Novus sodalis adest qui consilium novum proponit

Textkit Community Open Board
1

Vos omnes Kynetus Valesius scriba quam humillissimus medullitus salutat

I’m a new member. A little about me: A little over fifty I have managed to learn a little bit of latin through assiduous home study. I’ve got a wife that I love, three hellraising grown “boys”, and a job that I hate. Greek is a project I want to undertake sometime but not now.

I’m a regular contributor to “Grex Latine Loquentium”, a latin only correspondence group. Some of the leading latinists in the world congregate there. I am by know means an advanced student but have been nevertheless warmly received by some of the leading lights in the group. I’ve also a contributor, both in English and latin, to “Latinitas”, a group on yahoo sponsored by “Nova Roma” though I’m not a member of that organization.

Textkit is remarkable not only because of the outstanding materials that it makes available but also because it is one of the few places on the net that has been able to establish a community of aspiring and accomplished classicists. Omnia laudo proboque.

In the various forums that I participate in, there has been periodic discussion about the paucity of recorded material available to those learning latin. I’d like to propose to the moderatores of textkit that they consider hosting a new kind of “resource” for learning latin/greek. I have a vision of an MP3 library in which each mp3 file could optionally be glossed with an accompanying text file. It is with this project in mind that I’ve come here. Examples of the types of materials for which recordings could be made could include:

  1. Readings (basic to advanced) from some of the grammars and other texts that are already hosted here. In this case glosses would be superfluous.

  2. Passages from famous works of literature and history - with or without glosses

  3. Spoken renditions of some of the articles published in “Ephemeris” - It would not be difficult I believe to get permission from the leaders of that group. For those of you who are not familiar with this online latin news paper go to www.alcuinus.net and click on “ephemeris”. Incidentally the article at the bottom of the front page, an obituary of Constance Walker Motley, a civil righs pioneer, was written by yours truly.

  4. Recorded versions of some of the historical articles authored by Victorius C. who is one of the most accomplished neolatinists in the world today in my opinion. We are both participants in the grex and so permissions should be easy to obtain.

  5. Recorded versions of neo latin texts such as the colloquia of Erasamus.

  6. Recorded versions of selected passages from the latin editions of such works as “The Little Prince”, “Alice in Wonderland,” “Robinson Caruso”.

I’ll be very keen to hear your reactions to what I’m proposing. I believe that such a library, which of course would be developed over time, could draw even larger numbers of visitors to this site. It could become a resource for teachers and independent learners.

Ex imo corde opto ut valeatis quam pancratice.

Kynetus Scriba
PS: In this open forum, is it permitted to write letters entirely in latin/greek? Or is that only permitted in the atrium?

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Salvete

Non mihi videtur bonum sinere meum propositum quod heri moderatoribus et ducibus misi cadere ad fundum indicis. Si incepta quae proposui inepta sunt, nonne sit melius hoc plane dicere? Kynetus

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Welcome to Textkit, Kynetus! :smiley:

Our Moderators take their job very seriously, and your proposals deserve paused and meditated consideration. What’s the rush? Rome wasn’t built in one day, was it?

(For a quickie, pay us a visit at The Homerics.)

4

Salve amice

Recte dicis, domine Bardo! Roma uno die aedificata non est! Ob et impatientiae exhibitionem, veniam peto nam neque quemquam vexare volui neque negare rectores nostros omnia optime efficere. Et mihi confitiendum est quod solicitus eram cum viderem mihi nullum responsum esse altero die. Sed nunc, tua epistula accepta, video me acceptum esse. Quod iuvet! Consilium et tuum capiam praebendo plus patientiae nam tempus, omnium edax, rem resolvet.

Sed unum mea ex epistula prima est cui nemo adhuc respondidit. Scire volui an nobis liceat latine hic scribere vel tantum apud “agoram”. Si quis vestrum mihi certiorem hac de re facere possit, pregratus sim.

Salve comes
Kynetus Valesius Vasingtoniensis.

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Would you be kind enough to translate your Latin into English for those of us who have not studied that language.

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Would you be kind enough to translate your Latin into English for those of us who have not studied that language.

or for those of us who are only in ch. 23 of wheelock’s and who don’t feel like hunching over a dictionary for an hour. You would probably like the Agora, Kynete. :wink:

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Kynete, I think your ideas are very interesting. We have actually discussed similar projects on one or two occasions, and I thought a project was begun to do this for one of our online textbooks, but I don’t know what happened to it. Needless to say, it would be a lot of work, and there is a shortage of people who are extremely well read on the subject of Latin pronunciation, and fewer still who can overcome native accents. It’s a very picky process to try to produce something that can be agreed upon as the perfect reproduction of the sound of a language, especially in a language like Latin where everyone has their own ideas about how it should be pronounced. In the end, if there are enough people willing to work on such a project, it is Jeff (the administrator) whom you ought to address, as we humble moderators do not directly control site content.

PS: In this open forum, is it permitted to write letters entirely in latin/greek? Or is that only permitted in the atrium?

As a courtesy to those who only speak barbaric tongues, we speak mostly English in the Open Board, but there is no rule about which language to use. As you can tell, there is a shortage of conversation in the Agora, which is regrettable.

Now, I bid you a pancratic farewell!

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“In this open forum, is it permitted to write letters entirely in latin/greek?” ~Kynetus

In the Open Forum you can click like a Bushman, for all we care. It would be unpolite, though, to disregard GGG and Deudeditus’ petition.

I don’t know Latin myself (got your drift from Non … videtur … bonum … meum … propositum … moderatoribus … Si … inepta … melius … dicere?).

“Si quis vestrum mihi certiorem hac de re facere possit, pregratus sim.” ~Kynetus

This looks like you are asking something. I don’t get it, so if it’s meant for me, don’t be offended by my unresponsiveness.

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I was typing as you were posting, Benny, so there was no toe-steppibus animus on my part. :smiley:

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Mi queridísimo Bardo, do you then know Greek? And if not, mi gran Bardo de Saldo, which other languages do you speak? :stuck_out_tongue:

Kynetus, welcome. I see you speak much better than some of us who are getting through Wheelock’s 31. I personally don’t mind you or anyone else Latine dicens. And I second the motion for some speech on Textkit. It was thanks to this board that I got A&G. Now all I need is to hear it pronounced well (personally, except for the hard g’s and c’s, and the qu being fully pronounced, I pronounce it like Spanish; I think that does alright, but I don’t pay attention to the ‘bs’ being ‘ps’ or the ‘gn’ being ‘ngn’ or any of that).

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I would be interested (an only qualfied) in reading Koine for this sort of library. I am quite comfortable reading biblical texts, and I can swing through non-biblical Koine texts with a few runs at it. The question is, what texts would be good to post in mp3?

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“… do you then know Greek? And if not …” ~Nostos

¿Intenta usted ponerme en evidencia, mi excelentísimo don Nostos? :smiley:

I know Greek, just don’t ask me to say anything that Homer hasn’t said before (I save my very original thoughts for Spanish and English).

It is a well known fact that no one speaks Latin better than a Spanish speaker. All that English speakers need to do to speak Latin the way it was meant to be spoken is learn to say the vowels como Dios manda. :wink:

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Bardo de Saldo, porfavor no me hables en usted!

I figured you were just joking about not speaking Latin, pero si, claro claro, el lenguaje de Dios así como Dios manda! :stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue:

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Latin (and Greek) lovers!

First let me thank those who have responded to my proposals - though of late the thread has gone slightly off topic. And to those inconvienced by my use of latin, I exend my regrets - there was however nothing terribly important in those few posts anyway.

As for the question of pronunciation, I think several styles could be acceptable. Certainly it would be difficult to object to any serious attempt at achieving the so-called “restored classical pronunciation” - which basically means that Cs are hard, Vs are like “w”, ae is like “aisle”, and Is when used as consonants come out as if sounded liked the “y” in yellow. This style would also be very close to the Wheelock norm, as I understand it.

I will soon be purchasing an mp3 recording device and begin making audio editions of select texts: Poems from Catullus and Horace such as are commonly found in anthologies; perhaps passages from one of the texts available here; etc. My intention, by doing this, is to practice the so-called direct method of language aquisition which requires active aural or oral conditioning. This method is the method most commonly used today in instruction of modern languages such as Spanish and French: you know the approach - it’s very practical and conservational.

The method was first pioneered by the Rennaisance latin scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam in order to teach educated persons how to conduct a conversation in latin. His colloquia are available on the net in latin and in translation. Ironically this active method fell into disuse among teachers of the classics and ultimately a system developed that emphasized translation almost exclusively. The consequences of this development have been disasterous. In fact, I and some others believe that the “death” of latin can be attributed at least partially to such misguided teaching methodologies. As a result, there are many, I suspect, latin teachers at the high-school level and perhaps even beyond who can not write in basic expository latin. Now however a movement is growing internationally to return to the older system.

Call it the “living latin” movement. I found out about it entirely by accident. I had studied Wheelock at home and soon thereafter discovered the Grex email list where latin exclusively is used. At first I couldn’t understand anything that I read. Gradually, however, I began to pick up a few things and discovered that many of the grex participants were apart of this effort to reform latin teaching worldwide. Eventually I started writing my own letters - in the last year in excess of 100; but now I wish to truly immerse myself in the neolatin movement , learn how to speak, attend summer latin colloquia and seminars, etc. Part of the beauty of this is: persons who learn latin actively often find that they are able more easily to penetrate the ancient texts that are the focus of most classroom.

Which brings me back to my dream library concept. I could not of course by myself execute such a project. I am willing however to work as part of a team to create audible files. By using audible files, the mind, the ear, and the lips are simultaneously conditioned, thereby eliminating at least some toil and aggravation. As I say I am willing to work as a team member toward the goal of establishing a rudimentary library for persons wishing to learn latin via the direct method. I MIGHT also be able to attract qualified contributors from outside. Furthermore, I was assuming, perhaps wrongly, that there might be a pool of persons haunting the environs of textkit who might wish to become involved.

If Jeff is reading this, I ask that he give careful consideration to my proposals. If in the end, he decides that such a project is not in textkit’s interest, I’ll entirely understand and will seek a home for the project elsewhere.

Thank you for your consideration of this matter again. Kynetus

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I am no expert on the history of Latin education, but I think this approach to teaching Latin is older than Erasmus -

http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/engl401/lessons/aelintro.htm

  • which of course makes your argument even more potent.

The people I know who study choir singing have to learn four different pronounciations of Latin (though few if any of them learn the langauge itself) : Church, German, Old French, and some other style I forgot.