From the Pacifica Weblog, On Latin....
The answers to some of these questions lie beyond the ken of mortals, but some I can divulge. I don’t speak Russian, though I’ve been known to dream in it, and I don’t know if my monastic friend speaks, dreams in, or otherwise has an intimate relationship with English. This was not an issue, though, because we typed, of course, in Latin.
It’s true: there are places where conversations happen entirely in that time-tested tongue. Through a website called Schola, for instance, I am in touch with ordinary persons from such locales as Portugal, Poland, Israel, Montenegro, France, Australia, the Ukraine, Germany, Scotland, Singapore, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Spain, Bulgaria, Russia, the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Brazil, Alberta, the Philippines, and—brace yourself—the San Fernando Valley, all united by the fact that we use Latin for actual communication.
This is not just something to do. It is exhilarating. Would I could convey the bliss and beauty of two humans with mismated native tongues, conversing in a third! We’re talking something between a first kiss and first tracks on an Alpine slope, more electric than Circuit City struck by lightning and a Prius at the same time, and more breathtaking than a knee to the diaphragm of a winded asthmatic, underwater. For me, besides purveying these intrinsic thrills, it evokes my European childhood, when I often plied this practice on the playground. But, nostalgia and overstuffed metaphors aside, the accomplishment feels tremendous. I don’t like to toss around citizen-of-the-world palaver, but, baby, this is its quintessence! And it’s never too late to take the oath: I know of multiple first-time Latin learners in their sixties and beyond.
Nor is this pleasure limited to electronic realms. This summer I will travel, in the corporeal world, to Rusticatio Virginiana, a week-long retreat at a villa formerly in the Washington family, where one speaks only Latin. Doing everything from trail-tromping to wine-tasting, from disputing Ovid and Catullus in many-hour sessions to sitting on the porch shooting the West Virginia breeze, we will be using only that ancient harp-song, Latin—and having the time of our lives doing it! The chef, by the way, one Andrew Gollan, is a Latin teacher at Santa Monica High School. (Even the carrots are cooked Latine modo.) What’s more, Rusticatio Virginiana is but one of many such shindigs across the country, and far more across the world, some of which last as many as eight weeks, and many of which are difficult to get into because the demand is so immense.
While all this may convince you that there are still whackos who use Latin of their own free will, it may not yet convince you that it is worthwhile for you to become one. It is difficult, after all, to convince intelligent persons to become whackos—an impasse encountered time and again by the Apostle Paul, and spoken of by him in about the same terms (see 1 Corinthians 1:18-25). But I think you may find, as did many of his listeners, that the thing you considered folly is perhaps not so crazy after all.
To this end, on to the next post and the next conversation. Valete, amici amicaeque!
P.S. You can view my Latin comment on John 2:4 at http://schola.ning.com/group/rerumdivinarumhumanarumque/forum/topic/show?id=1987911%3ATopic%3A2563. Maneuver freely from there! Clicking “Index” at the top left will take you to the main page; at “Laternae Magicae” you can see some of the thousands of Latin videos to be found on the internet, though my recommended source for such is http://eclassics.ning.com/, which has English to help you navigate the site. Also, if you peruse the “Circulus” at the Schola site, you may recognize among the membership some of our own Latin 2 and 3 students!)
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