Re: Dead languages?

From: Chuck Stevens (charles.stevens_at_unisys.com)
Date: 07/13/04 

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2004 09:56:57 -0700

"Catherine Rees Lay" <spamtrap@polyhedron.org.uk> wrote in message
news:$eTHslTUPo8AFw8c@spamtram.polyhedron.com...

> Church Latin uses different pronunciation to "academic" Latin though. I
> was told that this is to make it easier to sing.

No, I don't think that's it. Church Latin is heavily influenced by the way
Latin evolved into Italian (and can probably more accurately best be
referred to as "Medieval Latin") -- by the fact that it's been kept alive
*in Rome* for 2,000 years, and by the fact that a lot of the people who kept
it going for those two millennia lived most or all of their lives in Rome.

I don't know if Church Latin is any *easier* to sing; some would argue that
it's more mellifluous, however (to those accustomed to Church Latin,
Classical Latin sounds almost Germanic in timbre).

I got nearly perfect grades in Church Latin for two years, then transferred
to a secular school and decided to audit their Latin offerings. I could
manage the consonantal and vocalic differences without too much trouble, but
never did manage to relearn my vocabulary with the addition of the length of
the vowels (and the rules therefor), a feature of Classical Latin which
Church Latin seems utterly to ignore.

    -Chuck Stevens