Latin: A "Foreign" Language
Mary Stein
I believe what Emma was saying is this: Latin as it is taught is
not what it is represented to be. While Latin is represented to be a
cohesive and continuous body of classical scholarship, it is in fact
a patched-together attempt at resurrecting a "dead language" which
had long since passed from all usage. Latin was seized upon, merely
as an elitist exercise about 16th century, and decided that men would
try to reconstruct how the language MIGHT have been taught, MIGHT have
been spoken, how the grammar MIGHT have been presented as to the
ancients. The mistake the Latin student is invited to stumble into is
to take at face value any real "classical" significance Latin [as
taught] may have ever had.
Latin "a foreign language" has interesting parallels with the jewish
ethnicity and jewish religion. Particularly, Ashkenazic jews as myself
are also lead to believe that their religion is continuous and a
bonafide successor to ancient Palestinian, Biblical jewry. It is not.
Ashkenazic jews are, instead, persons who accepted Judaism as a
proselyte religion at about the 9th century AD. Since, that time,
"jews" have been continuously revisiting the ancient Palestinian
literature and customs and grafting them back into their religion in
attempt to endow it with "a greater sense of authenticity and
historical relevance". Much as a self-professing American of supposed
Scotch ancestry might adopt some nonsensical "coat of arms", begin
having his family wear kilts on special occasions, and similarly graft
back into his family's traditions which he perceives were customs that
he considers SHOULD be included in family traditions. It wouldn't be
too very long before there developed a confusion about just what was
a continuous, discrete custom and what was in fact grafted back into
the mosaic of customs and history.
This intentional blurring [the road to Hell...] of history, linguistics,
and, traditions is not conducive to developing accurate histories or
study of language. The only "classical" heritage which Latin a "foreign
language" contains is that is has been presented for quite some time
as a "classic". Therefore, it has become such. An intelligent person
will understand the hoax element of that presentation, just as an
informed Ashenazic or Sephardic "jew" would look further than Talmudic
liturgical babblings to discover a true racial heritage in history
and linguistics.
Joseph Raymond Frechette
Mary Stein (m...@bios.adm.net) wrote:
: I believe what Emma was saying is this: Latin as it is taught is
: not what it is represented to be. While Latin is represented to be a
: cohesive and continuous body of classical scholarship, it is in fact
: a patched-together attempt at resurrecting a "dead language" which
: had long since passed from all usage. Latin was seized upon, merely
: as an elitist exercise about 16th century, and decided that men would
: try to reconstruct how the language MIGHT have been taught, MIGHT have
: been spoken, how the grammar MIGHT have been presented as to the
: ancients. The mistake the Latin student is invited to stumble into is
: to take at face value any real "classical" significance Latin [as
: taught] may have ever had.
But Latin was hardly unknown before the 16th century. Classical Latin
literature was preserved and read throughout the Middle Ages. It was the
language of the Church and of scholarship. It is admittedly a tenuous
connection but it is there. I don't think I follow your point about the
"classical" significance of Latin as taught. You certainly cannot be
arguing that it is anything other than indispensable for scholarly study
of the classics and ancient history. We may not know with absolute
certainty what the pronunciation of classical Latin actually was and what
some of the more idiomatic expressions may have been but we have the
texts and we can read and interpret them properly. What's the Beef?
Richard A. Schulman
On Wed, 18 Jun 1997 16:31:24 -0600, Mary Stein <m...@bios.adm.net>
wrote:
>I believe what Emma was saying is this: Latin as it is taught is
>not what it is represented to be. While Latin is represented to be a
>cohesive and continuous body of classical scholarship, it is in fact
>a patched-together attempt at resurrecting a "dead language" which
>had long since passed from all usage. Latin was seized upon, merely
>as an elitist exercise about 16th century, and decided that men would
>try to reconstruct how the language MIGHT have been taught, MIGHT have
>been spoken, how the grammar MIGHT have been presented as to the
>ancients.
Mary, did you ever hear of the European Middle Ages? What was the
language of the Church, its clergy, and the Mass during that period?
What language were most philosophical and scientific works written in,
continuously down to the 17th or 18th century?
> The mistake the Latin student is invited to stumble into is
>to take at face value any real "classical" significance Latin [as
>taught] may have ever had.
This meaning here is unclear. Is English a foreign language to you
too?
> An intelligent person
>will understand the hoax element of that presentation,
Your evidence? You surely aren't going to cite the poorly written
posts of Emma Golden, Ivan the Crazy, or yourself as witness?
Is there one certifiably intelligent person you can cite who has
published a study demonstrating that Latin had been dead for a
millenium until a 16th century hoax re-invented it; gave it a
spurious, concocted grammar; and ran a marketing campaign to convince
people that it was classic?
---
Richard A. Schulman (RASch...@nospam.worldnet.att.net)
// To email me, remove the "nospam."
Crazy
RASch...@nospam.worldnet.att.net (Richard A. Schulman) wrote:
>On Wed, 18 Jun 1997 16:31:24 -0600, Mary Stein <m...@bios.adm.net>
>wrote:
>>I believe what Emma was saying is this: Latin as it is taught is
>>not what it is represented to be.
A true statement.
>>While Latin is represented to be a
>>cohesive and continuous body of classical scholarship, it is in fact
>>a patched-together attempt at resurrecting a "dead language" which
>>had long since passed from all usage.
Also a true statement.
>>Latin was seized upon, merely
>>as an elitist exercise about 16th century, and decided that men would
>>try to reconstruct how the language MIGHT have been taught, MIGHT have
>>been spoken, how the grammar MIGHT have been presented as to the
>>ancients.
No. It isn't a MIGHT. It is an established fact that Latin was NOT
spoken that way.
>Mary, did you ever hear of the European Middle Ages? What was the
>language of the Church, its clergy, and the Mass during that period?
>What language were most philosophical and scientific works written in,
>continuously down to the 17th or 18th century?
That's not the point. The point is that written Latin, the way it is
taught now in schools, the Latin of Cicero, was always a dead language
- now and then. Nobody spoke it that way (not even Cicero - after all
if he spoke it that way he wrote it, nobody'd understand him) and it
is pure idiocy to insist on teaching innocent kids English (and other
languages in general) by insisting on "classical models" and other
such crap. Classicims implies something beautiful, harmonious and
worthy. The Latin of Cicero, the Latin that yo'all teach is so goddamn
ugly that if it was a whore, it would be the ugliest whore south of
the Dixie Line. There's nothing even remotely classical about it.
Teaching it to children and teens is a mental violence, a cruel,
criminal act of the worst kind. There's no reason for such abuse.
>> The mistake the Latin student is invited to stumble into is
>>to take at face value any real "classical" significance Latin [as
>>taught] may have ever had.
Exactly.
>This meaning here is unclear. Is English a foreign language to you
>too?
English is language of communications - not a language of mental
masturbation that written Latin was. The reasons might become clear to
you if you consider the significance of the printed word then and now.
How many people actually read what someone wrote? THAT Latin was, as
Emma correctly pointed out, a voodoo exercise of the rich, privillaged
few who had nothing better to do but to engage in amusing languge
riddles. What they wrote was as much foreign to them as it was to
their slaves, as it is now to everyone who reads it. But nobody cared,
for the press wasn't invented until some time later on.
If no one object over the fact that the Egyptian priests wrote
unintelligable, why would anyone back then object that Cicero wrote
like an idiot? (Sanskrit? - same shit. If anyone wanted to reveal to
you the mysteries of the Veda, it would be very unlikely that you'd
have to read a manuscript and, having realised how lost you were in
the "language of the Gods", you'd rush to Paanini and study his
grammar. But, alas, it didn't happened that way.)
...But now, that we know better, to insist on some imagined
"classicism", some inherent beauty and logic, is simply arrogant.
>> An intelligent person
>>will understand the hoax element of that presentation,
Precisely.
>Your evidence? You surely aren't going to cite the poorly written
>posts of Emma Golden, Ivan the Crazy, or yourself as witness?
>Is there one certifiably intelligent person you can cite who h]as
>published a study demonstrating that Latin had been dead for a
>millenium
It was always dead.
>until a 16th century hoax re-invented it; gave it a
>spurious, concocted grammar; and ran a marketing campaign to convince
>people that it was classic?
"A glance at the facts of Latin morphology, as they are preserved in
any full Latin grammar, or in Brugman's _Grundriss_, or in Lindsay's
_Latin Language_, where large masses of facts, which defy
classification are brought together, furnishes convincing evidence
that irregularity and absence of system are not merely occasional but
are the FUNDAMENTAL characteristics of Latin form-building."
Professor E.P. Morris, a linguist
"Nobody who has wasted a painful youth in bringing together what Latin
authors had torn asunder or in separating what should never have been
together, will deny that the word order of literary Latin was
amazingly 'free'. In reality, this so called free word order was the
greatest impediment to quick grasp of texts, never composed, as are
modern books for rapid reading by working people."
"It [Latin] was the exclusive speciality of literary coteries
tyrannized by cadence, mesmerized by meter, and enslaved by Greek
models."
Professor F. Bodmer, a philologist
Love,
-= Ivan =-
---
Plato, of course, sucks.
Richard A. Schulman
On Fri, 20 Jun 1997 07:09:16 GMT, Iv...@mindspring.com (Crazy) wrote:
> That's not the point. The point is that written Latin, the way it is
>taught now in schools, the Latin of Cicero, was always a dead language
>- now and then. Nobody spoke it that way (not even Cicero - after all
>if he spoke it that way he wrote it, nobody'd understand him)
Oh, I see. If someone writes in a way not used in speech, they are
using a dead language. Very good, Ivan. No need to waste time on verse
any more.
Homer wrote in hexameter. Nobody talks in hexameter. Bye, Homer. Bye,
Vergil.
Or blank verse. Toodle-oo, Shakespeare.
Or strophic rhymes. Kiss off, Shelley. Kiss off, Keats.
But why stop with verse? Ivan has shown that rhetorical language is
"out" also. No need to read Cicero any more. Or Lincoln's Gettysburg
Address. Ivan hasn't ever heard language like that in the Boys' Room,
so it could never have been spoken and must be dead.
>Classicims implies something beautiful, harmonious and
>worthy. The Latin of Cicero, the Latin that yo'all teach is so goddamn
>ugly that if it was a whore, it would be the ugliest whore south of
>the Dixie Line.
Ivan, you are setting yourself up for the rejoinder: "How can we know
for sure until we've seen your girl friend and your mother?"
>How many people actually read what someone wrote?
One is impressed by your consistency in posting this to a Usenet
group.
> If no one object over the fact that the Egyptian priests wrote
>unintelligable, why would anyone back then object that Cicero wrote
>like an idiot? (Sanskrit? - same shit. [...]
On the basis of the writing sample above, I would have to agree that
for you, studying Latin would indeed be a cruel and unusual
punishment. You clearly need to be in an English remedial writing
course, not a course in Ciceronian Latin. But try not to project your
own academic deficiencies on the entire high school population.
> "A glance at the facts of Latin morphology, as they are preserved in
>any full Latin grammar, or in Brugman's _Grundriss_, or in Lindsay's
>_Latin Language_, where large masses of facts, which defy
>classification are brought together, furnishes convincing evidence
>that irregularity and absence of system are not merely occasional but
>are the FUNDAMENTAL characteristics of Latin form-building."
>
> Professor E.P. Morris, a linguist
>
> "Nobody who has wasted a painful youth in bringing together what Latin
>authors had torn asunder or in separating what should never have been
>together, will deny that the word order of literary Latin was
>amazingly 'free'. In reality, this so called free word order was the
>greatest impediment to quick grasp of texts, never composed, as are
>modern books for rapid reading by working people."
> "It [Latin] was the exclusive speciality of literary coteries
>tyrannized by cadence, mesmerized by meter, and enslaved by Greek
>models."
>
> Professor F. Bodmer, a philologist
Could you honor us with full citations (title, publication data, page,
etc.)? Without that, these quotes might as well be customer
testimonials for ginzu knives.
>Plato, of course, sucks.
This comment has nothing to do with the rest of your post, other than
revealing you to be an illiterate adolescent scribbler and would-be
troll, who hasn't the integrity to sign his full name to his posts.
Richard A. Schulman
On Fri, 20 Jun 1997 07:09:16 GMT, Iv...@mindspring.com (Crazy) wrote:
> That's not the point. The point is that written Latin, the way it is
>taught now in schools, the Latin of Cicero, was always a dead language
>- now and then. Nobody spoke it that way (not even Cicero - after all
>if he spoke it that way he wrote it, nobody'd understand him)
Oh, I see. If someone writes in a way not used in speech, they are
using a dead language. Very good, Ivan. No need to waste time on verse
any more.
Homer wrote in hexameter. Nobody talks in hexameter. Bye, Homer. Bye,
Vergil.
Or blank verse. Toodle-oo, Shakespeare.
Or strophic rhymes. Kiss off, Shelley. Kiss off, Keats.
But why stop with verse? Ivan has shown that rhetorical language is
"out" also. No need to read Cicero any more. Or Lincoln's Gettysburg
Address. Ivan hasn't ever heard language like that in the Boys' Room,
so it could never have been spoken and must be dead.
>Classicims implies something beautiful, harmonious and
>worthy. The Latin of Cicero, the Latin that yo'all teach is so goddamn
>ugly that if it was a whore, it would be the ugliest whore south of
>the Dixie Line.
Ivan, you are setting yourself up for the rejoinder: "How can we know
for sure until we've seen your girl friend and your mother?"
>How many people actually read what someone wrote?
One is impressed by your consistency in posting this to a Usenet
group.
> If no one object over the fact that the Egyptian priests wrote
>unintelligable, why would anyone back then object that Cicero wrote
>like an idiot? (Sanskrit? - same shit. [...]
On the basis of the writing sample above, I would have to agree that
for you, studying Latin would indeed be a cruel and unusual
punishment. You clearly need to be in an English remedial writing
course, not a course in Ciceronian Latin. But try not to project your
own academic deficiencies on the entire high school population.
> "A glance at the facts of Latin morphology, as they are preserved in
>any full Latin grammar, or in Brugman's _Grundriss_, or in Lindsay's
>_Latin Language_, where large masses of facts, which defy
>classification are brought together, furnishes convincing evidence
>that irregularity and absence of system are not merely occasional but
>are the FUNDAMENTAL characteristics of Latin form-building."
>
> Professor E.P. Morris, a linguist
>
> "Nobody who has wasted a painful youth in bringing together what Latin
>authors had torn asunder or in separating what should never have been
>together, will deny that the word order of literary Latin was
>amazingly 'free'. In reality, this so called free word order was the
>greatest impediment to quick grasp of texts, never composed, as are
>modern books for rapid reading by working people."
> "It [Latin] was the exclusive speciality of literary coteries
>tyrannized by cadence, mesmerized by meter, and enslaved by Greek
>models."
>
> Professor F. Bodmer, a philologist
Could you honor us with full citations (title, publication data, page,
Richard A. Schulman
On Fri, 20 Jun 1997 07:09:16 GMT, Iv...@mindspring.com (Crazy) wrote:
> That's not the point. The point is that written Latin, the way it is
>taught now in schools, the Latin of Cicero, was always a dead language
>- now and then. Nobody spoke it that way (not even Cicero - after all
>if he spoke it that way he wrote it, nobody'd understand him)
Oh, I see. If someone writes in a way not used in speech, they are
using a dead language. Very good, Ivan. No need to waste time on verse
any more.
Homer wrote in hexameter. Nobody talks in hexameter. Bye, Homer. Bye,
Vergil.
Or blank verse. Toodle-oo, Shakespeare.
Or strophic rhymes. Kiss off, Shelley. Kiss off, Keats.
But why stop with verse? Ivan has shown that rhetorical language is
"out" also. No need to read Cicero any more. Or Lincoln's Gettysburg
Address. Ivan hasn't ever heard language like that in the Boys' Room,
so it could never have been spoken and must be dead.
>Classicims implies something beautiful, harmonious and
>worthy. The Latin of Cicero, the Latin that yo'all teach is so goddamn
>ugly that if it was a whore, it would be the ugliest whore south of
>the Dixie Line.
Ivan, you are setting yourself up for the rejoinder: "How can we know
for sure until we've seen your girl friend and your mother?"
>How many people actually read what someone wrote?
One is impressed by your consistency in posting this to a Usenet
group.
> If no one object over the fact that the Egyptian priests wrote
>unintelligable, why would anyone back then object that Cicero wrote
>like an idiot? (Sanskrit? - same shit. [...]
On the basis of the writing sample above, I would have to agree that
for you, studying Latin would indeed be a cruel and unusual
punishment. You clearly need to be in an English remedial writing
course, not a course in Ciceronian Latin. But try not to project your
own academic deficiencies on the entire high school population.
> "A glance at the facts of Latin morphology, as they are preserved in
>any full Latin grammar, or in Brugman's _Grundriss_, or in Lindsay's
>_Latin Language_, where large masses of facts, which defy
>classification are brought together, furnishes convincing evidence
>that irregularity and absence of system are not merely occasional but
>are the FUNDAMENTAL characteristics of Latin form-building."
>
> Professor E.P. Morris, a linguist
>
> "Nobody who has wasted a painful youth in bringing together what Latin
>authors had torn asunder or in separating what should never have been
>together, will deny that the word order of literary Latin was
>amazingly 'free'. In reality, this so called free word order was the
>greatest impediment to quick grasp of texts, never composed, as are
>modern books for rapid reading by working people."
> "It [Latin] was the exclusive speciality of literary coteries
>tyrannized by cadence, mesmerized by meter, and enslaved by Greek
>models."
>
> Professor F. Bodmer, a philologist
Could you honor us with full citations (title, publication data, page,
Richard A. Schulman
On Fri, 20 Jun 1997 07:09:16 GMT, Iv...@mindspring.com (Crazy) wrote:
> That's not the point. The point is that written Latin, the way it is
>taught now in schools, the Latin of Cicero, was always a dead language
>- now and then. Nobody spoke it that way (not even Cicero - after all
>if he spoke it that way he wrote it, nobody'd understand him)
Oh, I see. If someone writes in a way not used in speech, they are
using a dead language. Very good, Ivan. No need to waste time on verse
any more.
Homer wrote in hexameter. Nobody talks in hexameter. Bye, Homer. Bye,
Vergil.
Or blank verse. Toodle-oo, Shakespeare.
Or strophic rhymes. Kiss off, Shelley. Kiss off, Keats.
But why stop with verse? Ivan has shown that rhetorical language is
"out" also. No need to read Cicero any more. Or Lincoln's Gettysburg
Address. Ivan hasn't ever heard language like that in the Boys' Room,
so it could never have been spoken and must be dead.
>Classicims implies something beautiful, harmonious and
>worthy. The Latin of Cicero, the Latin that yo'all teach is so goddamn
>ugly that if it was a whore, it would be the ugliest whore south of
>the Dixie Line.
Ivan, you are setting yourself up for the rejoinder: "How can we know
for sure until we've seen your girl friend and your mother?"
>How many people actually read what someone wrote?
One is impressed by your consistency in posting this to a Usenet
group.
> If no one object over the fact that the Egyptian priests wrote
>unintelligable, why would anyone back then object that Cicero wrote
>like an idiot? (Sanskrit? - same shit. [...]
On the basis of the writing sample above, I would have to agree that
for you, studying Latin would indeed be a cruel and unusual
punishment. You clearly need to be in an English remedial writing
course, not a course in Ciceronian Latin. But try not to project your
own academic deficiencies on the entire high school population.
> "A glance at the facts of Latin morphology, as they are preserved in
>any full Latin grammar, or in Brugman's _Grundriss_, or in Lindsay's
>_Latin Language_, where large masses of facts, which defy
>classification are brought together, furnishes convincing evidence
>that irregularity and absence of system are not merely occasional but
>are the FUNDAMENTAL characteristics of Latin form-building."
>
> Professor E.P. Morris, a linguist
>
> "Nobody who has wasted a painful youth in bringing together what Latin
>authors had torn asunder or in separating what should never have been
>together, will deny that the word order of literary Latin was
>amazingly 'free'. In reality, this so called free word order was the
>greatest impediment to quick grasp of texts, never composed, as are
>modern books for rapid reading by working people."
> "It [Latin] was the exclusive speciality of literary coteries
>tyrannized by cadence, mesmerized by meter, and enslaved by Greek
>models."
>
> Professor F. Bodmer, a philologist
Could you honor us with full citations (title, publication data, page,
Joseph Raymond Frechette
Crazy (Iv...@mindspring.com) wrote:
: RASch...@nospam.worldnet.att.net (Richard A. Schulman) wrote:
: >On Wed, 18 Jun 1997 16:31:24 -0600, Mary Stein <m...@bios.adm.net>
: >wrote:
: >>I believe what Emma was saying is this: Latin as it is taught is
: >>not what it is represented to be.
: A true statement.
I teach Latin, and I'm curious. In what way am I misrepresenting it?
: >>While Latin is represented to be a
: >>cohesive and continuous body of classical scholarship, it is in fact
: >>a patched-together attempt at resurrecting a "dead language" which
: >>had long since passed from all usage.
: Also a true statement.
The final nails in the coffin did not come until Vatican II as far as the
several hundred thousand catholics around the world are concerned. Its
utility and usage for scholars is still great. Even if someone is not
reading the classics in the original, Latin is indispensable for
scholars of the Middle Ages and the CHurch. Nevermind the Rennaisance,
philosphy, the Enlightenment, etc.
: >>Latin was seized upon, merely
: >>as an elitist exercise about 16th century, and decided that men would
: >>try to reconstruct how the language MIGHT have been taught, MIGHT have
: >>been spoken, how the grammar MIGHT have been presented as to the
: >>ancients.
: No. It isn't a MIGHT. It is an established fact that Latin was NOT
: spoken that way.
What about Terence and Plautus? I doubt that comedy was in anything other
than the vernacular. What about the graphitti at Pompeii and elsewhere? I
doubt that that was in anything other than the vernacular. There are other
examples of popular Latin but I think I've made my point.
: >Mary, did you ever hear of the European Middle Ages? What was the
: >language of the Church, its clergy, and the Mass during that period?
: >What language were most philosophical and scientific works written in,
: >continuously down to the 17th or 18th century?
: That's not the point. The point is that written Latin, the way it is
: taught now in schools, the Latin of Cicero, was always a dead language
: - now and then. Nobody spoke it that way (not even Cicero - after all
: if he spoke it that way he wrote it, nobody'd understand him) and it
: is pure idiocy to insist on teaching innocent kids English (and other
: languages in general) by insisting on "classical models" and other
: such crap. Classicims implies something beautiful, harmonious and
: worthy. The Latin of Cicero, the Latin that yo'all teach is so goddamn
: ugly that if it was a whore, it would be the ugliest whore south of
: the Dixie Line. There's nothing even remotely classical about it.
: Teaching it to children and teens is a mental violence, a cruel,
: criminal act of the worst kind. There's no reason for such abuse.
Teaching proper grammar is anything other than abuse. Cicero is an
advanced author and he is difficult, I probably wouldn't subject my kids
to him until their third or fourth year, but, simply because he wrote in
a good style with excellent command of the language does not mean it would
have been unintelligible to anyone with a similarly good command of the
language. Remember that a good deal of Cicero's writings were personal
letters to friends and family, why would he have wanted them to be
incomprehensible? Why would Roman poets whose works were read publically
and over dinner not want their audiences to understand them? Why would
their audiences want to hear them?
: >> The mistake the Latin student is invited to stumble into is
: >>to take at face value any real "classical" significance Latin [as
: >>taught] may have ever had.
: Exactly.
So Latin has no relevence to the study of history, literature, philosophy,
science, or political thought? Please.
: >This meaning here is unclear. Is English a foreign language to you
: >too?
: English is language of communications - not a language of mental
: masturbation that written Latin was. The reasons might become clear to
: you if you consider the significance of the printed word then and now.
: How many people actually read what someone wrote? THAT Latin was, as
: Emma correctly pointed out, a voodoo exercise of the rich, privillaged
: few who had nothing better to do but to engage in amusing languge
: riddles. What they wrote was as much foreign to them as it was to
: their slaves, as it is now to everyone who reads it.
What about the people that went to the Latin theatre, read Latin letters,
read Latin graphitti, and listened to Latin poets? Were these people all
simply wasting their time? I think not.
: ...But now, that we know better, to insist on some imagined
: "classicism", some inherent beauty and logic, is simply arrogant.
Whose talking about beauty and logic? What about use and utility?
Latin certainly had those in spades.
: >Your evidence? You surely aren't going to cite the poorly written
: >posts of Emma Golden, Ivan the Crazy, or yourself as witness?
: >Is there one certifiably intelligent person you can cite who h]as
: >published a study demonstrating that Latin had been dead for a
: >millenium
: It was always dead.
THere is planty of evidence for Latin as a living language. See above.
: "A glance at the facts of Latin morphology, as they are preserved in
: any full Latin grammar, or in Brugman's _Grundriss_, or in Lindsay's
: _Latin Language_, where large masses of facts, which defy
: classification are brought together, furnishes convincing evidence
: that irregularity and absence of system are not merely occasional but
: are the FUNDAMENTAL characteristics of Latin form-building."
And probably of a good number of other languages. What's the point.
English certainly has no lack of irregularity.
: "Nobody who has wasted a painful youth in bringing together what Latin
: authors had torn asunder or in separating what should never have been
: together, will deny that the word order of literary Latin was
: amazingly 'free'. In reality, this so called free word order was the
: greatest impediment to quick grasp of texts, never composed, as are
: modern books for rapid reading by working people."
Sounds like sour grapes from an unhappy student. He won't get much
sympathy from me.
: "It [Latin] was the exclusive speciality of literary coteries
: tyrannized by cadence, mesmerized by meter, and enslaved by Greek
: models."
I see. So what peole spoke on the streets of Rome was some other language
in no way related to written Latin? Hogwash. I refer you again to the
Roman theatre and to graphitti. It IS in Latin, not some other language.
: Plato, of course, sucks.
I see. You may believe that if you wish but the fact that you would make
such a ridiculous and out of context statement does not fill me with
confidence for your judgement.
--
Homo doctus in se semper divitias habet.
schuster
> Plato, of course, sucks.
Can't argue there, but...
Was not a vulgar Latin the Lingua Franca for intercourse
between people traveling or exchanging ideas for 1600 odd years?
When a man from Spain and a man from France conversed in 800, didn't
they grope their way through a street Latin? A pigeon Latin based on
smoothing the differences of the romantic vernaculars?
English spoken in India today is understandable, yet it may have a
syntax born of its place, common to most native speakers, yet alien to
an American grammar. Similarly, Latin taught in schools may never have
existed, but the language it tries to rationalize did. The
rationalization of a language is in the nature of an attempt at
translating syntax between languages. One refering to Smythe's Greek
Grammar is aware at every page that Smythe's processes for rationalizing
Greek are artificial templates to help the English speaker, not
reflections of the thought process of the Attics. Yet how else can we
learn to read Greek?
Literary Latin may have been an artifice, but I think not of the
Renaisance. Windbags and rhetoricians probably spoke a formal and
stilted Latin continuously through its whole history.
Please be civil in attacking my thoughts, and refrain from attacking my
person.
Steve Schuster
Crazy
RASch...@nospam.worldnet.att.net (Richard A. Schulman) wrote:
>Ivan, you are setting yourself up for the rejoinder: "How can we know
>for sure until we've seen your girl friend and your mother?"
My mother and my girlfriend are irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
<snip>
>One is impressed by your consistency in posting this to a Usenet
>group.
<snip>
>On the basis of the writing sample above, I would have to agree that
>for you, studying Latin would indeed be a cruel and unusual
>punishment. You clearly need to be in an English remedial writing
>course, not a course in Ciceronian Latin. But try not to project your
>own academic deficiencies on the entire high school population.
Mr. Schulman, if you cannot handle the arguments and feel like you
need to resort to personal attacks, there's no point in discussing
the issues with you. You should do well to concentrate on the
arguments at hand and not on my humble persona.
I don't call you anything so, please, refrain from calling me names.
It is only good manners. If you have anything at all to say on the
subject, go ahead and say it. Personal insults will not help you.
>> "A glance at the facts of Latin morphology, as they are preserved in
>>any full Latin grammar, or in Brugman's _Grundriss_, or in Lindsay's
>>_Latin Language_, where large masses of facts, which defy
>>classification are brought together, furnishes convincing evidence
>>that irregularity and absence of system are not merely occasional but
>>are the FUNDAMENTAL characteristics of Latin form-building."
>>
>> Professor E.P. Morris, a linguist
>>
>> "Nobody who has wasted a painful youth in bringing together what Latin
>>authors had torn asunder or in separating what should never have been
>>together, will deny that the word order of literary Latin was
>>amazingly 'free'. In reality, this so called free word order was the
>>greatest impediment to quick grasp of texts, never composed, as are
>>modern books for rapid reading by working people."
>> "It [Latin] was the exclusive speciality of literary coteries
>>tyrannized by cadence, mesmerized by meter, and enslaved by Greek
>>models."
>>
>> Professor F. Bodmer, a philologist
>Could you honor us with full citations (title, publication data, page,
>etc.)? Without that, these quotes might as well be customer
>testimonials for ginzu knives.
I sure could.
...But what good would that do you? If I do, would you apologize and
admit your incompetency?
>>Plato, of course, sucks.
>This comment has nothing to do with the rest of your post,
That's why it is at the very bottom. Mr. Schulman, you surely must've
heard about something called a "sig". It is a quote, a statement or a
verse that people attach to their posts to express certain sentiments.
The Sig (short for "signature") does not have to be related to the
post.
>other than
>revealing you to be an illiterate adolescent scribbler and would-be
>troll, who hasn't the integrity to sign his full name to his posts.
Please, do refrain from calling me names. I treat you kindly so give
me a favour and be kind as well. If we meet face to face, you'd be
ashamed of yourself. Do concentrate on the issue, not on the
personalities invovled.
Love,
-= Ivan =-
Ivan Vasilev
Crazy
schuster <schu...@sinewave.com> wrote:
>> Plato, of course, sucks.
>Can't argue there, but...
> Was not a vulgar Latin the Lingua Franca for intercourse
>between people traveling or exchanging ideas for 1600 odd years?
>When a man from Spain and a man from France conversed in 800, didn't
>they grope their way through a street Latin? A pigeon Latin based on
>smoothing the differences of the romantic vernaculars?
True.
> English spoken in India today is understandable, yet it may have a
>syntax born of its place, common to most native speakers, yet alien to
>an American grammar. Similarly, Latin taught in schools may never have
>existed, but the language it tries to rationalize did.
True.
> The
>rationalization of a language is in the nature of an attempt at
>translating syntax between languages. One refering to Smythe's Greek
>Grammar is aware at every page that Smythe's processes for rationalizing
>Greek are artificial templates to help the English speaker, not
>reflections of the thought process of the Attics. Yet how else can we
>learn to read Greek?
> Literary Latin may have been an artifice, but I think not of the
>Renaisance. Windbags and rhetoricians probably spoke a formal and
>stilted Latin continuously through its whole history.
Not true. Rhetoricians' didn't speak in the way they wrote. A
delivered speach was a different animal than the written one.
You made good point about Vulgar Latin. The people spoke it and it
made sense. It was the forefather of Italian and the romance
languages. But, according to the "learned ones" it was ...well,
vulgar, and not worthy of attention. It ignored most of the st00pid
rules the so called Classical Latin had. Someone trying to write in
Vulgar Latin would be considered with as much disdain as the people
nowadays who ignore grammar, spelling and conventions when they write
English. The idiotic snobs back then did not differ much from the
idiotic snobs nowadays.
The connection between Vulgar Latin and Classical Latin cannot be
denied, for, obviously, it was the same language. BUT, what is being
taught in schools nowadays is the so called Classic Latin. There's
nothing wrong with that, mind you, as long as the "learned ones"
refrain from big statements about beauty, harmony and all that and
stick to the fact that what they're teaching is a contraption, an
artificial way of resembling a communication attempt that was very
remote from the day to day speech of Rome. It might be useful to study
it as means of gaining an insight to the how the romance languages
developed, but insisting on structure and logic, where none exists,
and insisting on presenting that language as a model through which
other languages might be learned, is very idiotic. English resembles
more Chinese than it does "Classical" Latin, vocabulary
notwithstanding.
...There are some people in India who still insist on learning and
teaching Sanskrit, but hardly anyone would entertain the notion that
Sanskirt is a logical, well structured and useful model for learning
other languages. :-)) Paanini himself was confused enough when he
wrote his grammar to miss a number of important points in Vedic
grammar and distort others. That's because he was doing the same thing
others are currently doing now - trying to see order and harmony where
non-exist and force some by formulating rules of his own and
presenting that as some standard.
>Please be civil in attacking my thoughts, and refrain from attacking my
>person.
>Steve Schuster
Moi?? I'd never!!
Love,
-= Ivan =-
---
BBB
T.H. Chance
In article <33aa5ec5...@netnews2.worldnet.att.net>,
RASch...@nospam.worldnet.att.net wrote:
>> If no one object over the fact that the Egyptian priests wrote
>>unintelligable, why would anyone back then object that Cicero wrote
>>like an idiot? (Sanskrit? - same shit. [...]
>
>On the basis of the writing sample above, I would have to agree that
>for you, studying Latin would indeed be a cruel and unusual
>punishment. You clearly need to be in an English remedial writing
>course, not a course in Ciceronian Latin. But try not to project your
>own academic deficiencies on the entire high school population.
It may be, Richard, that we have found another general area where we can
reach agreement. I tend to believe that some people are so stupid that
they no longer deserve rational refutation. Invective will do very nicely
for them. What do you think?
thc
Richard A. Schulman
On Fri, 20 Jun 1997 22:15:32 GMT, Iv...@mindspring.com (Crazy) wrote:
> Mr. Schulman...You should do well to concentrate on the
>arguments at hand and not on my humble persona.
Your persona -- the one you gave yourself -- isn't "Humble".
It's "Crazy".
> I don't call you anything so, please, refrain from calling me names.
>It is only good manners. If you have anything at all to say on the
>subject, go ahead and say it. Personal insults will not help you.
You have been insulting the English language, and our ears, with your
profanities. And now you want to play the part of the wounded
gentleman?
(See what happens, Ivan, when you refuse to study Cicero and Martial?
You get beaten up on the Internet for lack of declamatory and
epigrammatic skills.)
[Ivan wrote]:
>>> "A glance at the facts of Latin morphology, as they are preserved in
>>>any full Latin grammar, or in Brugman's _Grundriss_, or in Lindsay's
>>>_Latin Language_, where large masses of facts, which defy
>>>classification are brought together, furnishes convincing evidence
>>>that irregularity and absence of system are not merely occasional but
>>>are the FUNDAMENTAL characteristics of Latin form-building."
>>>
>>> Professor E.P. Morris, a linguist
>>>
>>> "Nobody who has wasted a painful youth in bringing together what Latin
>>>authors had torn asunder or in separating what should never have been
>>>together, will deny that the word order of literary Latin was
>>>amazingly 'free'. In reality, this so called free word order was the
>>>greatest impediment to quick grasp of texts, never composed, as are
>>>modern books for rapid reading by working people."
>>> "It [Latin] was the exclusive speciality of literary coteries
>>>tyrannized by cadence, mesmerized by meter, and enslaved by Greek
>>>models."
>>>
>>> Professor F. Bodmer, a philologist
[I queried]:
>>Could you honor us with full citations (title, publication data, page,
>>etc.)? Without that, these quotes might as well be customer
>>testimonials for ginzu knives.
Ivan the Crazy replied:
> I sure could.
> ...But what good would that do you? If I do, would you apologize and
>admit your incompetency?
Ivan, here's another Latin phrase for you: non sequitur.
Ivan wrote:
>>>Plato, of course, sucks.
I commented:
>>This comment has nothing to do with the rest of your post,
Ivan replied:
> That's why it is at the very bottom. Mr. Schulman, you surely must've
>heard about something called a "sig". It is a quote, a statement or a
>verse that people attach to their posts to express certain sentiments.
>The Sig (short for "signature") does not have to be related to the
>post.
Well, I see you have dropped it from your latest post, so it isn't a
"sig" any more.
Civilization marches onward, as also evidenced by your provision, for
the first time, of your full name,
> Ivan Vasilev
Hopefully, you will drop the "Stupid" from your header, so people
won't treat you as such.
We all look forward to your full citations, not to make fun of you,
but because it always makes sense, when people differ strongly on
matters, to try to go back to their respective intellectual sources.
That will also tend to the happy result that thunderbolts will be
deflected from yourself to your cited sources.
Richard A. Schulman
On Fri, 20 Jun 1997 22:37:36 GMT, Iv...@mindspring.com (Crazy) wrote:
> The connection between Vulgar Latin and Classical Latin cannot be
>denied, for, obviously, it was the same language. BUT, what is being
>taught in schools nowadays is the so called Classic Latin. There's
>nothing wrong with that, mind you, as long as the "learned ones"
>refrain from big statements about beauty, harmony and all that and
>stick to the fact that what they're teaching is a contraption, an
>artificial way of resembling a communication attempt that was very
>remote from the day to day speech of Rome.
Hmm, let's see if we can summarize this Crazy advice:
1) Latin teachers are not to teach classical Latin but rather
[reconstructed] Vulgar Latin, so that students will be able to read
the vernacular graffiti found in Roman privies.
2) Students will not be allowed to talk about "beauty, harmony and all
that" in connection with the poetry of Vergil, Catullus, Propertius,
etc. These words may be applied to writings found on privy walls,
however.
3) If students do insist on reading Vergil, Catullus, Propertius, et
al., rather than scrawl found in the stall, they must do so using a
reconstructed Vulgar Latin grammar.
>English resembles
>more Chinese than it does "Classical" Latin, vocabulary
>notwithstanding.
Not true. You are confusing a few shared characteristics of word order
between Chinese and English, with more fundamental shared
characteristics between English and Latin, as common Indo-European
languages. Even if you eliminated all shared English and Latin
vocabulary, a comparative linguist would have no trouble identifying
English and Latin as sprung from a common ancestor.
* Both have a singular-plural inflection to distinguish almost all
nouns. Chinese does not.
* Both have strong verbs, Chinese does not.
* Both have tense systems and composed verbs based on "to be" and "to
have." Chinese does not.
* Both inflect verbs for person (although in English this is confined
to the 3rd person singular present, vs. everything else).
And don't underestimate the importance of Latin for a deeper
understanding of English vocabulary
.
> ...There are some people in India who still insist on learning and
>teaching Sanskrit, but hardly anyone would entertain the notion that
>Sanskirt is a logical, well structured and useful model for learning
>other languages.
Here, as with Latin, you are confusing reference grammars with
introductory teaching texts. These have quite different intended
purposes.
Richard A. Schulman
Crazy:
>>> If no one object over the fact that the Egyptian priests wrote
>>>unintelligable, why would anyone back then object that Cicero wrote
RAS:
>>On the basis of the writing sample above, I would have to agree that
>>for you, studying Latin would indeed be a cruel and unusual
>>punishment. You clearly need to be in an English remedial writing
>>course, not a course in Ciceronian Latin. But try not to project your
>>own academic deficiencies on the entire high school population.
THC:
>It may be, Richard, that we have found another general area where we can
>reach agreement. I tend to believe that some people are so stupid that
>they no longer deserve rational refutation. Invective will do very nicely
>for them. What do you think?
Yes, alas. Standards need to be maintained. And who knows but that
this may lead to a revival in the study of Juvenal and Martial?
Crazy
RASch...@nospam.worldnet.att.net (Richard A. Schulman) wrote:
>On Fri, 20 Jun 1997 22:15:32 GMT, Iv...@mindspring.com (Crazy) wrote:
>> Mr. Schulman...You should do well to concentrate on the
>>arguments at hand and not on my humble persona.
>Your persona -- the one you gave yourself -- isn't "Humble".
>It's "Crazy".
Once again (for the slow ones amongst us) - my name, my handles, my
sister and my mother have nothing to do with the discussion.
Particularly my mother. If we were face to face and you were to say
something like that about my mother, I'd shove your head so far up
your ass that you'll be looking at your own eyeballs.
You either keep your trap shut, or you discuss the subject at hand.
>> I don't call you anything so, please, refrain from calling me names.
>>It is only good manners. If you have anything at all to say on the
>>subject, go ahead and say it. Personal insults will not help you.
>You have been insulting the English language, and our ears, with your
>profanities. And now you want to play the part of the wounded
>gentleman?
When I get wounded, you'd hear about it.
>(See what happens, Ivan, when you refuse to study Cicero and Martial?
What happens is that I get to hear you blabbering about this and that
and everything else BUT the subject at hand.
>You get beaten up on the Internet for lack of declamatory and
>epigrammatic skills.)
I get to listen to an idiot who can talk about my mother and whatever
not, but cannot say a single thing on topic.
>[Ivan wrote]:
>>>> "A glance at the facts of Latin morphology, as they are preserved in
>>>>any full Latin grammar, or in Brugman's _Grundriss_, or in Lindsay's
>>>>_Latin Language_, where large masses of facts, which defy
>>>>classification are brought together, furnishes convincing evidence
>>>>that irregularity and absence of system are not merely occasional but
>>>>are the FUNDAMENTAL characteristics of Latin form-building."
>>>>
>>>> Professor E.P. Morris, a linguist
>>>>
>>>> "Nobody who has wasted a painful youth in bringing together what Latin
>>>>authors had torn asunder or in separating what should never have been
>>>>together, will deny that the word order of literary Latin was
>>>>amazingly 'free'. In reality, this so called free word order was the
>>>>greatest impediment to quick grasp of texts, never composed, as are
>>>>modern books for rapid reading by working people."
>>>> "It [Latin] was the exclusive speciality of literary coteries
>>>>tyrannized by cadence, mesmerized by meter, and enslaved by Greek
>>>>models."
>>>>
>>>> Professor F. Bodmer, a philologist
>[I queried]:
>>>Could you honor us with full citations (title, publication data, page,
>>>etc.)? Without that, these quotes might as well be customer
>>>testimonials for ginzu knives.
>Ivan the Crazy replied:
>> I sure could.
>> ...But what good would that do you? If I do, would you apologize and
>>admit your incompetency?
<snip>
>We all look forward to your full citations, not to make fun of you,
>but because it always makes sense, when people differ strongly on
>matters, to try to go back to their respective intellectual sources.
>That will also tend to the happy result that thunderbolts will be
>deflected from yourself to your cited sources.
No, dumbass. You need to asnwer my question. You challenged the
position I presented by saying that no respectable person would
support something like this. I gave you quotes. You challenged those
as fake and demanded a source. I asked you if I offer you the source
would you apologize and admit your st00pidity. You haven't answered
that question. So lemme repeat it one more time: if I give you the
references will you apologize, admit your ignorance and keep your trap
shut?
If you feel that whatever answer you give will make you look bad, then
just don't answer. But give me a favor and don't get mixed up in
something that requires brains. Let the smart ones discuss and keep
out of it. Thank you in advance.
AmarUtu
i wonder if those who complain about the disjunction between spoken and
written latin have actually taken a latin class. i don't know anyone who
says that they are the same thing. indeed, that is one of the reasons why
people reject attempts to teach spoken latin, i.e. because the spoken
language cannot be reconstructed.
that said, the notion that cicero's speeches were incomprensible by their
audience is just nonsense. what makes them incomprehensible? the fact
that they have a periodic style, as if no one would be capable of
understanding such? i admit that catiline can be tough for the
uninitiated neophyte, but with enough practice, it's downright easy to
read, to say nothing of the pleasure. it seems like an excercise in the
ludicrous to assert that *native* speakers who were exposed to the
language in all its forms on a regular basis, couldn't understand it.
chris hoffman
T.H. Chance
Ivan>>Classicims implies something beautiful, harmonious and
>>worthy. The Latin of Cicero, the Latin that yo'all teach is so goddamn
>>ugly that if it was a whore, it would be the ugliest whore south of
>>the Dixie Line.
RAS>Ivan, you are setting yourself up for the rejoinder: "How can we know
>for sure until we've seen your girl friend and your mother?"
Ivan> My mother and my girlfriend are irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
I must rule, here, in Richard's favor. It was Ivan who opened up the door
for such testimony by bringing in the subject of whores.
thc
Richard A. Schulman
On Sat, 21 Jun 1997 18:04:37 GMT, Iv...@mindspring.com (Crazy) wrote:
Ivan Vasilev:
>>> Mr. Schulman...You should do well to concentrate on the
>>>arguments at hand and not on my humble persona.
Schulman:
>>Your persona -- the one you gave yourself -- isn't "Humble".
>>It's "Crazy".
Ivan Vasilev the Crazy:
> Once again (for the slow ones amongst us) - my name, my handles, my
>sister and my mother have nothing to do with the discussion.
>Particularly my mother.
Why do you keep bringing up your mother? Is there a fixation here?
Ivan Vaseline:
> If we were face to face and you were to say
>something like that about my mother, I'd shove your head so far up
>your ass that you'll be looking at your own eyeballs.
Is this the Ivan Vasilev the Crazy who in his last post was pretending
to be "humble" and asking to be treated like a gentleman?
>>> I don't call you anything so, please, refrain from calling me names.
>>>It is only good manners.
Do you think your vulgarity, threats, and profanity merit good
manners?
Ivan the Crazy:
[quotes missing their citation data, deleted]
Schulman (second request):
>>We all look forward to your full citations, not to make fun of you,
>>but because it always makes sense, when people differ strongly on
>>matters, to try to go back to their respective intellectual sources.
>>That will also tend to the happy result that thunderbolts will be
>>deflected from yourself to your cited sources.
Ivan the Crazy:
> No, dumbass. You need to asnwer my question. You challenged the
>position I presented by saying that no respectable person would
>support something like this. I gave you quotes. You challenged those
>as fake and demanded a source.
Not true. I merely asked for a full reference for each quote. This is
a very basic matter in any kind of scholarly inquiry. I furthermore
stated why it was in your interest to provide such.
Ivan, you have proven T.H. Chance to be absolutely right. You're not
capable of participating in rational discourse. Invective is the only
language you understand.
Ivan Vasilev the Crazy:
>But give me a favor and don't get mixed up in
>something that requires brains.
> Let the smart ones discuss and keep
>out of it.
Coming from YOU, this is the funniest one of all.
Since you clearly don't wish to continue this dialogue by providing
full citations, allow me to suggest a few newsgroups where your
talents may be more appreciated:
alt.drug.pot.cultivation
alt.binaries.fetish.scat
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.heavy
And take your phony "Love" and "Plato sucks" sig with you, when you
depart.
schuster
Cutting to the quick.
I studied Latin in school for four years 1959-1963. I took up studying
Greek about eight years ago. Since I was immersed in Greek, I thought
about retouching my Latin skills, a small job compared to starting Greek
in middle age. I decided it wasn't worth the effort, considering the
body of work I might read, or reread. Having read and reread Suetonius
and Tacitus in translation with great pleasure, for example, I didn't
feel reading the original would be worth the relearning effort. I
realized that the low comics and the Golden Ass were about the only
things which might attract me. Not sufficient impetus for the time they
would take.
In contrast, I have never read a translation of any of the Greek
tragedies which captured any of the essence of the language, or even of
the ideas. Like fish, any translation begins to stink within days of
being layed out on the paper.
The ideas and language of the tragedies would have been wasted on me in
my adolescence. My life experience was too limited to relate to the
plays with the passion and interest I now feel.
So...
I have felt that Latin was the most valuable thing I learned in high
school. It gave me a sense of connection with the continuous flow of
civilization, and broadened the context of interpreting events in my
life. It also brought me a much better understanding of the way I learn
anything. The ability to use cognates to understand words new to my
vocabulary opened (and opens) doors of understanding to thoughts of
others.
I think Latin is still useful for the young to learn, but I think
Greek is for adults to enjoy. It amazes me that the two languages are
lumped together as "classics". What do they have in common other than
vague historical contemporaneousness?
T.H. Chance
>In article <5ogqt5$8...@camel2.mindspring.com>, Iv...@mindspring.com (Crazy)
>wrote:
> Once again (for the slow ones amongst us) - my name, my handles, my
>>sister and my mother have nothing to do with the discussion.
>>Particularly my mother. If we were face to face and you were to say
>>something like that about my mother, I'd shove your head so far up
>>your ass that you'll be looking at your own eyeballs.
>> You either keep your trap shut, or you discuss the subject at hand.
The discussion of your mother is now an issue of serious therapeutic
concern, as is evidenced by the fact that you have threatened to do harm
to self or others right here on the net. I want to assure that we can and
will assist you in being safe. Those children among us who suffer from
Oppositional Deviant Disorder (ODD), Enuresis, PTSD, Schizoid tendencies,
Boardline Personality Disorder (BPD), and near Psychotic breaks will find
themselves, straightway, in a more restrictive environment under pressure
from, if necessary, velcro restraints.
Dr. THC
chief administrator of mental health
Jason Haverhill
Ivan/Crazy, I've read with some interest the various posts in
this category. Quite apparent that Mr.Schulman has little
scholarship to contribute in this effort, more obvious that he
seeks puerile name-calling sessions, laudable that no one other
is keen to pursue this cul de sac. I am impressed with your own
erudition and enlightenment in this area. You appear to be the
sort of individual who SHOULD be teaching, but unfortunately is
never found there, anymore.
"It is great comfort to us all that there is, in England, a man
such as yourself, Mr.Holmes." -- The Hound of the Baskervilles.
T.H. Chance
I'd be willing to bet what's left of my academic reputation that Jason and
Ivan are to auton. I find the uniformity to rest in their inability to
write a complete sentence. It looks as though we are dealing here with a
schizoid type personality. What do you think, guys?
thc
Richard A. Schulman
>Ivan/Crazy, I've read with some interest the various posts in
>this category. Quite apparent that Mr.Schulman has little
>scholarship to contribute in this effort, more obvious that he
>seeks puerile name-calling sessions, laudable that no one other
>is keen to pursue this cul de sac. I am impressed with your own
>erudition and enlightenment in this area. You appear to be the
>sort of individual who SHOULD be teaching, but unfortunately is
>never found there, anymore.
I won't even comment on this farcical post -- can you imagine anyone
stupid enough to call Ivan the Crazy "erudite and enlightened"?
If Jason's post sound suspiciously like a paid testimonial, there's a
reason behind this appearance.
If we look a little closer, we discover a pattern -- an attempt to con
the readers of these newsgroups into falling for a "plebscitary hoax."
Recall that what started this thread was an illiterate, troll-like
post by Emma Golden. Her path to my Worldnet news server was as
follows:
wn4!worldnet.att.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-pull.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!198.70.50.3!news.tcd.net!not-for-mail
For those who have never looked at the header of a Usenet post, the
relevant point to make is that the path, like Chinese, is read from
right-to-left. Thus, Emma's post started out at the tcd.net (Net
Connect) news server.
Now let's look at a post from the first little monkey to pop up
defending Emma, namely, Mary Stein:
wn5!worldnet.att.net!howland.erols.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-pull.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!204.248.98.134!news.tcd.net!not-for-mail.
How interesting! Her post also originated from tcd.net.
Today, another little monkey popped up, this time to defend Ivan the
Crazy, the other Emma defender. And where did the post of the latest
little monkey, Jason Haverhill, originate from?
Why, tcd.net, of course!
Here's Jason's path:
wn2!worldnet.att.net!howland.erols.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-pull.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!204.248.98.134!news.tcd.net!not-for-mail
Coincidence? Or is it rather that Emma, Mary, and Jason are all
smoking the same stuff?
Emma Golden and Ivan the Crazy seem never to have posted in one of the
classics newsgroups, until the present thread kicked off by Emma's
provocation.
Mary Stein and Jason Haverhill seem never to have posted in one of the
classics newsgroups prior to the present thread either-- or any other
newsgroup!
Raw, ignorant recruits. Draftees.
Nice try, kids, but I don't think you're going to impress any of the
regulars with your silly plebiscite. It's not numbers here that count,
but well-developed reasonings.
Better luck next time, somewhere else.
Vittorio Barabino
Crazy <Iv...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> developed, but insisting on structure and logic, where none exists,
> and insisting on presenting that language as a model through which
> other languages might be learned, is very idiotic. English resembles
> more Chinese than it does "Classical" Latin, vocabulary
> notwithstanding.
Of course it's a provocation, but you are saying some truth.
I'm native-speaking italian and I refused to learn english until I was
17. For me, latin and french are natural to learn, and english is
unpleasant and illogic.
I'm sure that learning latin helped me very much to understand my mother
tongue, and even french.
I agree with you that the categories of latin are almost useless to
understand english or german.
If I say "Who are you waiting for?", is "for" a proposition or an
adverb? For me, the question doesn't make sense.
Of course latin etc. are not illogic: they have a logic of their own,
and the "artificial" grammar is an easier way to understand it.
If you were suddenly confined for some months somewhere in internal
China where nobody can speak english, you couldn't almost communicate.
If you study grammar for the same period, probably you'll be able to
speak some chinese.
> ...There are some people in India who still insist on learning and
> teaching Sanskrit, but hardly anyone would entertain the notion that
> Sanskirt is a logical, well structured and useful model for learning
> other languages. :-)) Paanini himself was confused enough when he
Bullshit.
Sanskrit is the language of their religion and their civilitisation, and
that is a more-than-sufficient reason for them to study it!!!
They don't need to seek additional reasons.
--
Ciao|\ _,,,---,,_ [2:335/386...@fidonet.org] [2.6.3i key]
/,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ Visitate la Home Page Ufficiale di
|,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-' Franco Ricciardiello, scrittore SF
'---''(_/--' `-'\_)www.fantascienza.com/sfpeople/franco.ricciardiello
Jason Haverhill
Dadblastit, T.H.Chance, you've found me out. I admit I am
"Crazy". Ivan/Crazy may be a bit surprised at this himself, though.
I am you and you are me and we are all together. Uh...sure.
Moving beyond nonsensical constructs --and at the risk of again being
categorized as "self" congratulatory-- I agree with Ivan/Crazy.
These ad hominem asides in no way address the issues raised. As
well, Ivan/Crazy cited compelling documentation. If all that a
man can summon to present the counter view is to attack the
messenger, I must say I gave up arguing at that level when I
graduated 2nd grade. Let's get back on topic. If you want to
believe I am "the ghost of Elvis" so be it. I am not here to
abuse anyone's time with trivial argument or frivolous rhetoric.
Zoticus
>>Plato, of course, sucks.
>This comment has nothing to do with the rest of your post, other than
revealing >you to be an illiterate adolescent scribbler and would-be
troll, who hasn't the >integrity to sign his full name to his posts.
I fully support R. Schulman's angry response to Ivan's remarks (one of
which is quoted above); however, the remark about integrity has me
befuddled. If we are responding to ideas in a newsgroup, it seems to me
to be irrelevant who their authors may be. "The Federalist" and "Fear and
Trembling" -- certified St. John's College "Great Books" -- were both
published pseudonymously.
Newsgroup postings in general are even a grade below pamphlets, being more
akin to subsidized grafitti. Horses for courses; I like the newsgroup
format myself and the anonymity it offers. For the record, however, my
given name is Howard Sauertieg -- hereafter simply "Zoticus," since the
moniker is brief, easy to spell, euphonious and more to my liking.
Zot...@aol.com
--------------------------
"Concide Magire!"
Crazy
RASch...@nospam.worldnet.att.net (Richard A. Schulman) wrote:
>wn4!worldnet.att.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-pull.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!198.70.50.3!news.tcd.net!not-for-mail
>wn5!worldnet.att.net!howland.erols.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-pull.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!204.248.98.134!news.tcd.net!not-for-mail.
>Why, tcd.net, of course!
>wn2!worldnet.att.net!howland.erols.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-pull.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!204.248.98.134!news.tcd.net!not-for-mail
Geez, that obviously took a lot of brains and hard work to figure out.
So it turns out that Emma, Mary and Jason are the same person, while
Emma and myself are also the same person ...maybe. At the same time,
your buddy is betting his scholarly reputation, or "what's left of
it" (how appropriate) on the fact that Jason and myself are the same
person.
Why don't you, morons, get together ahead of time, put your shit
straight and then come up with a unified theory of some kind. Right
now I'm confused as to who is who. You trully dazzled me this time.
>Raw, ignorant recruits. Draftees.
I don't think so. We volunteered.
>Nice try, kids, but I don't think you're going to impress any of the
>regulars with your silly plebiscite.
Geez, dad, you're not going snobish on us, are you? Silly plebiscite??
:-))
>It's not numbers here that count, but well-developed reasonings.
A well developed reasoning? Sweet Lord Jeezah!... I'm bewildered and
bemused ... not to mention bepissed. Lemme see here: you called Emma
ignorant and a troll, you call Mary ...I forget what it was but it
wasn't nice, then you call me a whole bunch of things (too numerous to
mention), you call my sister and my mother whores, then you call Jason
a little monkey and finally, to top it all and impress "the regulars",
you finish with an appeal for a "well developed reasoning"?? And none
of these people have ever addressed you, nor have they commented a
post of yours. I've seen a lot of dumbasses, but, babe, you have
got to be the dumbest motherfucker I have ever laid my purdy eyes on.
Honest!
If we had to follow your standards for what constitutes a
"well-developed reasoning" we'd have to start every post with
something to the fact that your mother is a slut, your father is a
bastard, and that you're a moron and a worthless piece of shit. Maybe
only then you'd be willing to give us some credit and admit that we're
reasoning well. ...Oh, I forgot - I looked at the headers and it seems
to me that you, Mr. Chance and The Three Stooges are one and the same
person.
Sweetcakes, if st00pidity had wings, you'd be a soaring eagle.
Love,
-= Ivan =-
---
BBB
Richard A. Schulman
It is worth quoting, in the context of the recent posts of Emma Golden
and Ivan Vasilev (Crazy) in these newsgroups, the well-known lines
from Pope's _An Essay on Criticism_:
"A little learning is a dangerous thing;
How this applies to Ivan and Emma will be made clear in the analysis
below.
Earlier, it should be recalled, Ivan wrote the following:
>[W]ritten Latin, the way it is
>taught now in schools, the Latin of Cicero, was always a dead language
>- now and then. Nobody spoke it that way (not even Cicero - after all
>if he spoke it that way he wrote it, nobody'd understand him)...
..
>THAT Latin was, as
>Emma correctly pointed out, a voodoo exercise of the rich, privillaged
>few who had nothing better to do but to engage in amusing languge
>riddles. What they wrote was as much foreign to them as it was to
>their slaves, as it is now to everyone who reads it...
When asked to provide a respectable intellectual source for these
statements, Ivan provided two quotes. One was attributed to E.P.
Morris; the other to F. Bodmer.
Ivan was twice asked to provide full publication data for these quotes
and twice refused. One of these quotes, despite Ivan's uncooperative
behavior, I was able to trace to Frederick Bodmer, _The Loom of
Language_ (New York, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1944), p. 323.
Why did I waste my time doing so, given the unscholarly, troll-like
behavior of both Emma and Ivan? Once before, I had run into this view
of classical Latin as a dead, artificial language, a conspiracy
against youthful brains. The view was being propagated by a well-known
political "nut" group. So I had an additional reason to be curious as
to what foolish or half-read book was behind Emma and Ivan's
ill-formed and ill-expressed beliefs.
Allow me to quote somewhat more appropriately from Bodmer's book,
followed by a quote from a more reliable source. Bodmer writes:
"The language which diffused throughout the provinces of the [Roman]
empire was not the classical Latin of Tom Brown's schooldays. It was
the Latin spoken by the common people. Every since Latin had become a
literary language (in the third century B.C.) there had been a sharp
cleavage between popular Latin and the Latin of the erudite....
"[T]he Latin of classical authors selected for study in schools or
colleges...was always, as it is now, a _dead_ [italics in original]
language because it was never the language of daily intercourse." (p.
309)
Bodmer thus postulates
1) that there was a bifurcation of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin
beginning in the 3rd century B.C.,
2) that what is called Classical Latin was never spoken from that
point on,
3) and that Classical Latin became, from the 3rd century B.C. on,
"dead" or at best "the exclusive specialty of literary coteries."
Even if this were true, I doubt it would sufficiently justify, by
itself, Ivan's profanities against Latin. Students who are unable to
master Classical Latin excepted, the literature has been enjoyed for
twenty centuries and has been influential on subsequent literature in
European languages.
But are Bodmer's assertions true?
Not having a university research library within haling distance, I
must be satisfied with such sources as I can obtain locally. In this
case, my source must be Mario Pei, _The Story of Latin and the Romance
Languages_ (NY: Harper & Row, 1976).
He writes:
"By the year 100 B.C. Roman society had crystallized into what might
be called its imperial mold...
"The language, too, was essentially crystallized, at least in its
official aspects....Official documents, works of literature and
philosophy, military records, ... the official news bulletin posted up
each morning in the Forum for the guidance and information of the
people, all were couched in this 'official' Latin, which apparently
everybody understood, even if his or her own personal speech did not
quite meet its standards.
"It is this official Latin that has come down to us in our high school
and college courses. Did it reflect the spoken language? Approximately
to the same extent that the language of The New York Times or
Internval Revenue forms reflects the spoken language of the New York
subways and slums; but also of the New York Stock Exchange, the
government bureaus, the suburbs, the wide open spaces of our West....
"Its essential sound, word, form, and sentence structure is the same.
There is no record of linguitic incomprehension between master and
slave, between senator and welfare client, where both are speaking
what goes for Latin....
"Caesar's _Gallic War_; ... Cicero's Catilinian Orations, the language
of which differs only slightly from that used by Cicero in his letters
addressed to friends; ... Petronius' _Satyricon_ and Apuleius' _Golden
Ass_; even in Jerome's Vulgate and Augustine's _City of God_ [--
t]here is little ground for the contention that these works represent
a language which was written but not spoken. Considering the frankly
propagandistic aim of some of these works, particularly Cicero's Forum
orations and the Biblical version, the language in which they were
couched must have been at least generally understood, in the same
fashion that uneducated Americans at the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt
were able to understand the language of his fireside chats, even if
they could not duplicate it in their own speech.
"When it comes to the language of poetry, the story is different.
Latin prosody has its own highly complicated rules...and a freedom of
word order that often calls for piecing the meaning together as though
one were unscrambling a puzzle. But people, even of the educated
classes, normally do not speak in verse."
(excerpted from chapter 2)
So where do Bodmer's assertions stand, in the light of Pei's
discussion? None of his three assertions are sustainable. The
bifurcation between spoken and written Latin came later than he posits
and was never complete. Classical Latin was widely understood.
Which brings us back to Pope:
"A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again."
One hopes that Bodmer's ill-advised contemporary readers will remember
these words, choose their books better, read more of these than one,
and not confuse the Pierian spring with a case of beer.
Richard A. Schulman
On 24 Jun 1997 01:29:25 GMT, zot...@aol.com (Zoticus) wrote:
Ivan Vasilev (a.k.a. Crazy):
>>>Plato, of course, sucks.
Richard Schulman (a.k.a. Richard Schulman)
>>This comment has nothing to do with the rest of your post, other than
>revealing >you to be an illiterate adolescent scribbler and would-be
>troll, who hasn't the >integrity to sign his full name to his posts.
Howard Sauertieg (Zoticus):
>I fully support R. Schulman's angry response to Ivan's remarks (one of
>which is quoted above); however, the remark about integrity has me
>befuddled. If we are responding to ideas in a newsgroup, it seems to me
>to be irrelevant who their authors may be. "The Federalist" and "Fear and
>Trembling" -- certified St. John's College "Great Books" -- were both
>published pseudonymously.
...
>I like the newsgroup
>format myself and the anonymity it offers.
I'm sympathetic to Internet anonymity for the vulnerable -- children,
women in certain contexts, students from dictatorships, etc.
But as a general rule I've noticed that the best discussions and best
newsgroups are those where there's a stable nucleus of people who are
committed to the subject matter of the newsgroup and who stand tall
and participate in it under their own names.
It's a question of accountability.
Surely, the neighborhood goes downhill when Joe Jerk, under some
pseudonym, bops into your newsgroup, drops insults and stupidities on
the carpet like a dog not yet housebroken, andr picks his nose and
swipes his finger across your favorite chair's armrest. Under these
circumstances there is an understandable instinct to ask, "Would you
mind telling us your name, little sweetheart?"
I'm not positive of this, but weren't Madison, Hamilton, and Jay, in
writing anonymously The Federalist Papers, just continuing an 18th
century journalistic convention -- a convention that originally served
to keep an author from being hung or jailed?
Richard A. Schulman
Dear Ivan (Crazy),
When you get tired of free-associating in four-letter words and
repeating yourself, I think everyone would appreciate a demonstration
that, if you learned one thing in Freshman composition class, it was
how to do a full citation.
I have already changed your diaper with respect to your attempt to
palm off a quotation with no more than "F. Bodmer."
Here's a last chance to redeem yourself with respect to your equally
elusive and inadequate citation of "E.P. Morris."
Since you can't put together a coherent argument in English, at least
give your sources a chance to do the job.
"Love"
Joseph Raymond Frechette
: >On Wed, 18 Jun 1997 16:31:24 -0600, Mary Stein <m...@bios.adm.net>
: >wrote:
: >>I believe what Emma was saying is this: Latin as it is taught is
: >>not what it is represented to be.
: A true statement.
In what way? I teach Latin and find the implied denigration of my field
rather insulting. In what way am I misrepresenting it? If you mean that it
is a misrepresentation to say that it was a spoken language, then I shall
deal with your points below.
: >>While Latin is represented to be a
: >>cohesive and continuous body of classical scholarship, it is in fact
: >>a patched-together attempt at resurrecting a "dead language" which
: >>had long since passed from all usage.
: Also a true statement.
When had it passed from all usage? The Catholic Church and a large number
of scholars were still using it into the twentieth century. As far as it
being "dead", that certainly was not the case in the Middle Ages. That
being the case, the following point about the rennaisance is absolute
bunkum.
: >>Latin was seized upon, merely
: >>as an elitist exercise about 16th century, and decided that men would
: >>try to reconstruct how the language MIGHT have been taught, MIGHT have
: >>been spoken, how the grammar MIGHT have been presented as to the
: >>ancients.
: No. It isn't a MIGHT. It is an established fact that Latin was NOT
: spoken that way.
: The point is that written Latin, the way it is
: taught now in schools, the Latin of Cicero, was always a dead language
: - now and then. Nobody spoke it that way (not even Cicero - after all
: if he spoke it that way he wrote it, nobody'd understand him) and it
: is pure idiocy to insist on teaching innocent kids English (and other
: languages in general) by insisting on "classical models" and other
: such crap. Classicims implies something beautiful, harmonious and
: worthy. The Latin of Cicero, the Latin that yo'all teach is so goddamn
: ugly that if it was a whore, it would be the ugliest whore south of
: the Dixie Line. There's nothing even remotely classical about it.
: Teaching it to children and teens is a mental violence, a cruel,
: criminal act of the worst kind. There's no reason for such abuse.
If no one understood anything Cicero wrote, why did he write his letters
to his friends and family in much the same style as his "snootier" works?
How were people expected to get the jokes of Terence and Plautus? Were
people supposed to have no idea what tehy were listening to at poetic
recitals? I've asked this before and still await an answer.
: >> The mistake the Latin student is invited to stumble into is
: >>to take at face value any real "classical" significance Latin [as
: >>taught] may have ever had.
: Exactly.
Really. So Latin has no significance for the study of history, art,
politics, philosophy, religion or literature? How do you figure?
: "A glance at the facts of Latin morphology, as they are preserved in
: any full Latin grammar, or in Brugman's _Grundriss_, or in Lindsay's
: _Latin Language_, where large masses of facts, which defy
: classification are brought together, furnishes convincing evidence
: that irregularity and absence of system are not merely occasional but
: are the FUNDAMENTAL characteristics of Latin form-building."
: Professor E.P. Morris, a linguist
I've never heard of him but I've studied Latin for awhile now and find it
light years more logical than English. No language is without
irregularities and Latin is in fact freer of them than most. Even if true,
the statement above really doesn;t prove anything about the current
discussion. Just because a language is illogical does not mean it was not
used. Out of curiosity would you say the same about classical Greek?
: "Nobody who has wasted a painful youth in bringing together what Latin
: authors had torn asunder or in separating what should never have been
: together, will deny that the word order of literary Latin was
: amazingly 'free'. In reality, this so called free word order was the
: greatest impediment to quick grasp of texts, never composed, as are
: modern books for rapid reading by working people."
: "It [Latin] was the exclusive speciality of literary coteries
: tyrannized by cadence, mesmerized by meter, and enslaved by Greek
: models."
: Professor F. Bodmer, a philologist
So all written Latin was the exclusive province of overeducated eggheads?
I guess someone forgot to tell all the people writing on papyrus and on
walls that they were using a language that was restricted to the upper
classes.
-Joseph Frechette
Crazy
Jason Haverhill <hav...@scioto.ed.net> wrote:
>Dadblastit, T.H.Chance, you've found me out. I admit I am
>"Crazy". Ivan/Crazy may be a bit surprised at this himself, though.
>I am you and you are me and we are all together. Uh...sure.
It is true, actually. It is a basic postulate of Advaita Vedanda: tat
tvam asi (I am It), expressing the non-duality of all things, dead and
alive.
Of course, from that also follows that you, Mr. Schulman and I are One
and the same, and that is truly an alarming thought. :-))
Crazy
jfre...@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu (Joseph Raymond Frechette) wrote:
>Crazy (Iv...@mindspring.com) wrote:
>: RASch...@nospam.worldnet.att.net (Richard A. Schulman) wrote:
>: >On Wed, 18 Jun 1997 16:31:24 -0600, Mary Stein <m...@bios.adm.net>
>: >wrote:
>: >>I believe what Emma was saying is this: Latin as it is taught is
>: >>not what it is represented to be.
>: A true statement.
>In what way?
Are you familiar with name Wheelock? If you teach Latin, you probably
are. Anyway, in the very beginning of his most revered book, a
"classic", a standard, Mr. Wheelock says that Latin is a model of
"clarity and beauty". Then he proceeds with close to 300 pages
instructions on the language, half of which describe conjugations,
declensions and so forth and the other half - the exceptions to the
rules. To call this "clarity" is misleading, speaking mildly, if not
humorous.
>I teach Latin and find the implied denigration of my field
>rather insulting.
Give Esperanto a try.
> In what way am I misrepresenting it? If you mean that it
>is a misrepresentation to say that it was a spoken language, then I shall
>deal with your points below.
Good.
>: >>While Latin is represented to be a
>: >>cohesive and continuous body of classical scholarship, it is in fact
>: >>a patched-together attempt at resurrecting a "dead language" which
>: >>had long since passed from all usage.
>: Also a true statement.
>When had it passed from all usage? The Catholic Church and a large number
>of scholars were still using it into the twentieth century. As far as it
>being "dead", that certainly was not the case in the Middle Ages. That
>being the case, the following point about the rennaisance is absolute
>bunkum.
The Catholic Church and the Church on the whole did not use
"classical" Latin. It was what's known as Mediaeval Latin. The clergy
learned their Latin from old grammars left from the later days of the
Roman Empire. Nothing "classical" about that Latin. As a matter of
fact, of Cicero saw what they did with "his" language, he'd be most
appaled.
"Classical" Latin passed from usage through continuous degradation
where the vernacular of the people was officially established as
"vulgar" Latin and through Neo-Latin Italian emerged (as well as the
rest of the romance languages). Meanwhile, "classical" Latin died a
quick and clean dead.
Why did "classical" Latin died? Because it was a purely written,
stagnated language that refused to change and keep up with the needs
of its speakers. Galileo gave it a good kick in the ass by publishing
some of his scientific works in Italian first. The Royal Society
abandoned it, then the Paris Academie of Sciences abandoned it, the
Church abandoned it and ...so it deservingly died. I'm sorry if this
simple fact seems harsh to you, but history is history, facts are
facts and there's nothing we can do about it.
>: >>Latin was seized upon, merely
>: >>as an elitist exercise about 16th century, and decided that men would
>: >>try to reconstruct how the language MIGHT have been taught, MIGHT have
>: >>been spoken, how the grammar MIGHT have been presented as to the
>: >>ancients.
>: No. It isn't a MIGHT. It is an established fact that Latin was NOT
>: spoken that way.
>: The point is that written Latin, the way it is
>: taught now in schools, the Latin of Cicero, was always a dead language
>: - now and then. Nobody spoke it that way (not even Cicero - after all
>: if he spoke it that way he wrote it, nobody'd understand him) and it
>: is pure idiocy to insist on teaching innocent kids English (and other
>: languages in general) by insisting on "classical models" and other
>: such crap. Classicims implies something beautiful, harmonious and
>: worthy. The Latin of Cicero, the Latin that yo'all teach is so goddamn
>: ugly that if it was a whore, it would be the ugliest whore south of
>: the Dixie Line. There's nothing even remotely classical about it.
>: Teaching it to children and teens is a mental violence, a cruel,
>: criminal act of the worst kind. There's no reason for such abuse.
>If no one understood anything Cicero wrote, why did he write his letters
>to his friends and family in much the same style as his "snootier" works?
Oh, there were few other snots around to read 'em, no question about
it.
>How were people expected to get the jokes of Terence and Plautus?
Not too many.
>Were
>people supposed to have no idea what tehy were listening to at poetic
>recitals? I've asked this before and still await an answer.
If you have this picture of the Empire's population at large
attending poetic recitals three times a week so that they can be
cultured and have a good time, I'm afraid you have the wrong picture.
>: >> The mistake the Latin student is invited to stumble into is
>: >>to take at face value any real "classical" significance Latin [as
>: >>taught] may have ever had.
>: Exactly.
>Really. So Latin has no significance for the study of history, art,
>politics, philosophy, religion or literature? How do you figure?
It's rather simple. But, unfortunately, if I'm fully to explain it to
you, you'd probably have a heart attack.
>: "A glance at the facts of Latin morphology, as they are preserved in
>: any full Latin grammar, or in Brugman's _Grundriss_, or in Lindsay's
>: _Latin Language_, where large masses of facts, which defy
>: classification are brought together, furnishes convincing evidence
>: that irregularity and absence of system are not merely occasional but
>: are the FUNDAMENTAL characteristics of Latin form-building."
>: Professor E.P. Morris, a linguist
>I've never heard of him
He wrote _Principles And Methods in Latin Syntax_.
>but I've studied Latin for awhile now and find it
>light years more logical than English.
That's because probably you've been reading this Wheellock guy too
vigorously over the years.
>No language is without irregularities
This is an incorrect statement, I'm afraid. All isolating languages
are very much free of irregularities.
I'm assuming you're talking from a very limited, euro-centered point
of view.
>and Latin is in fact freer of them than most.
Really? Like which ones, for example?
>Even if true,
>the statement above really doesn;t prove anything about the current
>discussion. Just because a language is illogical does not mean it was not
>used. Out of curiosity would you say the same about classical Greek?
That it was a very irregular? Absolutely. So were Old Slavonic,
Sanskrit... lots of 'em.
>: "Nobody who has wasted a painful youth in bringing together what Latin
>: authors had torn asunder or in separating what should never have been
>: together, will deny that the word order of literary Latin was
>: amazingly 'free'. In reality, this so called free word order was the
>: greatest impediment to quick grasp of texts, never composed, as are
>: modern books for rapid reading by working people."
>: "It [Latin] was the exclusive speciality of literary coteries
>: tyrannized by cadence, mesmerized by meter, and enslaved by Greek
>: models."
>: Professor F. Bodmer, a philologist
>So all written Latin was the exclusive province of overeducated eggheads?
Yup.
>I guess someone forgot to tell all the people writing on papyrus and on
>walls that they were using a language that was restricted to the upper
>classes.
Well, papyrus wasn't exactly sold at every Seven-Eleven, so that when
you stopped for a break, to feed the horses and drink water, you
casually dropped a buck and picked the latest issue of Cicero's latest
literary creation. The vast majority of people had to use something
called a wax board in order to learn to write. You ever seen a wax
board? It's not that big, you know...
To conclude, shall we turn our sights to a quote from a historian of
the Royal Society on why they decided to abandon Latin. It was because
its members demended "...a close, naked, natural way of speaking...
prefering the language of the artisans, countrymen and merchants
before that of wits and scholars".
Love,
-= Ivan =-
---
Plato, of course, sucks.
AmarUtu
ivan
although you quote from wheelock, he isn't without his flaws. your claim
that the descriptive grammar of latin is not satisfactory because it
doesn't account for everything in an absolutely regular way is somewhat
silly. any grammar is but a snapshot of a moment. that doesn't make it
false. it sounds like what your arguing for is the notion that we should
learn amo, amas, amat is three discrete vocabulary items which is far less
efficient than learning the first conjugation. latin is not horribly
irregular as you seem to think, and i dare say french is much more so,
just for phonological reasons alone.
at any rate, your notion that no one but cicero and his coterie understand
classical latin is born out by nothing. look at pompeian graffiti or the
vindolanda tablets and you will be struck by, as are the archeologists who
know them, by the continuity of latin structures and its relative
regularity across vast geographical and temporal areas.
can you seriously say that terence and plautus weren't understood? sounds
like a matter of faith for you, rather than a statement of common sense.
chris hoffman
Richard A. Schulman
On Wed, 25 Jun 1997 05:35:31 GMT, Iv...@mindspring.com (Crazy) wrote:
> Are you familiar with name Wheelock? If you teach Latin, you probably
>are. Anyway, in the very beginning of his most revered book, a
>"classic", a standard,
Welcome to "Ivan in Wonderland" where words mean whatever Ivan wishes
them to mean. Coke's a "classic" too in Atlanta. Some also go Crazy
snorting the stuff.
> Give Esperanto a try.
Or Volapük. Or Interglossa. Or any number of other synthetic "New
Order" languages Ivan's source du jour, Frederick Bodmer, advocates in
the final two chapters of the book Ivan quoted from but couldn't cite.
>As a matter of
>fact, of Cicero saw what they did with "his" language, he'd be most
>appaled.
As a matter of fact, "of" Shakespeare saw what you did with his
language, he'd be most "appaled" too.
I realize English is your second tongue and that, like every other
language on the planet, Greek and Latin included, it displeases you
that it has irregularities. You would like some perfectly regular
language that would be proof from your sounding like a clod. But you
forget that the more that national academies have tried to purify
languages, the more sterile the languages have become.
Living languages change. Phonological structures evolve through
contact with other tongues, changing political prominence of dialect
groups, and imperfect imitation by immigrants. Meanings of words
change as references change; sound change coalesces words previously
separate; poets, scholars, and scientists bend words to cover new
concepts; and vulgarians abuse words, such as the word "classic." The
little phonological wheels over time move the larger, heavier wheels
of syntax. "Irregularities" are simply the residues of earlier rule
systems that didn't entirely change, or usages of neighboring
dialects.
If the perfect synthetic natural language of your dreams managed to
momentarily overcome its oxymoronicness, only a utopian fascist
dictatorship would be able to preserve it in its static, sterile
perfection.
> Why did "classical" Latin died? Because it was a purely written,
>stagnated language that refused to change and keep up with the needs
>of its speakers.
My citations from Mario Pei show that the above is nonsense. Why do
you keep writing nonsense after reading sense.
> Galileo gave it a good kick in the ass by publishing
>some of his scientific works in Italian first. The Royal Society
>abandoned it, then the Paris Academie of Sciences abandoned it, the
>Church abandoned it and ...so it deservingly died.
Oh, the revenant! Earlier you would have had us believe it died in the
3rd c. BC.
> I'm sorry if this
>simple fact seems harsh to you, but history is history, facts are
>facts and there's nothing we can do about it.
1) Epistemologically, your naive realism is an embarrassment;
2) As for the "facts," where yours aren't wrong (a rare event), they
are invariably irrelevant to the argument you are trying to make.
Thus, who said Galileo had to publish in Latin in order to justify the
study of Latin thereafter? No archaic language would be studied by
that criterion.
Crazy
ama...@aol.com (AmarUtu) wrote:
>ivan
>although you quote from wheelock, he isn't without his flaws. your claim
>that the descriptive grammar of latin is not satisfactory because it
>doesn't account for everything in an absolutely regular way is somewhat
>silly.
I don't claim that. I claim that descriptive grammars have turned
into prescriptive ones.
Love,
-= Ivan =-
---
BBB
AmarUtu
a descriptive grammar, as i have said in other posts, is simply a snapshot
of a moment in time, whereas the prescriptive attempts to regularize. if
we had no standard, if we all spoke in idiolects then communication would
quickly break down, ye ken? at any rate, you have yet to offer any cogent
reason that there should be no such thing as a prescriptive grammar.
prescriptive grammar in the case of latin provides a model by which
interested students can learn to imitate so-called golden latin. but what
you et al. seem to fail to realize is that this grammar works. it's not
as though people so trained are unable to read cicero or plautus or
ammianus. if your complaint is that this is not spoken latin, one can
only say that the tools aren't available to reconstruct the idioms of
spoken latin for a given time period. yet, when an occasional glimmer of
more quotidien speech is available, it is still comprehensible by those
trained in what you claim is false latin. the average soldier still
conjugated his verbs like we modern students of latin are taught to. they
still had cum clauses and purpose clauses. they still had declensions.
so what on earth is your beef?
don't forget as well that at some point what was once prescribed becomes
what is described. then that too develops, and arabic is a good case in
point.
chris hoffman
Crazy
RASch...@nospam.worldnet.att.net (Richard A. Schulman) wrote:
>>As a matter of
>>fact, of Cicero saw what they did with "his" language, he'd be most
>>appaled.
>As a matter of fact, "of" Shakespeare saw what you did with his
>language, he'd be most "appaled" too.
I don't think so. Shakespeare spelled his own name in four different
ways. He was cool - he understood. Only assholes are particular about
spelling.
...There's something to be said about the relationship between Form
and Essence, but I shall leave it for some other time.
Moiner
(snip)
> If we were face to face and you were to say
>something like that about my mother, I'd shove your head so far up
yadda yadda yadda
There is a word for people like Ivan.
That word is *plonk*
--
In moiner's real address, spammers don't die horribly,
though in his visions of a better world, they do.
"It was the year of Fire"
Richard A. Schulman
AmarUtu:
>>although you quote from wheelock, he isn't without his flaws. your claim
>>that the descriptive grammar of latin is not satisfactory because it
>>doesn't account for everything in an absolutely regular way is somewhat
>>silly.
Ivan (Crazy):
> I don't claim that. I claim that descriptive grammars have turned
>into prescriptive ones.
>
> Love,
> -= Ivan =-
You're contradicting yourself again, lovie-dovie. This could only be
the case for a living language.
Richard A. Schulman
Joseph Raymond Frechette:
>>No language is without irregularities
Ivan the Crazy:
> This is an incorrect statement, I'm afraid. All isolating languages
>are very much free of irregularities.
> I'm assuming you're talking from a very limited, euro-centered point
>of view.
Wrong again, Ivan.
Take spoken Mandarin Chinese, the best known of the non-Indo-European
isolating (analytical) languages. Foreign students spend a good two
years learning its grammar -- just to achieve a basic working
knowledge of the language. This is about the same as for Latin.
Just because a language isn't inflected doesn't mean it's more
regular. In the case of Mandarin Chinese, the complexities just happen
to show up elsewhere. The same phenomenon can be observed in the more
familiar (to most newsgroup readers) Indo-European languages. English
has lost a good deal of the inflectional systems of its Indo-European
ancestor, in contrast to Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit. Yet the
difficulties of mastering English grammar -- for example, the
prepositional system -- are well known, and your own English is a case
study in these difficulties.
Similar subtleties abound in Mandarin Chinese. Before giving an
almost-random example of this, allow me to make a methodological
comment, namely, that one man's rule will be another man's exception.
Suppose two and only two instantiations of a rule can be found. Is it
a rule or an exception? Is the glass half full or half empty. That
is, only real exceptions have singular instances.
This noted, I provide below an almost-random selection from a
first-year Mandarin textbook. (If I had a systematic grammar of the
language available to me as I write this, I could no doubt produce
something far more complex, but this example should suffice.)
"1. Usage
Interrogatives combined with 'dou' or 'ye' may be used in declarative
sentences to express 'every,' 'all,' or 'not any,' 'none.'
[contrasting positive and negative examples deleted]
2. Some rules:
a. Although 'dou' or 'ye' may be used interchangeably with the
negative form, the positive form always takes 'dou'.
b. When an interrogative word is used in place of or before an object,
the object should be inverted. See (c) above [which differs in word
order from the other examples].
c. The interrogative 'zenme' may be combined with an adjective to
convey the meaning of 'no matter how...' [Exception? Or unique
'rule'?]
d. 'Zenme' is usually combined with a verb in its basic form to mean
'no matter how one tries to...' [Another example of the wonderful
regularity of the isolating languages?]"
(Shou-ying Lin, College Chinese: A First-Year Textbook (Cambridge, MA:
Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1989), p. 225.
I haven't even bothered to discuss tone sandhi; orthographical
complexities, such as the dozen or so romanizations or the 20,000
character logographic writing system, which also comes in several
versions; or historical difficulties, such as the major differences in
grammar of the archaic, medieval, and modern language; or dialect
differences.
Once again, Ivan:
"A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring..."
Crazy
RASch...@nospam.worldnet.att.net (Richard A. Schulman) wrote:
>AmarUtu:
>>>although you quote from wheelock, he isn't without his flaws. your claim
>>>that the descriptive grammar of latin is not satisfactory because it
>>>doesn't account for everything in an absolutely regular way is somewhat
>>>silly.
>Ivan (Crazy):
>> I don't claim that. I claim that descriptive grammars have turned
>>into prescriptive ones.
>>
>> Love,
>> -= Ivan =-
>You're contradicting yourself again, lovie-dovie.
Not at all, honey-bunny.
>This could only be the case for a living language.
Indeed!
...A very important statement. Do I need to explain it to you or
you're about to get it?
AmarUtu
wheelock is an example where the distinction between descriptive and
prescriptive grammar is blurred. if we take him without his excercises,
then he can arguably be called descriptive. when we are presented with
excercises that expect us to follow a model, then that is prescriptive.
indeed, prescriptive is what those who engage in latin or greek prose comp
have to be aware of.
chris hoffman
Zoticus
>I'm not positive of this, but weren't Madison, Hamilton, and Jay, in
>writing anonymously The Federalist Papers, just continuing an 18th
>century journalistic convention -- a convention that originally served
>to keep an author from being hung or jailed?
I'm not positive either, but I believe you are correct. The compiler's
introduction to "The Anti-Federalist" goes into this matter in more
detail, if I remember rightly. Ironically, the pseudonyms protected the
Federalist authors from popular fury (e.g. lynching) in an era when the
Bill of Rights had yet to be conceived: the guarantee of "free speech"
was not as yet an explicit part of the package they were promoting.
Zot...@aol.com
--------------------------
"Concide Magire!"
Kevin Beaulieu
> trained in what you claim is false latin. the average soldier still
> conjugated his verbs like we modern students of latin are taught to.
For irrefutable filmed proof of this claim, see Monty Python's
"Life of Brian".
Joseph Raymond Frechette
Crazy (Iv...@mindspring.com) wrote:
: jfre...@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu (Joseph Raymond Frechette) wrote:
: >: >>I believe what Emma was saying is this: Latin as it is taught is
: >: >>not what it is represented to be.
: >: A true statement.
: >In what way?
: Are you familiar with name Wheelock? If you teach Latin, you probably
: are. Anyway, in the very beginning of his most revered book, a
: "classic", a standard, Mr. Wheelock says that Latin is a model of
: "clarity and beauty". Then he proceeds with close to 300 pages
: instructions on the language, half of which describe conjugations,
: declensions and so forth and the other half - the exceptions to the
: rules. To call this "clarity" is misleading, speaking mildly, if not
: humorous.
I would say that clarity is a fair attribution for any language that
can be described in 300 pages as thoroughly as Wheelock describes
Latin.
: >I teach Latin and find the implied denigration of my field
: >rather insulting.
: Give Esperanto a try.
Why? There is no significant body of literature or thought preserved in
Esperanto.
: The Catholic Church and the Church on the whole did not use
: "classical" Latin. It was what's known as Mediaeval Latin. The clergy
: learned their Latin from old grammars left from the later days of the
: Roman Empire. Nothing "classical" about that Latin. As a matter of
: fact, of Cicero saw what they did with "his" language, he'd be most
: appaled.
As an Englishman of the 18th century would be with Brooklyn slang or even
American standard. Languages evolve over time. My knowledge of "classical"
Latin allows me to understand Medieval Latin, they were the same language.
: "Classical" Latin passed from usage through continuous degradation
: where the vernacular of the people was officially established as
: "vulgar" Latin and through Neo-Latin Italian emerged (as well as the
: rest of the romance languages). Meanwhile, "classical" Latin died a
: quick and clean dead.
When? When was it "dead". At what point did Latin stop being Latin?
: Why did "classical" Latin died? Because it was a purely written,
: stagnated language that refused to change and keep up with the needs
: of its speakers.
The military reports on the Dura papyri were in Latin. Nothing "high" or
"literary" about them. It would seem to have been serving a very practical
and mundane function there. And this in the latter half of the 3rd
century.
: Galileo gave it a good kick in the ass by publishing
: some of his scientific works in Italian first. The Royal Society
: abandoned it, then the Paris Academie of Sciences abandoned it, the
: Church abandoned it and ...so it deservingly died. I'm sorry if this
: simple fact seems harsh to you, but history is history, facts are
: facts and there's nothing we can do about it.
LONG after it had transmuted and been absorbed into the "Romance"
Languages. Before you call Latin useless and sterile I suggest you think
about the differences between modern and old English. All languages evolve
and change. It is a part of being a LIVING language.
: >If no one understood anything Cicero wrote, why did he write his letters
: >to his friends and family in much the same style as his "snootier" works?
: Oh, there were few other snots around to read 'em, no question about
: it.
Letters to his children? His best friend? You can't tell me these were all
literary exercises.
: >How were people expected to get the jokes of Terence and Plautus?
: Not too many.
You're kidding right? You are aware of the number of people that could be
seated at Roman theatres right? They just went to listen to stale
unintelligible archaisms?
: >Were
: >people supposed to have no idea what tehy were listening to at poetic
: >recitals? I've asked this before and still await an answer.
: If you have this picture of the Empire's population at large
: attending poetic recitals three times a week so that they can be
: cultured and have a good time, I'm afraid you have the wrong picture.
No, but I do have a pretty clear picture of literate society listening to
them around the dinner table. It isn't as though Martial or Ovid were
appealing to mankind's higher nature.
: >: >> The mistake the Latin student is invited to stumble into is
: >: >>to take at face value any real "classical" significance Latin [as
: >: >>taught] may have ever had.
: >: Exactly.
: >Really. So Latin has no significance for the study of history, art,
: >politics, philosophy, religion or literature? How do you figure?
: It's rather simple. But, unfortunately, if I'm fully to explain it to
: you, you'd probably have a heart attack.
Oh, give it a try. Explain to me why the language that a large percentage
of the thought that western society is based on is insignificant. This
ought to be interesting.
: >but I've studied Latin for awhile now and find it
: >light years more logical than English.
: That's because probably you've been reading this Wheellock guy too
: vigorously over the years.
Explain to me how in God's name you find English to be in any way a
regular language. And no, Wheelock would not be my text of choice for my
kids.
: >No language is without irregularities
: This is an incorrect statement, I'm afraid. All isolating languages
: are very much free of irregularities.
: I'm assuming you're talking from a very limited, euro-centered point
: of view.
Fine, I'm speaking from a Euro-centered viewpoint. How many European
languages are there? How many are free from irregularity? Not many. How
does Latin's irregularity mean it is any less vital?
: >and Latin is in fact freer of them than most.
: Really? Like which ones, for example?
Say, Modern English?
: >Even if true,
: >the statement above really doesn;t prove anything about the current
: >discussion. Just because a language is illogical does not mean it was not
: >used. Out of curiosity would you say the same about classical Greek?
: That it was a very irregular? Absolutely. So were Old Slavonic,
: Sanskrit... lots of 'em.
And a host of modern languages. But you say irregularity makes a language
less relevant and useful. Do all of the above suffer as Latin does in your
estimation?
: >So all written Latin was the exclusive province of overeducated eggheads?
: Yup.
: >I guess someone forgot to tell all the people writing on papyrus and on
: >walls that they were using a language that was restricted to the upper
: >classes.
: Well, papyrus wasn't exactly sold at every Seven-Eleven, so that when
: you stopped for a break, to feed the horses and drink water, you
: casually dropped a buck and picked the latest issue of Cicero's latest
: literary creation. The vast majority of people had to use something
: called a wax board in order to learn to write. You ever seen a wax
: board? It's not that big, you know...
Yes, but wax has not been preserved, papyrus, parchment, stone, and
pottery have. As to the high brow nature of such items they include such
mundane items as military rosters, inventories, political slogans, tavern
rates, contracts, etc. Can you honestly believe that none of what was
written on these documents had any relevance to the people who were part
of the society that produced it.
Of course there was a difference between the Latin of the educated and the
Latin of of the inhabitants of the Subura. Probably a similar distinction
exists now between the English of an Oxford professor and an inhabitant of
Hoboken. In both cases, the same language was spoken and written, there
was simply a greater disregard for grammar among the comman folk. If a
language is to be taught, some standard must be set for the grammar to be
learned. Learning the language of Cicero allows students to understand
Latin of just about any era. Why pick the Latin of Eutropius as your
paradigm when that means that the students' use of the language will be
restricted to the level of the late 4th century leaving the classical age
a bridge yet to be crossed?
: To conclude, shall we turn our sights to a quote from a historian of
: the Royal Society on why they decided to abandon Latin. It was because
: its members demended "...a close, naked, natural way of speaking...
: prefering the language of the artisans, countrymen and merchants
: before that of wits and scholars".
Was Latin never the language of artisans, countrymen, and merchants?
Granted, not by the decision of the Royal society, but never in the
classical world?
: Plato, of course, sucks.
I've seen alot of sig files in my time but this is just silly.
Ivor Ludlam
Crazy (Iv...@mindspring.com)
>> Plato, of course, sucks.
Joseph Raymond Frechette
> I've seen alot of sig files in my time but this is just silly.
Give credit where it's due. Crazy Ivan did not write
"Plato, of course, sucked"
or
"Translations of Plato, of course, suck".
This is one of the most optimistic, upbeat sigs I have ever seen: Plato
is alive and sucking! There is hope for Classics yet.
I am just wondering why Crazy acknowledges the vitality of (some)
ancient Greek texts while refusing to acknowledge the vitality of any
Latin texts. I can think of some possible rational arguments to support
this view, but I would be interested in Crazy's own explanation.
Ivor Ludlam
Michael Zeleny
>Crazy (Iv...@mindspring.com):
>>> Plato, of course, sucks.
>Joseph Raymond Frechette:
>>I've seen alot of sig files in my time but this is just silly.
Ivor Ludlam (lud...@ccsg.tau.ac.il):
>Give credit where it's due. Crazy Ivan did not write
>
>"Plato, of course, sucked"
>or
>"Translations of Plato, of course, suck".
>
>This is one of the most optimistic, upbeat sigs I have ever seen: Plato
>is alive and sucking! There is hope for Classics yet.
"Laisse du vieux Platon se froncer l'oeil austere."
>I am just wondering why Crazy acknowledges the vitality of (some)
>ancient Greek texts while refusing to acknowledge the vitality of any
>Latin texts. I can think of some possible rational arguments to support
>this view, but I would be interested in Crazy's own explanation.
I suspect that the Greeks have taught him never to trust a shaven man.
Cordially -- Mikhail * God: "Sum id quod sum." Descartes: "Cogito ergo sum."
Zel...@math.ucla.edu *** Popeye: "Sum id quod sum et id totum est quod sum."
itinerant philosopher *** will think for food ** www.ptyx.com ** M...@ptyx.com
ptyx, 6869 Pacific View Drive, LA, CA 90068, 213-876-8234/213-874-4745 (fax)
Come to the Alonzo Church Archive at http://www.alonzo.org *** 310-966-6700
Michael Zeleny
>>Ivan/Crazy, I've read with some interest the various posts in
>>this category. Quite apparent that Mr.Schulman has little
>>scholarship to contribute in this effort, more obvious that he
>>seeks puerile name-calling sessions, laudable that no one other
>>is keen to pursue this cul de sac. I am impressed with your own
>>erudition and enlightenment in this area. You appear to be the
>>sort of individual who SHOULD be teaching, but unfortunately is
>>never found there, anymore.
> M.VAL.MARTIALIS
> IN CAECILIVM (SEV IASONEM)
> EPIGRAMMA
>
> Urbanus tibi,Caecili,videris.
> Non es,crede mihi. Quid ergo? Verna,
> hoc quod transtiberinus ambulator,
> qui pallentia sulphurata fractis
> permutat vitreis,quod otiosae
> vendit qui madidum cicer coronae,
> quod custos dominusque viperarum,
> quod viles pueri salariorum,
> quod fumantia qui tomacla raucus
> circumfert tepidis cocus popinis,
> quod non optimus urbicus poeta,
> quod de Gadibus inprobus magister,
> quod bucca est vetuli dicax cinaedi.
> Quare desine iam tibi videri,
> quod soli tibi,Caecili,videris
> <snip>
> I, XLI
Better yet:
Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo,
Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi,
far superior by dint of its broader applicability, and greater
didactic value of demonstrating a Latin verb not susceptible to
a pithy English translation.
AmarUtu
tat tvam asi
looks like *you are it*, not i am it.
chris hoffman
Crazy
Ivor Ludlam <lud...@ccsg.tau.ac.il> wrote:
>Crazy (Iv...@mindspring.com)
>>> Plato, of course, sucks.
>Joseph Raymond Frechette
Who?
>> I've seen alot of sig files in my time but this is just silly.
>Give credit where it's due. Crazy Ivan did not write
>"Plato, of course, sucked"
>or
>"Translations of Plato, of course, suck".
>This is one of the most optimistic, upbeat sigs I have ever seen: Plato
>is alive and sucking! There is hope for Classics yet.
>I am just wondering why Crazy acknowledges the vitality of (some)
>ancient Greek texts while refusing to acknowledge the vitality of any
>Latin texts.
Even thought the ancient Greeks were such morons, they had a bit of
originality. The Romans were total screwups and nothing remotely
interesting came outa them. All they did was stealing all Greek that
could be stolen, not unlike the Greeks stealing all Arab and Indian
that could be stolen. The difference is mainly in the fact that the
Greeks bastardized what they borrowed sufficiently enough to make it
"theirs", while the Romans couldn't do even that.
Needless to say, both groups were white, male, shovinist, sexist pigs
with ideas about social order that would upset any respecting herself
modern, feminist-lesbian-radical bodybuilder.
> I can think of some possible rational arguments to support
>this view, but I would be interested in Crazy's own explanation.
>Ivor Ludlam
As far as Plato goes, he was a babbling idiot with propensity for
running his mouth without saying whole lot. His dialogs are so moronic
that reading them for prolonged periods of times can be dangerous for
one's intellectual well-being.
Tiro Typeworks
On Tue, 01 Jul 1997 05:55:03 GMT, Iv...@mindspring.com (Crazy) wrote:
> Even thought the ancient Greeks were such morons, they had a bit of
>originality. The Romans were total screwups and nothing remotely
>interesting came outa them. All they did was stealing all Greek that
>could be stolen, not unlike the Greeks stealing all Arab and Indian
>that could be stolen. The difference is mainly in the fact that the
>Greeks bastardized what they borrowed sufficiently enough to make it
>"theirs", while the Romans couldn't do even that.
> Needless to say, both groups were white, male, shovinist, sexist pigs
>with ideas about social order that would upset any respecting herself
>modern, feminist-lesbian-radical bodybuilder.
> As far as Plato goes, he was a babbling idiot with propensity for
>running his mouth without saying whole lot. His dialogs are so moronic
>that reading them for prolonged periods of times can be dangerous for
>one's intellectual well-being.
The talented troll, on the other hand, is a canny beast, capable of
hiding his or her deliberate bid for attention and angered response
behind a semblance of intellectual adversity. This, I always assumed,
was the point of trolling: to get a rise out of the pompous by baiting
them on a subject about which one knows and cares little, but to which
they ascribe great import. However, brazenly announcing one's lack of
knowledge and sensibility would seem to run counter to the aim of the
game.
Either the quality of fish to be baited in these waters has greatly
declined, or Crazy Ivan has misunderstood the nature of the sport.
John Hudson
Tiro Typeworks
Vancouver, BC
ti...@tiro.com
www.tiro.com
AmarUtu
ivan
do you seriously believe that the greeks *stole* from the arabs? i would
love to hear on what possible basis you could even imagine this. never
mind that arabic wasn't written until the roman empire was well under way.
never mind that the arabs acknowledge their own debt to greece.
chris hoffman
Don HARLOW
On 28 Jun 1997 03:17:47 GMT, jfre...@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu (Joseph
Raymond Frechette) wrote:
>Crazy (Iv...@mindspring.com) wrote:
>: jfre...@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu (Joseph Raymond Frechette) wrote:
>
>: >I teach Latin and find the implied denigration of my field
>: >rather insulting.
>
>: Give Esperanto a try.
>
>Why? There is no significant body of literature or thought preserved in
>Esperanto.
>
I don't understand exactly what "Crazy's" response to your comment has
to do with anything -- it's a definite _non sequitur_ -- but your
reply is simply in error. I can't say that more literature and thought
has been recorded in Esperanto than was recorded, in its time, in
Latin, but the amount _preserved_ in Esperanto -- and this is
considering only _original_ material, not translations from some
dozens of other languages -- is certainly at least comparable to that
_preserved_ in Latin (I have more such material on my own bookshelves,
for instance, than is available in Latin in the Loeb Library).
Don HARLOW
http://www.webcom.com/~donh/
(English version available at http://www.webcom.com/~donh/dona.html)
Richard A. Schulman
On Wed, 02 Jul 1997 22:34:12 GMT, d...@donh.vip.best.com (Don HARLOW)
wrote:
> I can't say that more literature and thought
>has been recorded in Esperanto than was recorded, in its time, in
>Latin, but the amount _preserved_ in Esperanto -- and this is
>considering only _original_ material, not translations from some
>dozens of other languages -- is certainly at least comparable to that
>_preserved_ in Latin (I have more such material on my own bookshelves,
>for instance, than is available in Latin in the Loeb Library).
Quantity aside, would you claim that the Esperanto corpus is
comparable in quality and historical importance to the Latin one? Are
there Esperanto poets comparable to Vergil, Ovid, Horace, Catullus,
etc. Is there original Esperanto prose comparable in historical
importance to Cicero, Julius Caesar, St. Augustine, etc.?
Tiro Typeworks
>On Wed, 02 Jul 1997 22:34:12 GMT, d...@donh.vip.best.com (Don HARLOW)
>wrote:
>
>> I can't say that more literature and thought
>>has been recorded in Esperanto than was recorded, in its time, in
>>Latin, but the amount _preserved_ in Esperanto -- and this is
>>considering only _original_ material, not translations from some
>>dozens of other languages -- is certainly at least comparable to that
>>_preserved_ in Latin (I have more such material on my own bookshelves,
>>for instance, than is available in Latin in the Loeb Library).
>
>Quantity aside, would you claim that the Esperanto corpus is
>comparable in quality and historical importance to the Latin one? Are
>there Esperanto poets comparable to Vergil, Ovid, Horace, Catullus,
>etc. Is there original Esperanto prose comparable in historical
>importance to Cicero, Julius Caesar, St. Augustine, etc.?
I don't think even the most dedicated Esperantist would claim such a
thing. Most Esperantists I have met have been painstakingly clear in
expressing the function of Esperanto as a universal second language.
It is not intended to supplement natural languages, so there is no
reason why a body of culturally vital literature ever should arise in
Esperanto. Esperanto is easily criticised when compared to any natural
language that has been kicking about the world for hundreds of years.
Accepting the limitations of an artificial language, the Esperantists
are probably due a certain admiration, for their unabated enthusiasm
if nothing else. That said, I still laugh aloud when I recall Stephen
Fry's definition of Esperanto as 'an amusing attempt to make Spanish
sound elegant'.
Jonathan Badger
RASch...@nospam.worldnet.att.net (Richard A. Schulman) writes:
>Quantity aside, would you claim that the Esperanto corpus is
>comparable in quality and historical importance to the Latin one? Are
>there Esperanto poets comparable to Vergil, Ovid, Horace, Catullus,
>etc.
One can compare any two poets one likes. However, if your yardstick for
excellence is how long the poets in question have been dead, I guess
Baghy loses to Vergil.
>Is there original Esperanto prose comparable in historical
>importance to Cicero, Julius Caesar, St. Augustine, etc.?
Of course not -- but not because it is inherently inferior in quality.
Latin prose is historically significant because it is thousands of
years old. If Caesar's grocery list survived it would be historically
important too. A more significant question for readers (rather than
historical researchers) is if the literature in Latin more or less
*interesting* than that in Esperanto. So far, with the exception of
"The Golden Ass", (which I read in English translation) most Latin
prose is not very interesting to me. I'd be really surprised is
anyone really enjoys reading "The Gallic Wars", which is little more
than pro-Roman propaganda. Even my copy of "Latin pro Populo" admits
that Caesar's prose is rather tedious.
In constrast, I've read quite a bit of interesting Esperanto prose.
There's dull prose too, but because it wasn't written by Caesar, I
didn't feel ashamed to stop reading it and pick up something more
interesting.
Richard A. Schulman
I wrote:
>>Quantity aside, would you claim that the Esperanto corpus is
>>comparable in quality and historical importance to the Latin one? Are
>>there Esperanto poets comparable to Vergil, Ovid, Horace, Catullus,
>>etc.
bad...@aquarius.scs.uiuc.edu (Jonathan Badger) replied:
>One can compare any two poets one likes. However, if your yardstick for
>excellence is how long the poets in question have been dead, I guess
>Baghy loses to Vergil.
That isn't my yardstick but rather the originality and beauty of the
poetry and its importance for understanding subsequent literary
development.
I wrote:
>>Is there original Esperanto prose comparable in historical
>>importance to Cicero, Julius Caesar, St. Augustine, etc.?
Jonathan B:
>Of course not -- but not because it is inherently inferior in quality.
I would think that several generations of very creative people would
have to struggle to express their best thoughts in Esperanto for the
language to come anywhere close to Latin's expressivity, say, by the
1st century A.D.
JB:
>Latin prose is historically significant because it is thousands of
>years old. If Caesar's grocery list survived it would be historically
>important too. A more significant question for readers (rather than
>historical researchers) is if the literature in Latin more or less
>*interesting* than that in Esperanto. So far, with the exception of
>"The Golden Ass", (which I read in English translation) most Latin
>prose is not very interesting to me. I'd be really surprised is
>anyone really enjoys reading "The Gallic Wars", which is little more
>than pro-Roman propaganda.
I enjoyed it very much. It brings alive -- as no other work I can
think of does -- what it must have been like to be in a Roman legion
and how it was that the Romans won themselves such a huge empire.
>Even my copy of "Latin pro Populo" admits
>that Caesar's prose is rather tedious.
It's surely more interesting than doing drills with made-up Latin.
>In constrast, I've read quite a bit of interesting Esperanto prose.
>There's dull prose too, but because it wasn't written by Caesar, I
>didn't feel ashamed to stop reading it and pick up something more
>interesting.
Perhaps we need some alternate introductory Latin texts for people,
like yourself, who don't find "The Gallic Wars" so interesting but who
need some easy Latin in order to get up to speed. My candidate for
this would be excerpts from the Vulgate.
Jonathan Badger
RASch...@nospam.worldnet.att.net (Richard A. Schulman) writes:
Richard A. Schulman) I wrote:
>>>Quantity aside, would you claim that the Esperanto corpus is
>>>comparable in quality and historical importance to the Latin one? Are
>>>there Esperanto poets comparable to Vergil, Ovid, Horace, Catullus,
>>>etc.
>bad...@aquarius.scs.uiuc.edu (Jonathan Badger) replied:
>>One can compare any two poets one likes. However, if your yardstick for
>>excellence is how long the poets in question have been dead, I guess
>>Baghy loses to Vergil.
>That isn't my yardstick but rather the originality and beauty of the
>poetry and its importance for understanding subsequent literary
>development.
Well, Vergil is original? Come on -- he suffered from Greek-envy, as
most Romans did, and merely sought to imitate Homer. I grant you
beauty is a worthy yardstick, but "importance for understanding
subsequent literary development" is merely a function of age, which
was my original point.
>I would think that several generations of very creative people would
>have to struggle to express their best thoughts in Esperanto for the
>language to come anywhere close to Latin's expressivity, say, by the
>1st century A.D.
And several generations of very creative people *have* been expressing
their best thoughts in Esperanto. Did you think otherwise?
>Perhaps we need some alternate introductory Latin texts for people,
>like yourself, who don't find "The Gallic Wars" so interesting but who
>need some easy Latin in order to get up to speed. My candidate for
>this would be excerpts from the Vulgate.
As "Latina pro Populo" suggests. Unfortunately, I don't think many
people find the Bible in any translation terribly interesting either.
"In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram..." might be spirtually
uplifting to some people, but *interesting*?
It really is too bad additional humorous Latin novels like "The Golden
Ass" haven't survived...
Richard A. Schulman
On 3 Jul 1997 13:15:57 GMT, bad...@aquarius.scs.uiuc.edu (Jonathan
Badger) wrote:
>Well, Vergil is original? Come on -- he suffered from Greek-envy, as
>most Romans did, and merely sought to imitate Homer.
Vergil is original, however much he builds on Greek predecessors. Your
characterization of Vergil as a Homeric imitator is also overly
narrow. Apollonius Rhodius and Theocritus are no less important
influences.
In Western literature, epic as a genre has always been heavily
influenced by its predecessors. Criticizing the Romans for "Greek
envy" is silly. So many fine poets since then have as well. Enjoy
reading Hoelderlin!
JB:
>I grant you
>beauty is a worthy yardstick, but "importance for understanding
>subsequent literary development" is merely a function of age, which
>was my original point.
But that's wrong. There are lots of shards from the temple economies
of Crete and the Near East, with tallies of olive oil and wine and tax
payments, which are many centuries, if not millenia, older than Latin
literature. They are of minimal value for "understanding subsequent
literary development," however.
So too your Esperanto texts. It's not their modernity that makes them
of little interest to the student of world literature but their
irrelevance.
RAS:
>>I would think that several generations of very creative people would
>>have to struggle to express their best thoughts in Esperanto for the
>>language to come anywhere close to Latin's expressivity, say, by the
>>1st century A.D.
JB:
>And several generations of very creative people *have* been expressing
>their best thoughts in Esperanto. Did you think otherwise?
If you are convinced that there are Esperanto poems worthy to be
placed alongside the best poetry of Yeats, Pound, T.S. Eliot, Rilke,
and Mandel'shtam, by all means post these here so that we can see them
and thank you for introducing us to these new additions to the canon.
RAS:
>>Perhaps we need some alternate introductory Latin texts for people,
>>like yourself, who don't find "The Gallic Wars" so interesting but who
>>need some easy Latin in order to get up to speed. My candidate for
>>this would be excerpts from the Vulgate.
JB:
>As "Latina pro Populo" suggests. Unfortunately, I don't think many
>people find the Bible in any translation terribly interesting either.
>"In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram..." might be spirtually
>uplifting to some people, but *interesting*?
I had in mind the Latin texts which provide the context for, or
actually become the libretti of, the great masses and oratorios of
Bach, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. These are mostly, but not
entirely, in Jerome's New Testament. After learning the Latin, the
student could greatly enjoy the music.
JB:
>It really is too bad additional humorous Latin novels like "The Golden
>Ass" haven't survived...
There's plenty of humorous Latin poetry. If you find it too raunchy,
there are always the Lives of the Saints.
Jonathan Badger
RASch...@nospam.worldnet.att.net (Richard A. Schulman) writes:
>JB:
>>I grant you
>>beauty is a worthy yardstick, but "importance for understanding
>>subsequent literary development" is merely a function of age, which
>>was my original point.
>But that's wrong. There are lots of shards from the temple economies
>of Crete and the Near East, with tallies of olive oil and wine and tax
>payments, which are many centuries, if not millenia, older than Latin
>literature. They are of minimal value for "understanding subsequent
>literary development," however.
Because tax-records aren't literature, silly! If one looks at truly
old *literature* such as Gilgamesh, you'll find plenty of influence.
(It's the original source of the legend of Noah and flood, for one
thing).
>So too your Esperanto texts. It's not their modernity that makes them
>of little interest to the student of world literature but their
>irrelevance.
Irrelevance as defined by what, exactly?
>JB:
>>And several generations of very creative people *have* been expressing
>>their best thoughts in Esperanto. Did you think otherwise?
>If you are convinced that there are Esperanto poems worthy to be
>placed alongside the best poetry of Yeats, Pound, T.S. Eliot, Rilke,
>and Mandel'shtam, by all means post these here so that we can see them
>and thank you for introducing us to these new additions to the canon.
Well, I could post whole chunks of Auld's epic "La infana raso", but
unless you learn Esperanto, I don't know how you would judge its
worth. It's in verse, and as I'm sure you know, verse doesn't
translate well.
>RAS:
>>>Perhaps we need some alternate introductory Latin texts for people,
>>>like yourself, who don't find "The Gallic Wars" so interesting but who
>>>need some easy Latin in order to get up to speed. My candidate for
>>>this would be excerpts from the Vulgate.
>JB:
>>As "Latina pro Populo" suggests. Unfortunately, I don't think many
>>people find the Bible in any translation terribly interesting either.
>>"In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram..." might be spirtually
>>uplifting to some people, but *interesting*?
>I had in mind the Latin texts which provide the context for, or
>actually become the libretti of, the great masses and oratorios of
>Bach, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. These are mostly, but not
>entirely, in Jerome's New Testament.
Bach's religious music is almost without exception in German, not
Latin. He wasn't Catholic.
Richard A. Schulman
Jonathan Badger:
>>>I grant you
>>>beauty is a worthy yardstick, but "importance for understanding
>>>subsequent literary development" is merely a function of age, which
>>>was my original point.
Richard A. Schulman:
>>But that's wrong. There are lots of shards from the temple economies
>>of Crete and the Near East, with tallies of olive oil and wine and tax
>>payments, which are many centuries, if not millenia, older than Latin
>>literature. They are of minimal value for "understanding subsequent
>>literary development," however.
RAS:
>Because tax-records aren't literature, silly!
It's nice to hear you telling me what I've been telling you -- silly!
...
RAS:
>>So too your Esperanto texts. It's not their modernity that makes them
>>of little interest to the student of world literature but their
>>irrelevance.
J.B.:
>Irrelevance as defined by what, exactly?
Playing with the "Big Boys" -- a few of whom I mentioned below.
R.S.:
>>If you are convinced that there are Esperanto poems worthy to be
>>placed alongside the best poetry of Yeats, Pound, T.S. Eliot, Rilke,
>>and Mandel'shtam, by all means post these here so that we can see them
>>and thank you for introducing us to these new additions to the canon.
J.B.:
>Well, I could post whole chunks of Auld's epic "La infana raso", but
>unless you learn Esperanto, I don't know how you would judge its
>worth. It's in verse, and as I'm sure you know, verse doesn't
>translate well.
Well, now I'm confused. Crazy Ivan had me believing that Esperanto and
Vola-puke were so logical that I could learn them in five minutes,
especially with all the Latin and Spanish I've picked up from Post
Office cornerstones and enchilada cans.
Perhaps you could direct us all to an Esperanto Web page, preferably
with facing English translation, so that we can all pursue this
Romance?
Alternatively, you could publish here a sonnet or two, giving both
the Esperanto and English. I think we are all quivering with Hope.
JB:
>Bach's religious music is almost without exception in German, not
>Latin. He wasn't Catholic.
You've forgotten some pretty important "exceptions": the Mass in B
Minor (BWV 232) and the Magnificat in D (BWV 243).
But speaking of Bach's religion, perhaps you would like to read the
founding document of Bach's religion and Protestantism -- all the more
so since you don't seem to be able to make it through either The
Gallic Wars or St. Jerome's Bible.
--------
DISPUTATIO PRO DECLARATIONE VIRTUTIS INDULGENTIARUM
Amore et studio elucidande veritatis hec subscripta disputabuntur
Wittenberge, Presidente R. P. Martino Lutther, Artium et S. Theologie
Magistro eiusdemque ibidem lectore Ordinario. Quare petit, ut qui non
possunt verbis presentes nobiscum disceptare agant id literis
absentes. In nomine domini nostri Hiesu Christi. Amen.
1. Dominus et magister noster Iesus Christus dicendo 'Penitentiam
agite &c.' omnem vitam fidelium penitentiam esse voluit.
2. Quod verbum de penitentia sacramentali (id est confessionis et
satisfactionis, que sacerdotum ministerio celebratur) non potest
intelligi.
3. Non tamen solam intendit interiorem, immo interior nulla est, nisi
foris operetur varias carnis mortificationes.
For Luther's remaining ninety-two theses, please link to:
http://adams.patriot.net/~lillard/chp/luther.95.html
Jonathan Badger
RASch...@nospam.worldnet.att.net (Richard A. Schulman) writes:
>Jonathan Badger:
>>>>I grant you
>>>>beauty is a worthy yardstick, but "importance for understanding
>>>>subsequent literary development" is merely a function of age, which
>>>>was my original point.
>Richard A. Schulman:
>>>But that's wrong. There are lots of shards from the temple economies
>>>of Crete and the Near East, with tallies of olive oil and wine and tax
>>>payments, which are many centuries, if not millenia, older than Latin
>>>literature. They are of minimal value for "understanding subsequent
>>>literary development," however.
>RAS:
>>Because tax-records aren't literature, silly!
>It's nice to hear you telling me what I've been telling you -- silly!
No, you suggested in the quote above that Near Eastern cultures *only*
had tax records and the like -- not literature. What literature they
had was actually very important and influential, as the example of
Gilgamesh shows. Obviously Gilgamesh could not have had the influence
it has unless it was so very ancient.
>RAS:
>>>So too your Esperanto texts. It's not their modernity that makes them
>>>of little interest to the student of world literature but their
>>>irrelevance.
>J.B.:
>>Irrelevance as defined by what, exactly?
>Playing with the "Big Boys" -- a few of whom I mentioned below.
Interesting that you shift to English poets here -- so you are
suggesting Latin poetry isn't as worthwhile? But what makes these "Big
Boys" big? The fact that they are famous? More people read Tom Clancy
than any Roman author, or the authors below. Does that prove anything
about relative value?
>R.S.:
>>>If you are convinced that there are Esperanto poems worthy to be
>>>placed alongside the best poetry of Yeats, Pound, T.S. Eliot, Rilke,
>>>and Mandel'shtam, by all means post these here so that we can see them
>>>and thank you for introducing us to these new additions to the canon.
>J.B.:
>>Well, I could post whole chunks of Auld's epic "La infana raso", but
>>unless you learn Esperanto, I don't know how you would judge its
>>worth. It's in verse, and as I'm sure you know, verse doesn't
>>translate well.
>Well, now I'm confused. Crazy Ivan had me believing that Esperanto and
>Vola-puke were so logical that I could learn them in five minutes,
>especially with all the Latin and Spanish I've picked up from Post
>Office cornerstones and enchilada cans.
No, of course Esperanto isn't all *that* easy, but it is quite
possible to get a reading knowledge of it in a month or two (I did).
By the way, the vocabularly of Esperanto is considerably more related
to your beloved Latin than it is to Spanish. In fact Esperanto isn't
specifically related to Spanish in any way, contrary to some assertions
on this thread.
>Perhaps you could direct us all to an Esperanto Web page, preferably
>with facing English translation [...]
Well, if you are interested in *learning* the language, check out
http://wwwtios.cs.utwente.nl/esperanto/hypercourse/index.html
And for a collection of literture in that language including poetry
Richard A. Schulman
I wrote:
Way back when, I wrote:
>>>>There are lots of shards from the temple economies
>>>>of Crete and the Near East, with tallies of olive oil and wine and tax
>>>>payments, which are many centuries, if not millenia, older than Latin
>>>>literature. They are of minimal value for "understanding subsequent
>>>>literary development," however.
One exchange later, bad...@aquarius.scs.uiuc.edu (Jonathan Badger)
wrote:
>[Y]ou suggested in the quote above that Near Eastern cultures *only*
>had tax records and the like -- not literature.
Please read my statement above with whatever optical corrective device
is appropriate for you. There's nothing in that statement to suggest
that Near Eastern cultures "only had tax records and the like -- not
literature."
JB:
> What literature they
>had was actually very important and influential, as the example of
>Gilgamesh shows. Obviously Gilgamesh could not have had the influence
>it has unless it was so very ancient.
Thank you for telling me yet a second time what I already knew.
RAS:
>>>>So too your Esperanto texts. It's not their modernity that makes them
>>>>of little interest to the student of world literature but their
>>>>irrelevance.
>
J.B.:
>>>Irrelevance as defined by what, exactly?
RAS:
>>Playing with the "Big Boys" -- a few of whom I mentioned below.
J.B.:
>Interesting that you shift to English poets here -- so you are
>suggesting Latin poetry isn't as worthwhile?
No, silly. You wrote that there were several generations of recent
wonderful Esperanto writers. I thought it only fair to put your
geniuses -- yet to be sampled here -- next to major 20th-century
writers. I presume that if your chosen Esperanto writers were to have
to compete with Homer, Aeschylus, Vergil, Dante, and Shakespeare, the
contest would have become altogether too rigged. My sense of fair play
was obviously lost on you.
JB:
>But what makes these "Big
>Boys" big? The fact that they are famous? More people read Tom Clancy
>than any Roman author, or the authors below. Does that prove anything
>about relative value?
Spare me a discussion of canonicity in so trivial a context.
RAS:
>>Perhaps you could direct us all to an Esperanto Web page, preferably
>>with facing English translation [...]
JB:
>Well, if you are interested in...a collection of literture in that language including poetry
> http://www.webcom.com/~donh/literaturo.html
I linked to this site, which I note is administered by Don Harlow, who
has also been lobbying in this newsgroup in favor of Esperanto. I
note, at the site above, much material translated from other languages
into Esperanto, together with a smaller sampling of original Esperanto
writings. Most of the Esperanto texts seem marred by unreadable
characters. For example, at the head of the home page is text that
reads "Lastatempaj Novaźoj". Is "ź" a letter in Esperanto?
On behalf of both myself and others interested in examining your
claims, I requested you to provide some excellent Esperanto poems with
accompanying English translations. You can't expect us to spend a
month learning Esperanto just to verify your claim of literary
excellence. You haven't met that request yet. If I were in your shoes,
I would certainly do it. It's not that big a deal typing out a few
poems and posting them here. You can include notes and commentary as
well, if you wish. Provide a key where letters differ in pronunciation
from, say, classical Latin. A good model to follow would be that
provided by The Poem Itself, edited by Stanley Burnshaw.
Jonathan Badger
RASch...@nospam.worldnet.att.net (Richard A. Schulman) writes:
>> http://www.webcom.com/~donh/literaturo.html
>I linked to this site, which I note is administered by Don Harlow, who
>has also been lobbying in this newsgroup in favor of Esperanto.
No, Don was *very* low key as is his usual style. He merely corrected
someone's erroneus statement regarding the lack of literature in
Esperanto. And I was merely responding to your rather arrogant
statement implying that there couldn't be any really great literature
in the language. Actually, I shouldn't taken offense -- you are the
poster who once claimed on this newsgroup that Chinese literature
wasn't nearly as important as Latin literature, so I guess that is your
stock response to any body of literature unfamilar to you.
You know, I used to be a lot like you. In high school I was convinced
that Shakespeare was by far the greatest author who ever lived, and
was actually offended when foreign exchange students thought obscure
authors like Goethe and Dante might reasonably be considered for the
position. As I grow older and read more widely, my opinion is that
no one culture has all the great literary works.
>On behalf of both myself and others interested in examining your
>claims, I requested you to provide some excellent Esperanto poems with
>accompanying English translations. You can't expect us to spend a
>month learning Esperanto just to verify your claim of literary
>excellence. You haven't met that request yet. If I were in your shoes,
>I would certainly do it. It's not that big a deal typing out a few
>poems and posting them here. You can include notes and commentary as
>well, if you wish. Provide a key where letters differ in pronunciation
>from, say, classical Latin. A good model to follow would be that
>provided by The Poem Itself, edited by Stanley Burnshaw.
You can't be serious. Any translations that I would do couldn't do
good poetry justice. I once tried to translate an Esperanto short
story into English with rather poor results. My attempt at translating
poetry would be laughable. Actually, I suspect your attempt at
translating Latin poetry would be pretty bad too. Only a few geniuses
like Dryden can translate poetry with any real success.
And I'm not really suggesting you learn Esperanto (unless you want
to), only that you shouldn't make sweeping judgements about
literatures of which you are ignorant.
Richard A. Schulman
On 4 Jul 1997 03:19:11 GMT, bad...@aquarius.scs.uiuc.edu (Jonathan
Badger) wrote:
>I was merely responding to your rather arrogant
>statement implying that there couldn't be any really great literature
>in the language.
If I was dogmatically certain that Esperanto couldn't have any really
great literature, I wouldn't have asked you to post poetry examples
here in this newsgroup for all to see, accompanied by English
translations and if necessary commentaries.
> Actually, I shouldn't taken offense -- you are the
>poster who once claimed on this newsgroup that Chinese literature
>wasn't nearly as important as Latin literature,
...for Westerners, as opposed to East Asians or Westerners
specializing in East Asian studies. I am hardly alone in this view.
Typical of your dishonesty, you not only left out the qualification I
just provided, but also my clear statements that Westerners should
read the Chinese classics in English.
> so I guess that is your
>stock response to any body of literature unfamilar to you.
More whining and prevaricating instead of doing what any serious
person would have done several rounds ago -- posted some of the "world
class" Esperanto poems you claim exist, accompanied by translations
and commentaries for all of us to see.
>You know, I used to be a lot like you. In high school I was convinced
>that Shakespeare was by far the greatest author who ever lived, and
>was actually offended when foreign exchange students thought obscure
>authors like Goethe and Dante might reasonably be considered for the
>position.
I labored under no such illusion and was reading both Goethe and Dante
in translation before high school. Your narrative persuades me that
after high school you traded in your earlier ignorance (provincialism)
for your present ignorance (postmodernist multiculturalism).
>As I grow older and read more widely,
Pompous fellow, I think you really mean "wide of the mark"
> my opinion is that
>no one culture has all the great literary works.
And no one here said otherwise, Mr. Pomposity.
>You can't be serious. Any translations that I would do couldn't do
>good poetry justice. I once tried to translate an Esperanto short
>story into English with rather poor results. My attempt at translating
>poetry would be laughable.
Just a prose translation of some poems would be fine, with commentary
where necessary. As I said in a previous post, use as your model
Burnshaw's The Poem Itself, or more simply, some of the Penguin
anthologies of poetry in French, German, Italian, Russian, with
translations at the bottom of the page.
> Actually, I suspect your attempt at
>translating Latin poetry would be pretty bad too. Only a few geniuses
>like Dryden can translate poetry with any real success.
Yes, great literatures attract great translators. Latin seems to have
satisfied both criteria and, by the light of your non-evidence,
Esperanto neither.
>And I'm not really suggesting you learn Esperanto (unless you want
>to), only that you shouldn't make sweeping judgements about
>literatures of which you are ignorant.
Far from being the victim of a sweeping judgment, you were offered a
chance to make your case for Esperanto literature, with lots of
helpful suggestions as to how to do it in a credible way. Instead of
providing this, for three rounds now you have whined, misread, and
misreported.
Please therefore take your unsupported marketing claims for Esperanto
somewhere else, so that we can get on with more interesting matters in
these newsgroups.
AmarUtu
schulman:
lots of snipping
[begin quotation]
I labored under no such illusion and was reading both Goethe and Dante
in translation before high school. Your narrative persuades me that
after high school you traded in your earlier ignorance (provincialism)
for your present ignorance (postmodernist multiculturalism).
[end quotation]
more snipping
i would like to see a substantive argument for the implication that
multiculturalism is a system for the ignorant or put forward by the
ignorant. when this debate in another incarnation was taken up and
specifics were offered for why near eastern studies should be grouped with
classical studies, schulman always fell silent. when told to look at
specific sumerian works or akkadian works or asked about specific
classical commetentators, there was never any response.
this is no gauntlet. but i would like to see a serious and cogent
argument against multiculturalism that contains more than conclusory
statements. i'd like specific books or specific individuals. i may very
well agree on a lot of issues, there's plenty i don't like about modern
academe, but for all erudition, schulman has often been very short on
specifics.
chris hoffman
Jens S. Larsen
This is by a young contemporary Albanian poet that writes in Esperanto.
I've provided a prose translation into English.
KVIN POEMOJ FIVE POEMS
de Enkela Xhamaj by Enkela Xhamaj
Mi kaj homoj Me and people
------------ -------------
Kion vi havas anstatau^ koron? What do you have in stead of a heart?
Ranon, venenan kalikon, A frog, a poisoned chalice au^ vi havas nenion?
or do you have nothing?
Mi frenezig^as. I'm growing crazy.
Neniu komprenas tion. Nobody understands that.
Mi mortas. I'm dying.
Neniu komprenas tion. Nobody understands that.
Mi ploras. I'm crying.
C^iuj volas tion. Everybody want that.
Sola Alone
---- -----
C^iuj lasis min, Everybody has left me,
ec^ dolc^a herbo, ec^ okuloj. even sweet herbs, even eyes.
C^iuj lasis min Everybody has left me
kaj mi lasas la lason. and I leave the leaving.
Marc^a, kata vivo ... Swampy cat-life ...
Kie vi estas, sufero? Where are you, suffering?
Savu min je monotoneco. Save me from monotony.
S^i She
--- ---
Kiel freneza gufo Like a crazy owl
kiu lamentas tra nokto that laments through a night
s^i malamas c^ion she hates everything
kaj naskas nau^zan amon. and bears an appalling love.
Tri aj^oj Three things
--------- ------------
Vidi vizag^on de l' Diablo To see the Devil's face diss^iri maskon de l'
Ang^elo to tear apart the Angel's mask kaj plori ... and to cry ... Jen
tri aj^oj, kiujn mi ege adoras. Those are three things I adore a lot.
Tezo A thesis
---- --------
Tezo! A thesis!
Nek mortaj papilioj. Neither dead butterflies.
Nek ploroj. Nor cryings.
Ha, se pluvus! Oh! If it would rain!
(Pluvo plenigas min per teruro.) (Rain fills me with terror.)
Ha, se ventus! Oh! If wind would blow!
(Vento frenezigas min g^is idioteco.) (Wind maddens me into idiocy.)
Ha! Nur senstela, malvarma c^ielo ... Oh! Just a cold sky without
stars ...
Tezo! A thesis!
Nek mortaj papilioj. Neither dead butterflies.
Nek ploroj. Nor cryings.
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Don HARLOW
>On Wed, 02 Jul 1997 22:34:12 GMT, d...@donh.vip.best.com (Don HARLOW)
>wrote:
>
>> I can't say that more literature and thought
>>has been recorded in Esperanto than was recorded, in its time, in
>>Latin, but the amount _preserved_ in Esperanto -- and this is
>>considering only _original_ material, not translations from some
>>dozens of other languages -- is certainly at least comparable to that
>>_preserved_ in Latin (I have more such material on my own bookshelves,
>>for instance, than is available in Latin in the Loeb Library).
>
>Quantity aside, would you claim that the Esperanto corpus is
>comparable in quality and historical importance to the Latin one? Are
>there Esperanto poets comparable to Vergil, Ovid, Horace, Catullus,
>etc. Is there original Esperanto prose comparable in historical
>importance to Cicero, Julius Caesar, St. Augustine, etc.?
Of qualitative value comparable to the poets you mention -- yes. Of
historical importance comparable to the authors you mention -- come
back and ask me in two thousand years, and I'll have an answer, one
way or the other...
Not to mention that most of the poets you mention are themselves
available in Esperanto translation, to people in parts of the world
where Latin is not taught and other translations are generally
difficult to come by if available at all. See e.g. Kalocsay's
translations of Catullus' poetry in _Tutmonda Sonoro_.
Richard A. Schulman
In another context, I wrote:
>Your narrative persuades me that
>after high school you traded in your earlier ignorance (provincialism)
>for your present ignorance (postmodernist multiculturalism).
No sooner had the talismanic phrase "postmodernist multiculturalism"
left my lips when the earth began trembling at Giza, huge masonry
blocks tumbled down, and the Ka of AmarUtu (Chris Hoffman) rose up to
ask the Eternal Question:
>i would like to see a substantive argument for the implication that
>multiculturalism is a system for the ignorant or put forward by the
>ignorant.
For a study of the dumbing down of the K-12 curriculum as a result of
a multiculturalist remake of the curriculum in NY State, see "The
Sobol Report: Multiculturalism Triumphant" by Heather MacDonald in The
New Criterion, Jan. 1992, pp. 9-18. For a similar study of the effects
of multiculturalism at Stanford University, see "Multiculturalism and
the Decline of Stanford" by David Sacks and Peter Thiel in Academic
Questions, vol. 8, no. 4 (Fall 1995), pp. 58-67. See also Dinesh
D'Souza's book, Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on
Campus (Free Press, ca. 1991)
Excerpts from the Heather MacDonald article follow.
[In NY State, the curriculum became so fragmented with competing
ethnic demands that basic knowledge and skills suffered. The state
education board sought to address these problems with yet more
multiculturalism -- through a study called the Sobol report]:
"The [Sobol] report's answer to the educational failure created by
multiculturalism's success is breathtaking in its simplicity. Since it
is impossible to master all the gender, race, ethnic, and sexual
information that multiculturalism suddenly makes relevant to world
history, the solution is obvious--discard the mastery of information
as one of education's goals...Rather than calling into question the
use of education as therapy [a multiculturalist tenet], the [Sobol]
panel rejects whatever in the traditional concept of education is
incompatible with that [therapeutic] use." (Sobol, p. 12)
"...The report is a textbook case of rationalizing the real: since
students know nothing anyway, let's declare that the mission of
education is not the acquisition of knowledge, but rather the
'development of fundamental tools,' etc." (Sobol, p. 13)
"...Though the report offers relativism as a way of defusing racial
tensions and increasing understanding between cultures, in fact it can
only exacerbate such tensions. In denigrating the appeal to objective
truth as a relic of outmoded thinking or a tool of hegemonic control,
the report destroys the only ground on which cultural mistrust and
animosities can be resolved--the middle ground of reason." (Sobol, p.
14)
"[Nathan Glazer, in a Sept. 2, 1991 New Republic article that mostly
supports the Sobol report] points out that the real impetus for
multiculturalism is the low academic and economic achievement of
American blacks. Multiculturalism has few advocates among immigrant
groups, who would for the most part be content with the Anglo-American
education that past immigrants received." (Sobol, p. 17)
Back to AmarUtu (Chris Hoffman):
> when this debate in another incarnation was taken up and
>specifics were offered for why near eastern studies should be grouped with
>classical studies, schulman always fell silent.
Several times T.H. Chance answered your "bee in the bonnet" proposal
to merge Near Eastern Studies departments into Classics departments.
Of course I remained silent. First of all, he has professional
expertise in this area; I don't. Secondly, whether Near East scholars
share the same secretaries and toilets or are on different floors or
buildings really doesn't have a great deal to do with the fate of
education and whether cultural relativism destroys scholarship in the
Classics and other subjects.
> when told to look at
>specific sumerian works or akkadian works or asked about specific
>classical commetentators, there was never any response.
I haven't the faintest idea what you are referring to. Pehaps your Ka
can crawl back down into its sarcophagus and unembalm an old cartouche
or two that I may have written.
The ancient Near Eastern classics in translation should be an
essential part of an educated person's education. Is that what you
want me to say? I've been saying or implying it all along.
>this is no gauntlet.
No, but there is something in you that wants to be kicked.
> but i would like to see a serious and cogent
>argument against multiculturalism that contains more than conclusory
>statements. i'd like specific books or specific individuals. i may very
>well agree on a lot of issues, there's plenty i don't like about modern
>academe, but for all erudition, schulman has often been very short on
>specifics.
I think you would benefit greatly by subscribing to Academic
Questions. For further information, see:
Richard A. Schulman
On Fri, 04 Jul 1997 11:22:50 -0600, Jens S. Larsen <je...@cphling.dk>
wrote:
>This is by a young contemporary Albanian poet that writes in Esperanto.
>I've provided a prose translation into English.
[5 poems deleted]
Thanks for posting these. The poems were quite readable with the help
of the translation provided. I don't have a pronouncing key, so I had
to guess that the "^" after the letter "c" or "j" or "s" is probably
the letter's hachek.
The fact that the poet is from Albania and you from Denmark (assuming
that's what the "dk" means) suggests that Esperanto is more popular
among people from small linguistic communities than large ones. Is
that true?
Richard A. Schulman
I wrote:
>>Quantity aside, would you claim that the Esperanto corpus is
>>comparable in quality and historical importance to the Latin one? Are
>>there Esperanto poets comparable to Vergil, Ovid, Horace, Catullus,
>>etc. Is there original Esperanto prose comparable in historical
>>importance to Cicero, Julius Caesar, St. Augustine, etc.?
Don Harlow replied:
>Of qualitative value comparable to the poets you mention -- yes.
You will have to convince the literary world that this is true.
DH:
>Not to mention that most of the poets you mention are themselves
>available in Esperanto translation, to people in parts of the world
>where Latin is not taught and other translations are generally
>difficult to come by if available at all. See e.g. Kalocsay's
>translations of Catullus' poetry in _Tutmonda Sonoro_.
Perhaps you can explain the demographs of Esperanto use?
Don HARLOW
>I wrote:
>>>Quantity aside, would you claim that the Esperanto corpus is
>>>comparable in quality and historical importance to the Latin one? Are
>>>there Esperanto poets comparable to Vergil, Ovid, Horace, Catullus,
>>>etc. Is there original Esperanto prose comparable in historical
>>>importance to Cicero, Julius Caesar, St. Augustine, etc.?
>
>Don Harlow replied:
>>Of qualitative value comparable to the poets you mention -- yes.
>
>You will have to convince the literary world that this is true.
>
No, I only have to convince me -- which I did long, long ago, with no
problem whatsoever.
Sur blanka duno
sub la printempa suno
min logis reve
Lob-nor kaj Lou-lan s^vebe,
ho, romantik' de l' juno.
(Miyamoto)
always rang far more of a bell in my heart than
Arma virumque cano... etc.
(Vergil)
YMMV, of course. Especially if your car only runs on low-octane.
>DH:
>>Not to mention that most of the poets you mention are themselves
>>available in Esperanto translation, to people in parts of the world
>>where Latin is not taught and other translations are generally
>>difficult to come by if available at all. See e.g. Kalocsay's
>>translations of Catullus' poetry in _Tutmonda Sonoro_.
>
>Perhaps you can explain the demographs of Esperanto use?
About the same as the demographics of anything else, on a global scale
-- about a fifth to a quarter of the language's speakers in China, the
rest elsewhere.
Jens S. Larsen
In article <33c1c30d...@netnews2.worldnet.att.net>,
RASch...@nospam.worldnet.att.net wrote:
>
> On Fri, 04 Jul 1997 11:22:50 -0600, Jens S. Larsen <je...@cphling.dk>
> wrote:
>
> >This is by a young contemporary Albanian poet that writes in Esperanto.
> >I've provided a prose translation into English.
>
> [5 poems deleted]
>
> Thanks for posting these. The poems were quite readable with the help
> of the translation provided. I don't have a pronouncing key, so I had
> to guess that the "^" after the letter "c" or "j" or "s" is probably
> the letter's hachek.
I forgot to add the pronunciation key, when I copied the poems:
(The pronunciation of Esperanto is generally obvious, but there are
some special letters: C is pronounced as `ts', J as in German, Z as
in English; the circumflex (^) should really be on the preceding
letter: C^ is pronounced as ch in `church', G^ as g in `George', J^
as a French j, S^ as sh in `ship', U^ as u in German `faul'.
The stress is always on the penultimate syllable: monotoNEco,
papiLIo, anSTAtau^).
> The fact that the poet is from Albania and you from Denmark (assuming
> that's what the "dk" means) suggests that Esperanto is more popular
> among people from small linguistic communities than large ones. Is
> that true?
Not really. The essence of Esperanto is not to worry about the size
of any particular community, as long as it's above zero.
Jens S. Larsen
AmarUtu
ras
thanks for your references. danesh d'souza who was a sometime contributor
to national review is already a well enough figure that even i who reside
under the sphinx's paw have read some of his stuff. the others i will
look at, and from what you have posted, may very well find alarming as
well, although i would contend that the poor application of
multiculturalism does not mean tht it is no good.
chance's answers to my thoughts on merging the dep'ts weren't answers at
all. if i recall, one was to the effect that "i act as if we life in
plato's republic, but in reality we are in romulus' sewers) [just a
paraphrase].
i didn't repost my earlier comments because i don't keep them and i
understand that you have extensive archives from which you can drawn up
such matters for yourself.
but if you check, you'll notice that i drew your attention to such books
as _the context of scripture_ which contained sumerian philosophy (and,
no, it isn't aristotle) and west's commentary on theogony (or was it works
and days).
given that you see this as a question of honors programs requirements, i
am really saying, what's the damage in allowing honors students to study
chinese and japanese or sumerian and akkadian or akkadian and ancient
greek as opposed to your favorites greek and latin? if translations get
us far, and the importance of classics rests at least in part in its
influence on the west (which i don't deny), then what's wrong with reading
the likes of augustine and acquinas in translation while picking those of
other cultures to read in the original. i don't see this as relativist
mayhem, though you might.
chris hoffman
Richard A. Schulman
I wrote:
>>>>[W]ould you claim that the Esperanto corpus is
>>>>comparable in quality and historical importance to the Latin one? Are
>>>>there Esperanto poets comparable to Vergil, Ovid, Horace, Catullus,
>>>>etc.
Don Harlow replied:
>>>Of qualitative value comparable to the poets you mention -- yes.
I wrote:
>>You will have to convince the literary world that this is true.
Don Harlow:
>No, I only have to convince me -- which I did long, long ago, with no
>problem whatsoever.
Then don't complain if Esperanto is ignored in this venue. We can only
deal here with that which can be communicated rationally in public.
Don HARLOW
>Then don't complain if Esperanto is ignored in this venue. We can only
>deal here with that which can be communicated rationally in public.
>
I don't remember ever complaining that Esperanto was ignored -- I
would have been just as happy if it had continued to be ignored. I
simply corrected a misstatement about it. (I seem to remember that I
myself stated that I couldn't understand why the question was ever
raised, referring to the original reference as a _non sequitur_.) You,
then, seem to have picked up the ball and run with it.
Go back and reread this thread, please.
T.H. Chance
>In article <19970705154...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
>ama...@aol.com (AmarUtu) wrote:
CH>>>chance's answers to my thoughts on merging the dep'ts weren't answers at
>>all. if i recall, one was to the effect that "i act as if we life in
>>plato's republic, but in reality we are in romulus' sewers) [just a
>>paraphrase].
Here is the exchange to which you refer.
CH >>if what i described above is accomodation, then i am willing to
> >>accomodate. on the issue of near east or egypt, these are relevant to a
> >>consideration of greek literature. part of my accomodation would be to
> >>have egyptologists and assyriologists folded into the department of
> >>classics.
>
THC> You talk as if there were just legions of Egyptologists and Assyriologist
> marching around out there, ready to teach large lecture halls full of
> eager students. That is simply not true.
>
CH why? because i think these disciplines would have something to
> >>gain by working together. if we have gilgamesh, the enuma elish, and
> >>ishtar's descent, to name a few, and they can be shown to have a
> >>relationship to the iliad/odyssey or the homeric hymns or theogony, then
> >>why wouldn't it be fruitful to have classicists who are trained not in
> >>latin and greek, but in akkadian, sumerian, and greek? i think it would
> >>be useful.
>
THC> Here, you talk as if we lived in Plato's Republic. But, in truth, we live
> in Romulus' sewer.
Here, I was making a little joke on a Ciceronian letter. I keep forgetting
that I can no longer count on my readers having a Latinate background.
Sorry.
Even at an institution the size of Berkeley, there is one or maybe two
people who can successfully handle the early material you mention. And
there are no undergraduates begging for specialized classes in Gilgamesh
etc., nor are there graduate students in a hurry to go on the job market
as specialists in Gilgamesh.
The fact that "relationships" can be shown to exist between, say, the
Odyssey and Gilgamesh has a limited interest, and some scholars (e.g. your
West) can become utterly boring nerds in the pursuit of such smikra, but
such extra-textual matters will never give the "meaning" of the Odyssey or
of Hesiod.
And lets not forget, these texts, the Enuma Elish, Inanna/Ishtar's
descent, and Gilgamesh, are anything but secure. Sandars creates the
illusion that Gilgamesh is a narrative whole, but we know that's an
illusion, right? If undergraduates were given a translation of the actual
fragments without Sandars' structure, then our distinguish professors of
da dada might receive lower course evaluations, as disgruntled
undergraduates express their god-given right to democratic utterance.
Finally, is it okay if I ask a favor? I know that you exercise your choice
by using lower case letters, but would you use the shift key FOR ME? I
would find it much easier to read your writing if you would use
conventional punctuation.
Thanks,
thc
Richard A. Schulman
On 5 Jul 1997 20:12:01 GMT, bad...@aquarius.scs.uiuc.edu (Jonathan
Badger) wrote:
>Nobody is complaining that Esperanto is "ignored in this venue". This
>newsgroup is for the "classics" -- presumably as defined by Europeans
>in the Middle Ages as referring only to manuscripts written in Ancient
>Greek and Latin, and therefore it is understandable that other
>literatures regardless of merit are infrequently discussed here.
Good.
>However, when someone makes a statement based on seemingly complete
>ignorance (as you have about Chinese and Esperanto literature, among
>other literatures of which you have apparently not read,
Your usual nonsense. I do read Chinese -- in the original and in
translation. I made no definitive statement about Esperanto but merely
asked probing questions -- none of which were answered in any useful
way by either you or Don Harlow. In the latter's favor, at least he
didn't bitch and moan and prevaricate, as is your wont.
The Esperanto diversion was started by none other than Crazy Ivan,
responding in his usual crude manner to a post by Joseph Raymond
Frechette. The only useful contribution to the discussion was provided
by Jens S. Larsen, who posted five Esperanto poems with translation
and an Esperanto pronouncing key. Your role was that of a zero, a
nullity, a cipher.
AmarUtu
Dear T H Chance
Thanks for your response. When I read your response about Romulus sewers,
my instinct was to recall Catullus' disgruntled comments about Lesbia and
the descendents of Romulus in the back alleys of Rome. If I missed the
reference to a letter of Cicero, my only excuse is not that I am not
latinate, but rather that I either haven't read the letter or that I
simply don't remember having read it. After all there's always more to
read.
Let me quote a little of your post and respond:
[begin quotation]
Even at an institution the size of Berkeley, there is one or maybe two
people who can successfully handle the early material you mention. And
there are no undergraduates begging for specialized classes in Gilgamesh
etc., nor are there graduate students in a hurry to go on the job market
as specialists in Gilgamesh.
[end quotation]
I would simply disagree with this in the following respect. First, the
fact that the Near Eastern Studies Department gets good enrollment for its
classes in Mesopotamian mythology indicates to me that there is an
interest out there. It would be too much to expect a specialized course
only in Gilgamesh at the undergraduate level; even the Classics Department
doesn't offer a specialized course, say, in the Oresteia. Its course in
undergraduate course in ancient epic last semester did include a look at
Gilgamesh.
As for Homer/Hesiod and their Mesopotamian/Ugaritic/Hittite literary
precursors, all I can say is that its at least a bit of source criticism
which seems perfectly fine within the closed world of Greek and Latin, so
why not outside those bounds. Of course, you've never actually said that
that would be a bad thing.
your comment here
[begin quotation]
And lets not forget, these texts, the Enuma Elish, Inanna/Ishtar's
descent, and Gilgamesh, are anything but secure.
[end quotation]
is not entirely clear to me. There are different recensions for the Enuma
Elish for example, and different manuscript traditions (I know they're
tablets not manuscripts, but you understand) and a fairly complete text
with apparatus criticus does exist for many standard texts, although
Assyriologist need still to work on their notions of manuscript tradition.
In terms of Gilgamesh, for an example, you could look at R. Campbell
Thomas' edition of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Much of Sappho or Callimachus
is much worse off then Gilgamesh, but that never stopped Pfeiffer or
students of Callimachus from delving deeply into the fragments to try and
figure out the whole. In Gilgamesh, there's quite a bit.
A final comment about majuscule and minuscules. I can make capital
letters, but it is something of an inconvenience as my keyboard is broken
and has been for some time. I have made this concession for you because
you were polite enough to simply ask.
Incidently, I wouldn't advocate the position that I do if I weren't
getting my Ph.D. in Classics while getting an M.A. in Assyriology and
studying hieroglyphics at the same time. No, I don't claim to be an
expert, and I have many years ahead of me in which to continue learning
even after I get a position somewhere, but I can at least claim to be
trying to practice what I preach here.
chris hoffman
T.H. Chance
>In article <19970706152...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
>ama...@aol.com (AmarUtu) wrote:
CH>>Thanks for your response. When I read your response about Romulus sewers,
>>my instinct was to recall Catullus' disgruntled comments about Lesbia and
>>the descendents of Romulus in the back alleys of Rome.
In honor of which Microbius recently published the following for his homie:
Nunc in quadriviis et angiportis
glubis multiculturalorum nepotes.
CH> It would be too much to expect a specialized course
>>only in Gilgamesh at the undergraduate level; even the Classics Department
>>doesn't offer a specialized course, say, in the Oresteia.
Strange, I remember taking one, as well as teaching the Prometheus.
Its course in
>>in ancient epic last semester did include a look at
>>Gilgamesh.
>>As for Homer/Hesiod and their Mesopotamian/Ugaritic/Hittite literary
>>precursors, all I can say is that it's at least a bit of source criticism
>>which seems perfectly fine within the closed world of Greek and Latin, so
>>why not outside those bounds. Of course, you've never actually said that
>>that would be a bad thing.
It isn't. I do it all the time. We don't disagree on many issues here. Yet
I don't see in your writing a recognition that multiculturalism is an ISM.
We are not talking here about "many cultures" and "wouldn't it be nice to
teach and to learn about many cultures". What is at issue, it seems to me,
is trying to check the advances of a goose-stepping mob, which will
destroy anything in its path for its god, Diversity (Ta Polla).
But suppose next week, in your classical myth class, you had to go in and
face an undergraduate class on Gilgamesh. How would you handle it? What
text would you use? How much history would you offer up? What generalities
on Near Eastern Mythology would you try to communicate? But remember, now,
you have only one class (1hr. 40m.) in which to work.
later,
thc
Michael O'Brien,,,
How could less than a million people over the course of a century produce
as much great literature as the people of a great empire over the course
of say 500 years (for Rome). Of course, we have blips in the statistical
curve once in a while. Look how much great stuff came out of Athens in a
period of 100 years from 440 to 340 b.c. Hell, look at the whole world
from Greece to China in the 5th century b.c, a truly amazing century. In
addition you have the impediment that people who bother to study esperanto
are invariably assholes with no sense of humor.
This reminds me of a related issue. Trying to get the reading list more
balanced between men and women is bound to lower the average quality,
because there is no way women can have written as much great literature in
ony 300 years as men in almost 3000.
--
Michael O'Brien, mik...@charger.newhaven.edu
University of New Haven
106 Brownell St., New Haven, CT 06511
You have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
Stephen Grossman
somebody wrote:
> > but i would like to see a serious and cogent
> >argument against multiculturalism that contains more than conclusory
> >statements.
It's essential concern w/the arbitrary and conventional is the rejection
of objectivity, the context of reason, the basic method of human survival.
Its See "Multiculturalism" in the web site for Second Renaissance Books.
€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€
Reason is man's basic means of survival. AYN RAND
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tracking Marxist revolution: www.etext.org/Politics/ZigZag
Metaphysics: www.etext.org/Philosophy/Objectivism/Existence-2.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen Grossman
Fairhaven, MA, USA
sgr...@pictac.com
€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€