of a heated argument on some contemporary issue you most strongly feel about (Brexit anyone? university fees? multiculturalism?) than to try and transfer into Latin someone else's passage on Numa or Napoleon, Cæsar or Coleridge. The Grex Latiné Loquentium is also an essential source of information on all living Latin matters, so well worth being a part of. • Grex Latiné Loquentium: http://www.alcuinus.net/GLL/ The next step is to actually start speaking! I have often heard it said that, unlike for modern vernaculars, there are —alas— no chances to travel to a place where the language is spoken for a full immersion experience. This is more of an excuse than anything real. There are actually many chances, in fact ever more and more, to go to places where one can be surrounded by people speaking only Latin, for a few hours, a whole week, or even a year. Most are still abroad, and I will write about these at greater length below. However there is in Britain certainly one Latin Circle in London, and possibly another one in Oxford, where you can practise your Latin conversation for a while every month. Feel completely free to explore the London one, which I founded at the turn of the century. All levels are welcome. • Circulus Latinus Londiniensis: http://www.circuluslatinuslondiniensis.co.uk/ (see our ácta) Finally, and most relevant for all of you, there are now Latin gatherings not only geared towards general practice but rather specialised in providing professional teacher training for active use of Latin in the classroom! There are initiatives in the USA and Israel, on which more below; but the most accomplished one to my knowledge takes place every summer a cheap easyJet flight away in the capital of sunny Spain. • Cursus Æstivus Latinitatis Vivæ Matritensis (CÆLVM) is a now five-year-old initiative in Madrid offering an intensive summer inset of 7 days (21-27/8 this year) for just €450 with accommodation, and €180 without accommodation, taking 160 participants each year, with many more applying but being turned away for lack of space (early booking needed). Website: http://www.culturaclasica.com/?q=caelum Sample video (more on YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f5VpyFoznU&index=2&list=PL6PTtrPBAg9xuW8733IZ3IzYKIcQEVcmF The method most of these teacher training courses at the international level are recommending for active use of Latin in the classroom is the following. • Hans H. Ørberg, Lingua Latina per se illustrata, Hauniæ apud Museum Tusculanum 1991 [1981] https://lingualatina.dk/wp/ (the Italian Académía «Vívárium Novum», on which more below, has produced improved versions, and there is now a tremendous wealth of resources to accompany it, cf.: https://vivariumnovum.it/catalogo/latino/corso-base) This method is similar to our Reading Latin, but more efficiently paced and completely self-explanatory in Latin, requiring no use of any vernacular at all. I would like to offer a session on it at the refresher day. Don't doubt for a minute that teachers in other countries are not subject to equivalent curricular constraints to British ones, yet they are somehow managing to integrate this in their provision. Attending the Madrid inset will surely provide inspiration. Remember that most of the activities are in Latin, so no word of Spanish needed to benefit from the experience. FUTHER AFIELD If you pursue the above recommended line of action, you will probably find out at first hand in the process about everything else I'm going to add below, but here it is in case you want to know about it already, and if you have the time and patience to read on. When British Latinists discuss speaking Latin institutions, their hearts and thoughts do fly first and foremost to the USA and other English speaking countries. Deservingly so, as the progress being made in this area in that unapologising part of the world is absolutely amazing. Most of you are thus bound to have heard about the following initiatives, which are also the easiest for you to find out about on your own through Google (including videos on YouTube). • Institute for Latin Studies & Conventiculum Latinum of the University of Kentucky: https://mcl.as.uky.edu/latin-institute & https://mcl.as.uky.edu/conventiculum-latinum • Paideia Institute: http://www.paideiainstitute.org/ • North American Institute of Living Latin Studies (SALVI): http://latin.org/wordpress/ • University College Cork, in Ireland: https://www.ucc.ie/en/cnls/spokenlatin/ • Polis Institute, in Israel: http://www.polisjerusalem.org/ As Kentucky Prof. Terence Tunberg keeps repeating in his videos though, the breeding ground of all this was, and still strongly thrives, in continental Europe ... which happens to be reachable by train! I would like to make sure we remain alert to this too. A lot is being done, and a lot being achieved! ITALY • Académía «Vívárium Novum», currently based near Rome, has certainly obtained the greatest reputation, deservingly so on account of the level of fluency participants reach. It hosts male youths under 24 for free during the academic year (October to June), and has a summer school open to all of 4 weeks for €2,600 and 8 weeks for €5,400 with accommodation (26/6-20/8/2017): https://vivariumnovum.net/ (many videos on YouTube) • Schola Latina is run by a number of old partners of «Vívárium Novum» who have returned to Montella, in southern Italy, where it all started, and also offer summer courses. Website: http://www.scholalatina.it/ SPAIN Further to the CÆLVM inset mentioned above, I can recommend the following. • Collegium Latinitatis, an initiative of the University of Valencia also intent on improving teaching standards, with lots of resources to be found on this website (with some videos on YouTube): http://www.collegiumlatinitatis.com/ GERMANY • Societas Latina Saravipontana of the University of Saarland is the child of famous late Cælestis Eichenseer and still publishes the Latin periodical Vox Latina and organises two yearly spoken Latin seminars. Website (click on seminaria Latinitatis vivæ): http://www.voxlatina.uni-saarland.de/ • Septimanæ Latinæ Europææ, now more popular than the above, also has two yearly spoken Latin seminars for a younger audience. Website: http://www.septimanalatina.org/ • Latinitati Vivæ Provehendæ Associatio (LVPA) also organises immersion seminars, often in Eastern Europe (mostly Poland, although I once attended one in Serbia). Website: http://www.lvpa.de/ & an example of one of their Polish seminars: https://scholaaestivaposnaniensis.wordpress.com/2017/05/08/schola-aestiva-posnaniensis-mmxvii/ BELGIUM • Fundatio Melissa hosts the Circulus Latinus Bruxellensis, publishes the Latin periodical Melissa, and used to organise spoken Latin seminars in the summer, then a summer journey for a cosier group, and I think now nothing, perhaps due to the age of the organiser, radiology doctor C. Licoppe. Website: www.fundatiomelissa.org/ • Schola Nova is a private school that offers a strongly Græco-Latin curriculum with a living approach. Website (watch the video): http://www.scholanova.be/ NETHERLANDS • Athenæum Illustre organises since 2012 many one-day (I believe) spoken Latin conferences in Amsterdam. Website (many videos on YouTube): http://www.athenaeumillustre.org/ INTERNATIONAL • Académía Latínitátí Fovendæ organises scholarly conferences fully in Latin every four years (this year in Kentucky 27-31/7 for just $120 without accommodation), and they used to have a section on the website that attempted to gather information on all current living Latin initiatives, but seem to have given up on this — even though it is a very much needed service :-( Website: www.academialatinitatifovendae.org/ An alternative way to obtain information is through the many Latin Circles (not all of them active) and their websites, which you can find listed in several places, and for instance here: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1IErsi89dopBy9tPtiW2h12stDWs&hl=en_US&ll=8.800841462142246%2C133.480009&z=1 More on manuals I have already mentioned Desessard's Lingua Latina sine molestiá, and Ørberg's Lingua Latina per se illustrata, but this other one comes to mind too: • Rober Maier et all., Piper Salve, Cursus Vivæ Latinitatis, Recanati, ELI s.r.l., 1998. This was produced by the organisers of the Septimanæ Latinæ Europææ I mentioned above, and includes modern vocabulary and contexts. The website says its now out of print, but they have a new version: http://www.maierphil.de/PiperSal/ To be honest, there is still much room for improvement in the area of manuals to teach Latin in a spoken manner, and I and others have this very much in mind. However, a word of warning is necessary. Sufficiently good methods for teaching classical languages this way were already produced by W.H.D. Rouse as early as the beginning of the 20th Century. If his attempts were not successful it is because at the time (Rouse was active at Perse 1902-1928) the number of initiatives and opportunities for mastering living Latin that we have today had not yet developed. Now there is no excuse. Bringing to fruition the foundational aims of Rouse is completely in our hands! More on teacher training Being fluent in a language, even as a native speaker, doesn't automatically make one a good teacher of the same. One further needs specific training in the practical and effective teaching of that language. I mentioned above initiatives to train teachers in the spoken teaching of Latin. However, many of these techniques (communicative approach) can also be learnt by attending the much more prevalent teacher training courses for one's native tongue. International House is where I pursued mine (http://ihworld.com/teachers), but you will be able to find many other institutions. In my modest opinion, every Latin teacher should have a language teaching qualification for their own native language to start with. Many such courses can be completed part-time within one term. Universities Latin teaching is generally seen as a pursuit for primary and secondary education contexts. However, more and more universities are now teaching Latin language ab initio, so it is surely their concern too. Also, universities is where the future primary and secondary education teachers of Latin first receive their training in the language. Effective Latin teaching is thus the responsibility of university departments on a crucial double count. Spoken Latin is beneficial for the more specifically academic type of lecturing too, which deals with matters of literature, philosophy, history, and the like. During a lecture delivered in Latin a student receives the content knowledge all the same, while at the same time enriching their Latin and enhancing their familiarity with the language itself. It's a double win. University College London recently offered a Living Latin Workshop (cf. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ucl-living-latin-workshop-tickets-35076294140 & https://twitter.com/UCLlivinglatin) demonstrating a growing interest in exploring these options. We have seen above that a whole university programme in Latin is taught at the University of Kentucky, and the Polis Institute also offers programmes which are fully accredited by a supporting university. Other than that, I know some university lecturing in Latin taking place in Germany, at least in two different universities, although I don't seem to be able to find you a sample right now. I'm thinking of well-known Prof. Wilfried Stroh of Munich (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfried_Stroh) and of Prof. Axel Schönberger of Frankfurt (https://www.uni-frankfurt.de/43605276/schoenberger). [Of course a world-famous classicist, Prof. Michael von Albrecht, retired from Heidelberg (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_von_Albrecht), shouldn't be forgotten in this context, as he remains one of the most active proponents of living Latin, of whom you will find many videos in YouTube.] In Spain, the University of Valencia is integrating lecturing in Latin very prominently too, and you can visit the site where one lecturer offers his notes, bibliography, practical work, etc. for his courses on Sallust or Latin Morphology and Syntax, fully taught in Latin: http://jortaga.blogs.uv.es/ Research in Latin Other than lecturing as part of university courses, there are also many international conferences where public lecturers are delivered in Latin. There is a greater abundance of this in the so-called area of «Neo-Latin» studies, more attuned to the perennial use of the language, but not only. A couple of samples. • On Jacobus Pontanus (Naples) [see 12:12 onwards]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YC8dVMPtW4 • On Thomas More and his Utopia (Amsterdam): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQbsB4zp_d0 However, there is also a lot of written scholarship being published in Latin ... and regarding Greek, not only Latin, authors, as in the extensive treatises preceding the various volumes of Van der Valk's edition of Eustathius's commentary on the Iliad, published just in 1971. I come across instances of this all the time. Even the other day I found at Foyle's a book on some palæographic question published in the 80's, all in Latin. In fact, I have long thought that a crucial research project very much needed would be the compilation of a comprehensive bibliography of scholarship written in Latin in the contemporary period (from 1789), hopefully with a record/analysis of how much such literature is then quoted by further (Latin and non-Latin using) scholarship. While we wait for that, I can only show you some samples of what I know from friends. For instance, I have in front of me an article by Prof. Jonathan G.F. Powell, well-known editor of Cicero in the Bibliotheca Oxoniensis and for a long time visitor of the Circulus Latinus Londiniensis (with one of the most impeccable Latins I've ever heard), which he wrote on John Owen: • Jonathan G.F. Powell, «De Iohanne Audoeno, scriptore epigrammatum Cambrobritanno», O. Dilke & G. Townend (edd.), Acta omnium gentium ac nationum conventus sexti Latinis litteris linguæque fovendis: Britannia Latina (Kendaliæ: Wilson, 1986) 130–134. I see that this is in turn quoted in subsequent scholarship (at least here, here and here). Scholarly periodicals like Mnemosyne, Hermes, Museum Helveticum, etc. also publish Latin articles from time to time. Again, from friends (Polish and Spanish), I can show you the following two: • Konrad M. Kokoszkiewicz (Mnemosyne 58, 2005) A. Gellius Noctes Atticae 16.2.6: tamquam si te dicas adulterum negent: http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/1568525053420743 (in fact, I now see this was his second Latin article, and he has gone on to publish several more, in various academic periodicals, the last one in Eranos 2010-11: http://www.obta.uw.edu.pl/~draco/) • Jorge Tárrega Garrido (Museum Helveticum 71, 2014) De hominum appellationibus in Ciceronis Epistulis ad Atticum: http://www.e-periodica.ch/digbib/%20view?var=true&pid=mhl-001:2014:71::143 Although several universities still accept PhD theses in Latin (certainly Prof. von Albrecht's Heidelberg), I'm not sure how often this option has been used. The jewel in the crown of this section about research produced in Latin must therefore be the whole 400 pages of a most recent PhD thesis of 2015 defended at the University of Valencia: • Mª Luisa Aguilar, Studia Varroniana: de titulis Varronis eorumque origine ac rationibus (resumen in Spanish, pp. I-XLIV, but body in Latin, pp. 1-389): http://roderic.uv.es/bitstream/handle/10550/46825/tesis_mlaguilar.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y Research about Latin There is also increasing academic activity written in the vernacular but about living Latin. Most importantly, a new PhD thesis of 2017 from the OU: • Mair E. Lloyd, Living Latin: Exploring a Communicative Approach to Latin Teaching Through a Sociocultural Perspective on Language Learning: http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/the_orb/?p=2120 Also, the findings of a Census Latinus carried out in 2009 were just published in 2017, and a new edition of the same is expected to take place also before the end of the year (watch this space): • Eduardo Engelsing, Census Latinus 2009: Goals, Data Collected, Importance, Perspectives: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/658989/pdf A not so off-the-press contribution of 2012 also makes for very interesting reading: • Neil Coffee, Active Latin: Quo Tendimus?: http://www.academia.edu/3830834/Active_Latin_Quo_Tendimus This will have to do for now, I think. ;-) Vivat floreatque lingua Latina! Curate ut valeatis!
1 Comment
Paul Scott
8/1/2018 08:41:45 am
Ego in Nova Zelandia habito. Pauci (praeter me) hac in terra infeliciter studium Latine loquendi habere videntur.
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