Reading your discussion (especially the reference to Reginald Foster), I got a bit confused.
Is there (or maybe was in the near past) really not a single child (i.e. lesser than 5 years) on our planet who speaks latin somehow?
I thought the opposite because there are children with native esperanto knowledge.
If true, who was the last such child?
Certain well-off families (very few) in the seventeenth century raised children in Latin as a first language. That may have been the last time. Others might say.
Quaedam paucae familiae beatae saeculi septimi decimi liberos eduxerunt, latinam habentes ut linguam primam. Nisi fallor, post hoc sic non evenit. Alii me corrigent.
I mean that clause to be understood in here: “will help fluency gain only as part of lots of other hard work”.
Quae talia hîc inter alias res intelleguntur: “volubilitatem attingere potes si etiam magnam operam temporemque des ad multas alias res”.
The first time I went onto the Latinum site, I was very hopeful. But I was soon disillusioned. I found the structure dreadful, the recordings dreadful and the approach of the author unreliable and unattractive. And the author grated on me,—making large statements and offering advice that merely repeated the wisdom of others, but not always accurately and expressed much better elsewhere. It offered the chance to listen to a beginner (who nowhere then admitted to being so, with his ability obscured behind the words of others) carefully but in an exaggerated manner reading an excellent school book. Anything good was a borrow or a link from, or to, elsewhere. It seemed to me rather vain and posed, with on overdraft on others’ abilities. I can honestly say that I didn’t sense that the author offered me anything authentic. And yet If others say it’s good, that’s fine. There is no accounting for taste. Maybe I’m very much in the minority on this, but when people on this site call Metrodorus an “expert”, it just confirms to me that the world really is crazy. I’m happy to be in a minority, in case it’s infectious. Luckily fot me, my enthusiasm was not extinguished by the buckets Metrodorus was casting from his site and I remain enthusiastic. Ironically, one of my original motivations to study an ancient language such as Latin was because I believed that contemporary existence is crazy. But since existence has never been anything other than crazy, the study of Latin can’t be seen as a protest but as a source of stoic comfort: there has never been any escape, so forget complaining. Dear Lucus, nothing can “alight Latinity” except the personal and accidental motivations of individuals, and the example of the meaningful communication of good latin (by which I mean authentic Latin rather than grammatically correct Latin), from sincere voices past and present. Those are the things that I found missing from the Latinum site (in Adler yes, but not in the site’s author). Maybe that site satisfies dreams other that those, but those fantasies don’t interest me.
Cum primo in situm “Latinum” nomine veni, plenus spei eram. Mox autem frustratus sum,—et consitutione, et receptionibus sonituum, et genere auctoris, quod genus inventum inconstabileque putavi. Et is auctor me invictavit,—qui sententias magnas aggressit et consilia aliorum repetivit, etsi illa consilia meliùs accuratiùsque alibi ostensa. Occasionem praebuit tironem (nusquam tunc sic esse admittentem sed ponè verba aliorum statum suum celantem) ex libro capitale sedulò at cum hyperbole recitantem audiendi. Omnia bona de sito alio veniebant. Mihi visum est situm ob vanitate factum et fictum esse, et aliorum ad opera nimìs obligatum. Verùm dico me nullum ab auctore authentici deditus esse, ut sensi. At si alii aliter habeant, licet; gustus arbitrio subjectus est. Fortassè in paucioribus benè sim, sed cum dicunt quidam in hôc foro Metrodorum peritum esse, dico me contentum sepositum esse ne insania contrahatur. Me fortunatum, autem! Alacritas linguae latinae mea hamis Metrodori deflammata non est sed advixit manetque. Ironicè quidem, hac sententia, ut mundus insanus est, ad linguae latinae discendum me movit. Quod nunquam autem aliter mundus fuit (quod etiam in latinae discendo inveniat), minùs in reclamatione contrâ stultitiam dierum nostrorum sed plùs in consolationem stoicam virtus huius linguae inveniatur: impossibile evadere, futile est ergô queri. Nullum, Luce care, latinitatem excitabit nisi arbitrium studiumque proprium et exempla communicandi significanter rectéque authenticéve data, ex vocibus temporum praesentis praeteritique. Quae ab sito “Latinum” nomine desunt, ut opinor (in voce Alder quidem quae in paginâ restat sed non in voce Metrodori). Ille situs alia forsitan somnia implet, sed non mihi sunt illae fantasiae.
Adriane
I am afraid the person whom you are attacking exists only within the confines of your cranium. Attack him all you wish. Gesundeheit, as they say.
Be in good health.
Evan.
There is a family I know of in Vietnam, who are raising their daughter to speak Latin. She is now 2. I know of other families where the parents speak to their children in Latin. However, these parents themselves are not as fluent as Reggie Foster is. Very few people have cultivated Latin as a living tongue - until recently only a tiny number, such as Stroh, and Foster did so. This is changing, but the spoken latin movement remians a tiny fringe movement on the edge of Latinity. Many people within the Latin world violently attack it - I am a member of the Latinteach list, and every few months or so really heated arguments flare up between the ones who want to speak Latin in their classes, and those who think the language should be taught as grammatical code.
Learning any language is not difficult, unless you learn it the wrong way. Latin, for the most part is taught not as a language but as a code to decipher texts, so of course it is incredibly hard to learn, if approached in that way.
I don’t know what Adriane’s goals are in learning Latin. Without knowing a person’s goals, it is hard to have a cogent discussion about anything. My goal is clear - I want to become orally fluent. Why? for the simple joy and pleasure of it. And I want to have others to talk to and to communicate with - as many as possible. I want to see Latin resurface as a language of communication - why, because it would be fun to see this happen. I am one with Comenius, I think learning a language should be fun. Comenius, who wrote a textbook full of such delightful gems as Faba facit flatus, and Cloaca est ad cacandum, and Quis friget dum ova frigit and such classics… I have always liked the ‘feel’ of Latin, and I have always wanted to speak it. Until I found Adler’s book, I had no way of doing this, no route 'in’that would work for me…as his is the first textbook to codify what so many Renaissance writers such as Ascham etc had described in outline, I was thrilled to find it, I had been looking for just such a textbook, when I stumbled on it only hours after google books first uploaded it. So, I am creating the wherewithal for others to learn how to speak the language, by activating Adler’s text as a spoken series of lessons, by having created Schola - and these sites are popular and are growing fast, which tells me I have done something right. Maybe not everything. But something. I do not claim to be an expert. I ask for advice from elsewhere, and accept it willingly. I am an amateur. Most of those interested in spoken Latin seem to be from outside the academic world, or the official world of Latin education. I have my fans and supporters, as well as my detractors. Such is life. I know my early recordings on latinum are not very good - but when I have consulted others whose opinions I trust, I have been told, no, finish the project, do not go back and re-record, it is more important to finish…users can perfect their Latin as they go along…and actually it is the case that the extreme slowness and artificiality of the early recordings is actually a boon for the beginner, although they sound tortuous to a more advanced student, and indeed, sound odd to me, now. But , they are useful. They teach quantity, and the quality of the vowels etc is within the bounds of respectability. They resemble to ultra slow English recordings my Spanish flatmate used to listen to when he was learning English. Excruciating for a native speaker of English to listen to, but necessary for a beginner.
Anyway, I provided a mix of other readers on latinum, so that users can listen to a variety of voices and types of rendering of the restored classical pronunciation, so I was not too worried about that aspect of things.
I hope Latinum will inspire others who are better than I, do put out other resources of a higher standard. At the moment, nothing much is available.
Evan.