Review

[Carolus Raeticus]

Salvete!

I've just had a look at the thread "Best place to start learning Latin" and was pleasantly surprised when I followed a link in Ovidius' posting.

This link leads to Juan Coderch's survey of (currently used and new) materials for learning (teaching) Latin and ancient Greek in the wake of a surge in publications "responding to changes in the pedagogical methods of teaching modern languages in schools": Teaching Ancient Languages: a selected guide to available material (Juan Coderch, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9550032-3-3).

This is one of those resources I believe that anyone thinking about learning Latin or Greek should know about, definitely one of those to be included in a hypothetical Resource-sticky.

First of all some statistics regarding the books dealt with in Mr. Coderch's survey:

• Latin
  • Grammars: 7 resources
  • Dictionaries: 6 resources
  • Textbooks: 22 resources
  • Composition manuals: 7 resources
  • Auxiliary Material for students' independent use: 6 resources
  • Auxiliary Material for tutors' use as supplements: 7 resources

• Grammar
  • Grammars: 8 resources
  • Dictionaries: 5 resources
  • Textbooks: 15 resources
  • Composition manuals: 12
  • Auxiliary Material for students' independent use: 4 resources
  • Auxiliary Material for tutors' use as supplements: 9 resources

Each of the resources is briefly looked at in a Summary, Advantages, and in Points for consideration.

As for the quality of the books included in this resource guide, an excerpt from the introduction may suffice:

All items included have been considered to be of high quality and to meet the needs of tutors of ancient languages in HEIs [= Higher Education Institutions]. [...] The comments are particularly focused on the individual items’ suitability for use at beginners or higher levels or for particular kinds of students.

A sample entry:

Latin Prose Composition, by North and Hillard
Summary: This provides a revision of Latin syntax oriented towards translation into Latin.One of the most famous manuals for Prose Composition, it has been used for generations.
Advantages: Ideal for students who need not only to learn how to translate into Latin but also some syntax revision.Each section has the necessary vocabulary for its exercises and the transition from writing simple sentences to writing continuous text is made easy.
Points for consideration: It does not deal with the techniques of considering the wider possibilities of expressing the same idea in another language. It and the key are available as pdf downloads from Textkit: Greek and Latin Learning Tools (http://www.textkit.com). There is a published key available.

All in all, this survey provides a good start for one's first forays into the jungle of textbooks, grammars, etc. (unless the person in question has decided to use only public domain material). It may not be complete (but it doesn't try to be so), and it concentrates on newer resources. The latter point may be one of its strengths as these are somewhat neglected here due to their copyright status.

It would have been useful for the publishing dates to have been included, but so it goes.

Valete,

Carolus Raeticus

[Carolus Raeticus]

Salvete!

This is a short review of the CAMENA-project which hosts high-quality digitized (and transcribed) versions of books in Latin not available anywhere else.

The project CAMENA CAMENA (Lateinische Texte der Frühen Neuzeit) strives to present neo-latin books from the early modern age, especially with a focus on the German-speaking world, but not only (v.i. Itali). The site language is German, but you can find your way easily by navigating using the menu on the left and selecting one of five collections:

• Thesaurus (Eruditionis): 99 scientific works (about 85,000 pages).
• Poemata: collection of neolatin poetry from the German-speaking part of the world - about 100 authors with seperate editions plus an anthology of poetae minores (all together about 60,000 pages).
• Historica & Politica: historical and political literature (about 60,000 pages).
• Cera: about 90 collections of letters covering the era 1530-1770 in central Europe (about 55.000 pages)
• Itali: this section is dedicated to the writings of Italian humanists.

This a resource I can recommend anyone who wishes to take a break from texts about ancient Rome. The texts can be viewed both as images of the original books and as transcribed text. This is high-quality stuff! And don't be fooled. This site is not only for anyone interested in Germany but for anyone interested in that period.

By the way, for a while there has been an online-project which tries to transcribe the Januam Linguae Latinae by Comenius. It seems to have stalled anyway, but I want to point out (just in case) that CAMENA hosts already hosts a fully transcribed version of it available here (with the respective images)

Valete,

Carolus Raeticus