Monday, November 16, 2015

Latin's Not Dead

And I don't feel like debating it. If you say Latin is dead, you're dead. inside. Or maybe you jokers who've been saying for hundreds of years now that it's dead, maybe consciously or subconsciously you want to kill it. In some cases there's definitely no "maybe" about it. Why would you want to kill a language? What's wrong with you?

In the 3rd century BC Plautus wrote hilariously crude comedies, in the 2nd century BC Terence wrote much more polite comedies, in the 1st century BC Julius Caesar wrote about his exploits in Gaul, in the 1st century AD Pliny the Elder wrote a long work much like an encyclopaedia which is known as the Natural History, in the 2nd century his son wrote some famous letters, in the 3rd century Tertulian ranted and raved in a famous manner, in the 4th century Ausonius wrote beautiful poems, in the 5th century Augustine did his thing, in the 6th century Gregory of Tours wrote of appalling goings-on, in the 7th century Isidore of Spain wrote another celebrated encyclopaedia-like work; his is called the Etymology, in the 8th century the Venerable Bede wrote a history of England, in the 9th century Einhard wrote a biography of Charlemagne, in the 10th century Widukind wrote a history of the Saxons, in the 11th century Anselm of Canterbury wrote celebrated theology and philosophy, in the 12th century William of Tyre wrote a magnificent history of the Crusades up until his own time, in the 13th century Thomas Aquinas wrote a metric ton of theology, in the 14th century William of Occam wrote philosophy which didn't contain that now known as Occam's Razor, in the 15th century Enea Silvio de Piccolomini wrote a very great variety of things, in the 16th century Giordano Bruno wrote things which got him killed, in the 17th century Johannes Kepler wrote books which greatly advanced the science of astronomy, in the 18th century Giambattista Vico wrote a liber metaphysicus, in the 19th century Karl Marx wrote a dissertation on the Emperor Augustus, in the 20th century GP Goold published at least 2 papers on Manilius in the Rheinisches Museum, and in the 21st century Stephen Berard published Capti, a novel, the first volume in a planned 7-part series --

-- and what do all of those written works have in common with many thousands of others? Couple of things. They're all still read today. And they were all written in Latin.

Which is not dead. Between the 3rd century BC and now quite a few languages have been born and then died, while Latin has just kept on going. The only European language now alive which has been continuously alive in both written and spoken form for longer than Latin is Greek.

So just shut up, rather than trying to tell me that Latin is dead. Just shut up.

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