Apparently worldwide Latin has become much more popular. 137,225 students across the world took the National Latin Exam. More American high schools are offering advanced placement Latin courses, and we are even seeing Latin being offered locally in grade schools. Is Latin becoming more popular in England too?

Every now and then I see an article that says it's undergoing a revival. Here's the latest.

I don't know if it's true but one sure sign of Swine flu is you begin to speak Pig Latin.

It is enjoying a resurgence herre in the Bay Area, which I think is laudable. For about a year, I was leading a Latin study group with some friends. We met in in a lovely house in the hills above Berkeley and declined nouns and adjectives and conjugated verbs. Unfortunately, I had to stop because of work.

[Corrected typo.]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

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Originally posted by Proofreader:
I don't know if it's true but one sure sign of Swine flu is you begin to speak Pig Latin.

A little bird told me this works with Avian Flu as well.

quote:

Originally posted by zmježd:
It is enjoying a resurgence herre in the bay Area, which I think is laudable. For about a year, I was leading a Latin study group with some friends. We met in in a lovely house in the hills above Berkeley and declined nouns and adjectives and conjugated verbs. Unfortunately, I had to stop because of work.

The one langauge (well, two counting antique Greek) where the traditional grammar approach is welcome. But then my friends & I WOULD pass notes in Latin, it was a great secret code.

There are actually two Latin teachers on the TPRS forum (moretprs @ yahoo.com), a group of close to a thousand world language teachers who are devoted to a method also known as "Fluency Fast"! I take this as a sign that Latin is definitely on its way back. Wouldn't it be a hoot if this time around (à la Hebrew), it were resuscitated as a spoken language?!

Hebrew

There's a least one linguist I know who contends that Biblical Hebrew and Israeli Hebrew are two separate languages. Though the latter is based on the former.

language teachers

One of the first classes I took in linguistics was a survey course on Applied Linguistics. As we were frogmarched through the various and sundry language teaching methods, I kept reliving my experiences in different language classes over the years. "Oh, that's why they did that" etc.

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Originally posted by zmježd:
Hebrew

There's a least one linguist I know who contends that Biblical Hebrew and Israeli Hebrew are two separate languages. Though the latter is based on the former.

Depends what you mean by language, but it makes sense to me, since modern Hebrew is a revived language, and since it was revived it has been changing (I assume). The phonology of modern Hebrew is different from that of Biblical Hebrew, for one thing.

The phonology of modern Hebrew is different from that of Biblical Hebrew, for one thing.

Yes, the phonology is different, but he also argues that the grammar and syntax have changed greatly. Also, lexical derivation, there not being too large a vocabulary of words in Biblical Hebrew, espcially for modern concepts. He spends a lot of time explaining how words were coined in modern Israeli Hebrew, and how a lot of the grammar is more Indo-European than Semitic, since most of Israel's founders were European Jews.