Grex Latine Loquentium

Latin Learning Latin
1

I was wondering if many people here frequented the all Latin mailing-list Grex?
http://www.alcuinus.net/GLL/

The reason I ask is that since I’ve started frequenting it some months ago I’ve been plagued with doubts. Undoubtably, it is unmatched in regards to the volume and quality of the Latin that it produces. Also, the creativity and compositional skills of the members are interesting to witness, as they tackle a wide variety of subjects, post stories of interest, and debate amongst themselves on contemporary and philosophical topics.

However, as it seems to me, the other outstanding feature of this group is its intense conservatism and what I would call a general streak of bigotry and peevishness. I hesitate to criticize others for their viewpoints, because I realize the Grex is composed of a wide range of writers from many countries. Yet on almost a daily basis the Grex is filled with rants against Islam and Muslims, in which articles are translated and flung forth demonstrating the supposed ‘barbarity’ of the religion and its practicioners, as well depicting it as a threat to Europe and all good people everywhere.

Besides this, there are numerous blanket condemnations made of ‘modern thinking’ in a variety of forms, usually abstracted as “relativism,” and brought up alongside Islam. I would categorize the general tone of such discussions as strident, negative, and forboding.

Perhaps I’m exagerating, and my complaint may largely lay with certain writers, but the frequency and vehemency of these writings outweighs most of the other topics, and it seems to have some history there as well. The quality and civility of discussion on Textkit is infinitely preferable to that of the Grex. I only bother writing this now because I fear that a potentially great resource is being sullied. There are constant cries from the Grex for greater active participation of the ‘legentes’ or lurkers,’ but I’m guessing many people such as myself are put off by the discussions. How are they possibly encouraging a new generation of Latinists? The sensible thing to do would be to argue my point in the Grex instead of brooding over it, but the entire endeavor just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

2

I felt this too, and it weighted on making me stop contributing (even though I wrote just a few messages). I still read the messages sometimes, but it ceased being comfortable.

3

If you don’t like the GREX, try SCHOLA.
It has advantages: it is more like facebook, it is web-based, not on some arcane list-serve, and it has a younger age profile. Each user gets their own cyberdiarium. It also had video uploading, a music player with selections of catullus etc, and photo libraries.

http://schola.ning.com

Schola is in Latin terms, very new, there are only a few regular contributors, but there are a number of quite good Latinists who are members already. Starting a conversation with someone is straightforward. The user base is much younger than that on the GREX, …Schola could do with more active users…the site attracts a steady number of new users, and over time,at its current rate of steady growth, will become a major focus of Latinity online.

4

I feel exactly the same way. I continue to receive the messages in digest form every day, and I avoid topics that will obviously be full of bile. Unfortunately this means that many days I read none of the messages. I think you have captured their tone perfectly, and while it may just be a few contributors, their contributions so much outweigh everything else that the whole enterprise seems very distasteful. I have never posted a message there.

5

I love your confidence, Metrodore! I hope I have the time for this in the summer. Remind me about it in a week (school over then).

6

Avitus Thesauro optimo suo S·P·D

I was searching online for my dear old Grex Latiné Loquentium, which seems once again to have moved from where it was when I last visited it, and Google turned up Thesaurus’ intervention above. I found it so felicitous and to the point, that I couldn’t resist replying, even if that meant registering for yet another virtual community, which I nowadays try to avoid as much as I can because there is simply no end to them and it is impossible to cope with so many passwords (please don’t be surprised therefore, and forgive me, if I cannot frequent Textkit much more after this). I am basically a veteran of the Grex Latiné Loquentium and would like to contribute a few considerations, that’s all. I do realise that this discussion was started about two years ago though.

First of all, the Grex Latiné Loquentium has indeed remained the best virtual forum, both quantitatively and qualitatively, in Latinity terms since its inception, and it is unlikely to be demoted from that position in the forseeable future. In that sense, it will always be best, in my modest opinion, to engage in the effort to improve it from within (in terms of civility of discussion, etc.) than to diffuse and thin out our efforts through the creation of more and more disparate alternatives, which, given current Latin demographics (very low), are unlikely to reach the critical mass to be successful in the aforementioned terms of either quantity or quality of Latinity. It is true that its greatest formal flaw is that it is buried on an arcane list-serve, but the answer to that would appear to lie for instance in persuading the community to transfer to another medium in whole or in making their discussions available to Internet surfers in some other way also in whole (which I’m sure would make them think twice about what they say as well), rather than just to create more and more alternative virtual forums without attempting to gain the endorsement of that one real, broad and well-established Latin community. It’s just my opinion, of course. Take it for what it is.

That’s in any case not the main reflection I wanted to contribute, although there is some overlap. What I would like to bring to the fore is the consideration, based on more than a decade of involvement in the Latin community, that Latin is not just a language. As all languages, and I also speak here from a personal experience and knowledge of more than a dozen, Latin is the vehicle of a specific culture. That culture is the product of its specific history, and history has consequences.

Most people think that Latin is a dead language, and see its preservation in the curriculum as a merely grammatical training ground that can be good for improving a gamut of intellectual skills. Good for them. If all they want is to develop increasing certainty that they won’t make any linguistic mistakes next time they consider it advantageous to try to put into Latin that “the poet loves the roses”, then neither the Grex Latiné Loquentium nor anything I’m going to say here affects them at all. Cheers.

On the other hand, out of those who may be prone to seeing a point in using the language for contemporary communication, many think that the role of Latin would be as some sort of merely instrumental language for an otherwise neutral and aseptic international communication. Well, one of the things I want to convey is that it is not going to work out quite that way. For good or bad, Latin is not Esperanto. Unlike Esperanto, Latin comes with a millenary culture under its belt. This, its greatest asset, has also consequences … some of them dire.

If the perennial life of the Latin language has not received a lot of scholarly attention, the perennial life of the Latin culture it conveys, the life of Latinity, has done so even less. A very nice booklet that interestingly dares to address such issues is Joseph Farrell, Latin Language and Latin Culture, from ancient to modern times (Cambridge University Press 2001).

Latin suffered a great reverse with the ascent of vernacular nationalism. Latinity became fiercely persecuted and only survived in the most precarious of conditions. Latin remains an increasingly endangered language, and therefore Latinity an endangered culture, to this day. The situation sustained for the last couple of centuries has had two parallel consequences:

a) As a language, Latin has struggled to keep abreast of the modern world: all Latin speakers clearly see the problems Latin has with contemporary neology, and a lot of effort has been invested in the last few decades, and more will still be needed, to allow Latin to regain the expressivity it had before the persecution started.

b) As a culture, Latinity has also struggled to keep abreast of the modern world: unfortunately, many people seem to be blind to the dimensions and import of this issue, whilst the effort needed in this area to allow Latinity to catch up with modernity and postmodernity is even greater than that invested in neology!

Just as the Latin language struggles to absorbe the amount of progress in vocabulary that has taken place in most other languages over the last couple of centuries, Latinity as a culture also struggles to convey the amount of progress in ideas that has taken place in most other cultures over the last couple of centuries. This may take many by surprise, but it is an undeniable truth, and latter a direct consequence of the former. It is also the proof that Latinity is a culture of its own, with its distinct idiosincrasy, which is not the culture of any existing modern nation just transparently transposed into a different language. This is both beautiful and can be also disturbing.

Latinity as a culture is going to struggle and indeed put a fight to digest the cultural developments of the last couple of centuries. Kept at bay since the times of the French Revolution, it has not been given the chance to take account of Freud, Marx, Nietzsche, even Saussure, or Adorno, Baudrillard, Derrida, Heidegger or Lacan any more than many other contemporary cultures that have likewise been left aside, undevelopped and unaffected by generalised progress. Individuals in those cultures may have been exposed to various discrete aspects of modernity, seen a Hollywood film or even use mobile phones; but their culture as a whole has not yet been fundamentally transformed. Thus, you are unlikely to find in the Latin world supporters of modern-style dictatorships, but less unlikely to find people who happen to support ancient-régime absolute monarchy; you are unlikely to find in the Latin world a majority of people who sympathise with modern-style homosexuality, but less unlikely to find some who pursue Greco-Roman approaches to love between males. You won’t have trouble to find those who endorse Tridentine Catholicism, believe in Alchemy or pray to Olympian gods either.

Modernity and postmodernity struggle to be expressed in the Latin language and so Latin culture has remained largely unaffected by them.

So, let no one be under the impression that they are going to be able to engage with Latin culture in the terms of their respective vernacular culture. A slightly more humble and patient approach is needed if they are in the slightest interested in being a part of this millenary culture. Now, as ever.

Yes, the people you will meet through the Grex Latiné Loquentium will be overwhelmingly conservative and bigoted, because the Latin language was not allowed to develop normally for the last couple of centuries as it had for a couple of millennia until then and it therefore attracts, befits and favours the expression of those above all who still embrace the Weltanschauung of the periods of history when it flourished, be that Roman times, Christian times or Humanistic times, rather than that of those who take account of the Enlightenment, Modernity and so-called Postmodernity as well.

It does not mean that those people are worthless, not more and in all likelihood not less than the millenary Latin culture they personify. As you indicate, they are indubitably intelligent and display sophisticated argumentation in a wide range of relevant and interesting subject matters. Engaging with them can only be enriching. In fact, it is sometimes refreshing to see that at least some people are able to think radically independently from the mainstream. Latinity has for centuries been passed on and is to this day passed on by remarkable people, believe me.

The way I see it, as long as a culture is alive, it can and will evolve and change, and I certainly hope that Latinity does so too; but it’s up to us to change it and make it evolve. The only thing we need to be aware of is that it will evolve and change at its own pace, along its own lines, and certainly within its own community. That community, those lines and that pace are those of its specific history, and it couldn’t be otherwise.

If you are interested in that language and its perennial culture, you should really participate rather than observe from the outside. You will need to remember not to take your vernacular Weltanschauung as a given, and make an effort to find support for your arguments ideally in your Cicero, in your Seneca, in your Aquinas, or in your Erasmus; but if you are serious, you will be respected, and you have much to gain and learn in the process.

If people like you don’t speak up, the reactionary forces will never be reversed. If you do, more and more will join you. That’s how all societies and cultures have evolved, and that’s the only way Latinity will evolve too. It’s not a small effort, but worth every bit of it.

I can only endorse your words: “How are they possibly encouraging a new generation of Latinists?” and “The sensible thing to do would be to argue my point in the Grex instead of brooding over it”. Try to do it without bitterness, and you will win the day.

Latinity was there before us and will continue to be there after we are gone. Maybe we can contribute to leave a mark on it and change it for the better!

Curate ut valeatis omnes!

7

Salve Avite!

Thank you for your very in depth and well thought out reply to my post. I’m glad you took the trouble of finding it, even though it was two years ago. I’ve been reading the Grex digest on and off since my original post, and I hope my Latin has improved somewhat in the last two years, so I should definitely start contributing to the discussions. (Since I’ve since entered and graduated from graduate school since then, I’ll have more time for this, too!)

I don’t have time to respond to all of your comments now, but I think your emphasis on the culture as well as the language of Latinity is worth discussion. I intended to look at the book by Joseph Farrell you mentioned. I also agree that the best way to make a change is internally, by being, as Gandhi said, “the change you want to see in the world.”

8

So, since another zombie thread has reared its head, let me ask: How is Schola doing? I would really rather argue against Avitus, but I am new come to the culture and there exists the possibility that he may be right.

9

Schola http://schola.ning.com is doing fine - the GLL has unfortunately has only 1/2 the members it originally had during its heyday, now with under 300 members - possibly because of the continued use of an email list, which is alien to most younger internet users - and the frozen nature of its website, as the holder of the passwords has not passed them on, as I understand it, causing a technical problem…Most of the active GLL members are also members of Schola, and some members of Schola have found their way to the GLL. Schola has a very diverse user base, with close to 1500 members, and steady growth, with a couple of new members every day. Many academics are members, and much of the academic Neo-Latinist community have signed up as members… Much of the writing on Schola takes place privately between members - not all activity is visible on the site. Schola functions in a very different way to the GLL…so it is hard to compare the two groups…With Schola, there are also opportunities to log into the locutorium, and if you hang around for a bit, meet other people logging in to speak Latin viva voce. There is a very wide range of ability levels on Schola, from beginners, to the very advanced. Most people on Schola are simply interested in Latin, as a hobby, or are involved with Latin in their professional lives. Most have their focus on improving their language skills, so they can read Latin texts more fluently, and they view oral and written Latin as providing pathways to helping themselves get motivated to achieve that goal.

10

Salve Avite

I have no complaint about the Grex; I’m not immersed in it and can’t judge. However, I would consider it rather naif to imagine one could embrace any former world view, uncontaminated by one’s own contemporary situation. To use that then to explain conservatism and bigotry won’t wash.

Gregem Latinè Loquentium non odi; eum aliquàm ignoro. Quod ullus inaffectatus per suo proprio positu in temporibus nostris aliena prisca de mundo teneat valdè dubito,—talem notionem frivolam habeo. Ideò istud argumentum conservativismum avasque sodalium gregis explicare non potest.

But you can’t blame the latin language for your hypostatization of culture, where people “personify” a culture visualized as an external entity! You are expressing yourself in English and still presenting strange, outdated views. Maybe your views on culture seem as strange to me as my latinity does to you.

Latinam autem linguam arguere pro cultûs civilis hypostasizatione a te contracta, per quam cultus sicut ens independens imaginatus est, non debes. Anglicè confers, tamen externa et antiqua judicia tua de cultu gregium humanorum. Forsit tam externa mihi tua judicia quàm tibi mea latinitas.

11

One of the reasons I never pursued Graduate studies in Classics beyond the Master’s level (besides my increasingly patent stupidity) was my perception of many Classicists and of the Classics in general. The Classics seems all too often to be a haven for people of quite a Conservative nature. Classicists often have a slavish devotion to their subject, and are far too wrapped up in the intellectual aspects of the worlds of Ancient Greece and Rome, and blind to the abject misery that was the lives of most people living under the Roman and Athenian Empires. Cicero was only free to write his works because thousands of other men, women and children were enslaved to the cruel Empire he fought so hard to maintain. And Cicero was one of the more humane of the bunch! Rome was the ultimate manifestation of Conservatism and the extreme Right Wing. Many Classicists tend to glorify Rome and Greece and massively overstate our debt to them. Victor Davis Hanson is probably the most obvious example of this. His book, ‘The Other Greeks’, a generally useful examination of farmers and farming in ancient Greece, is marred by its opening and conclusion, both of which make a case for our debt to Greek farming… As if Anglo Saxon or German farmers in the 5th-8th centuries were busy absorbing lessons and modelling their practices on those of Greek farmers. Modern Britain, for example, actually owes very little to the ancient world, and very much to its own Anglo-Saxon practices. Modern Europe probably owes much more, but again it is so often overstated. The idol worship often borders on the silly. This results in a form of worship and Eurocentrism that is completely incapable of looking elsewhere in the world and seeing similar intellectual, spiritual, institutional, and political practices taht have been evolved in very different conditions, and are just as valid and important as those that originated in the Ancient Greek and Roman world.
The very nature of Classics is elitist. In Britain, it is largely confined to the children of the wealthy, and even in America for example, where Classics is far more open and available to the broader public, at higher levels its very intellectual nature is elitist and exclusive. It seems to me no surprise, therefore, that the people who purse the Classics tend to be elitist and conservative, tend to be almost fanatically devoted to their subject, tend to view it as a manifestation of their own superiority, and tend to view the world through Roman and Greek tinted spectacles. Other modern cultures originated from inferior mother cultures, while the West originated from Greece and Rome. Case closed.

This is, of course, a huge generalisation, and based entirely on my own experience (wht other experience do I have to go on), but by and large my observations have been consistent enough to form this view of Classics.

12

I find your generalization really unlucky and inadequate. How can you say that Rome was extreme right wing?

Considering Roman and Greek culture valuable and admiring them, doesn’t necessarily imply thinking of them as superior to other cultures. I speak for myself and am sure that a lot of people think that as well; I love Greek and Roman culture and I study them because of love and admiration for the roots of my culture, but I would never underestimate the value of other cultures. They’re just not mine, but that doesn’t mean that I despise them.

I don’t think it’s overstated that our culture (and I mean the Andalusian one, as part of the Mediterranean) has a huge Roman (and to a lesser extent Greek) heritage.

13

You’re right, I agree heavily with you. I am currently an undergraduate Classicist and this is very similar to the views I espouse, some of my professors like it, some dislike it most vehemently. Either way the fact that I supplement my knowledge of the Classics with later Europe and earlier Mesopotamia often means people have a hard time countering. :laughing:

I’ve got several articles semi prepared on this, though I don’t know if I’ll ever work through my bibliography. I think I will one day write a book.

14

Im a libertarian and I love world history, Rome and Germania in particular. I love it with every fiber of my being, but was Rome extreme right-wing? Id say it was extreme left and right.
Those times were a step foraward in the evolution of civilization, and, in my opinion, we are almost at the end of that period. The world’s governments today want to hold on as tight as possible to this period which the founders tried to evolve. The 20th century marked a setback. But change is in the air all around us. Times they are a changin and soon, we will take the next step in the evolution of civilization – a step toward liberty and miniscule government.

15

Avitus textkitariis optimis suís S·P·D

I will try to be brief, because I’m trying to avoid —as indicated— getting trapped in yet another virtual community as a result of my impromptu endorsement of Thesaurus’ felicitous reflections.

First of all, then, a personal thankyou for his immediate reply. Do try to write to the Grex Latiné Loquentium. Even if just as a mere linguistic exercise, the endeavour to refute generalised nonsense will strengthen and refine your Latin præter opinionem in little time. If you also contribute to overturning the prevailing culture by the same token, what better outcome! On the other hand, exchanging greetings sine fine with people more akin ideologically but unable to move on from the trite salve, ut vales, quid agis is unlikely to gain you much.

Rather more per saturam to the rest, I was just trying to shed some light on the reasons for the prevalence of conservatism and bigotry in Latinity, not to justify it or condone it. I find it as unfortunate as most of you do; but it’s my language and my culture, and I prefer to endeavour to improve it from within than to give it up for something less engaging.

Basically, all I’m saying is that the history of the Latin language and culture makes it far easier for those who want to rant about the decline of the old virtues and the glories of the lord than for those who would rather dwell on the insights of Noam Chomsky or discuss the literary talents of Salman Rushdie. I would tend to adscribe failure to acknowledge this obvious state of affairs to proportional lack of familiarity with the language and culture we are talking about, but I accept I might be completely wrong.

Further to that, I can really certify that my whole mind and thinking processes, without making me two different person, do nonetheless go along noticeably distinct lines in an English speaking context (my adoptive language over 18 years of life in the UK) and in a Spanish speaking one (my native tongue), and there is no doubt about that.

In any case, I’m happy if my intervention has fostered further discussion of the relation that exists between languages and cultures, and Latin and Latinity in particular.

To say something about the latest interventions, I foster an understanding of Latin and Latinity that is not restricted to Classics and Rome alone; but, going back to languages and cultures, I’ll just point out that it has further been illustrated thereby that the connotations and perceptions of Classics as a field of study in the English speaking world and the Spanish speaking world (to name but two) are rather more different than many would have probably suspected.

I repeat, I’m happy this fascinating discussion is taking place in any case, and hope we can all manage to keep our minds open to ways of seeing things we might not have appreciated before.

Finally, if any of you would really like to improve their perennial Latin skills, there is no more efficient way known to man for that than the course written by Desessard in 1966 as a covered with loads of extra material at my very own «Schola Latina Universalis», which you will easily find through Google.

Now, please, do forgive me if I avoid intervening in this forum again, however pleasant it has been. Several books are awaiting me.

Vivat floreatque lingua Latina!

Curate ut valeatis omnes!

16

Howdy, again … Is Schola Latina Universalis still a going concern? I checked it out, and the calendar for classes is about three years out of date (http://avitus.alcuinus.net/schola_latina/kalendarium.php).

This link: http://avitus.alcuinus.net/schola_latina/ratio.php indicates that perhaps a six month course started in September of 2009, but that would be done with by now and I don’t see registration for any further classes.

Thanks,
-smythe

17

Avitus Smythe optimo suo S·P·D

Thank you ever so much for your interest. Yes, the «Schola Latina Universalis» is actually going from strength to strenght. We were really afraid for a while that we would not be able to continue with our venture after the book and recordings which are essential for it became out of print at the end of 2007. Fortunately, prospective students seem to still be able to find second hand copies of both, either in the actual or in the virtual world, and for as long as there are students with the material wanting to take advantage of our guidance and tuition we will be offering it, always for free. This year (2009-2010), more than 30 students from all over the world will be completing our courses, which is a record so far. Completing students are guaranteed to achieve a very comfortable written and spoken fluency. I know because I’ve met many of them and witnessed with delight the impressive extent of our success.

Other than the material, we do have a current complication with the website. The calendar is meant as a mere sample, to give a general idea of how the courses go, so there is nothing unaccounted for with that. Basically, I stopped updating it because it was a technincal nightmare to do so. Another matter is the starting date of the course. That we would indeed like to update, of course, as much as we would some other sections; unfortunately we have lost access to the site! A very proactive Latinist from Catalonia provided us with that facility, and we hope that he will soon help us recover access; but, in the meantime, we cannot change anything. :frowning:

In any case, our actual teaching takes place through a different programme hosted somewhere else, and there it’s business as usual. We just hope that people interested in the course will see that we customarily start with the standard academic year around August / September and will contact us requesting further information. If our access problem is not sorted throughout the summer, we will of course see to moving the website somewhere else. For the time being, we prefer to try and sort it out where it is.

I hope this explain things, and I look forward to seeing many of you there next academic year. All instructions in the site, other than dates, are valid.

Cura ut valeas optime!

18

I subscribe to Grex and have for a few years. I’ve never posted to it, but try to read it from time to time as yet another exercise in the language…sort of like watching Telemundo if you’re trying to learn Spanish. However, I don’t think anyone here or elsewhere can make any valid political statements about those who learn/speak/write Latin, especially based on what passes for regular conversation on a mailing list. For those of you who haven’t read it for a few years, try to stay aware that the number of regular, fluent contributors is very small. You can’t judge the entire worldwide community of Latin lovers based on them alone.

Long live Grex, Textkit, Schola, Colloquia Latina, and all the other sources, professional and amateur, of “slavish” devotion to our common tongue! :smiley:

19

Very interesting to read all your opinions!

ptolemyauletes, I share many of your feelings in regard to my graduate experience in English literature. I decided that I need to pursue a career where I can help reduce (rather than ignore or treat as a literary artifact) human suffering.

Flavius Julius, I have a feeling that women, minorities, and the historically dispossessed of all kinds (at least in most of the developed world) wouldn’t think that the 20th century was much of a setback…

Generally, I think it’s important to examine critically the values and assumptions that motivate academic disciplines of all kinds, and dialog like this is a good way to get there.

20

Avitus textkitariis optimis suís S·P·D

In what I hope will be my last contribution to the discussion:

Guys (because another “cultural” issue that would be interesting to address is why the male prevalence in the living Latin world, but do check Farrell’s book suggested above), I’m all with you!

Just one more note therefore:

The number of regular, fluent contributors is very small. You can’t judge the entire worldwide community of Latin lovers based on them alone

This is very true and a relevant observation regarding “the entire worldwide community of Latin lovers”. Unfortunately, and in my experience, the original observations regarding active contributors to the Grex Latiné Loquentium remain nevertheless relevant in general for “the entire worldwide community of Latin speakers”, i.e. those who ever manage to reach a level to communicate in Latin with ease, and who consequently proceed to become part of a real, rather than or at least as much as virtual, community that currently exists internationally and meets at various seminars and encounters throughout the world.

I repeat that I wish the situation was otherwise and that people with healthier attitudes to the modern world finally did learn to speak Latin with enough mastery to counter such backward tendencies, and I established my Schola Latina Universalis precisely for that; but, so far, the situation (of course always in general terms: there are always exceptions like myself :slight_smile: ) is the one that is being pointed at in most messages above.

Curate ut valeatis omnes!