24.03.24: Modern voices

What is sometimes a five minute task in a modern foreign language is a different story in Latin. If we want to know how to ask the way to the Eiffel Tower in French, or buy a Bier and Bratwurst in Berlin, it doesn’t take long to find out, and if you speak neither French nor German there will be thousands of online – reliable – references that will tell you the same thing.

Given, however, that Cicero never asked the way to the vegetable market – or, if he did, he never bothered to write it down – and, presumably, Caesar knew where Gaul was, the everyday language of the Romans can be a bit murky.

Does it matter? It depends on your perspective; I believe that, if the aim of the journey is to read the Roman authors, then being thoroughly familiar with the foundations is essential, and the way to achieve that is partly by active practice in context, hence this topic on directions. I like the topic of directions – in any language – because it combines different verb forms, a range of prepositions, and a good deal of key vocabulary.

And all of that will reemerge when you’re reading.

The two book titles I have reproduced below are focused on that. Wilkes’ Latin for Beginners is a gentle, and fun way of learning Latin in practical contexts. It’s short, about fifty pages long, and can fit neatly into a backpack to be read in Starbucks. Wilkes’ book contains vocabulary such as “post office” and “supermarket” which is not really what this group is about. Nevertheless, it has a good store of vocabulary and phrases that are relevant.

At over 400 pages, Traupman’s Conversational Latin for Oral Proficiency is a hefty work, and a monumental one in my view. Traupman’s work combines Classical and also Neo-Latin, and so, if you want to find the Latin for airconditioner, you’ll find it; I’ve checked: īnstrūmentum āerī temperandō

You can certainly apply the vocabulary of both books to your daily lives.

What’s interesting – and admirable – about both of them is the amount of research that has been done, and both writers have obviously consulted the Roman authors to find constructions which, even if the original writings are not exactly what we want to say, can be reworked according to accurate grammar, sentence structure and vocabulary to create it.

In the next post I will look at one dialogue from Traupman which suits our needs.