Yul Brynner

[Andy_R]

After a few pints I'm fluent in Gibberish and Bollix

 

[Dayvo]

A funny story (well its funny looking back).
1982, in south of France, we were lost. Pulled into a big driveway and looking at the map.
SUDDENLY there was a rifle sticking in my ear. I didn't speak French but understood we had to shift very quickly.
It was only a barracks for the French Foreign Legion

I spent 8 months on a kibbutz (in Israel) 1983-84. Just before I left, a mate returned to the US and I went to see him off at the airport.
I was young, fit, healthy, no.2 crew-cut and tanned. I wasn’t massive but was muscular and well defined. As were the 50 or so uniformed soldiers I walked past in their sitting area. One by one they stirred from their slumber and eyed me up and down. I thought ‘no problem’ as they were probably on ‘our side.’
A short while later I found out that they were an elite unit of Foreign Legion soldiers returning to their home base after a tour of duty in Lebanon.
As I said, no problem at the time when I walked between them, but retrospectively, it felt like a near/death experience. 😅

 

[Dogtrousers]

I suspect Mary Beard can speak Latin; but there are not many who can. Many are those who can read Latin, often extensively and fluently but few can speak it. The simple test is to ask the question: What is the Latin for yes? A conversation without the use of yes from time to time is close to non-existent; yet many of the classically inclined could not tell you what yes is in Latin. Learning Latin as a classical language at school is more a branch of mathematics — code cracking in its most unedifying form. You speak Latin when the other can say to you in Latin: Darling, isn't that wheel a bit out of true? And you can reply: Yes, but not enough to spend time truing it rather than spending time with you. In real life, maidens did not only adorn bulls with roses.

Formally there is no "yes" in Finnish. You reply with the appropriate verb in the affirmative. "Is the cat on the mat?" "Is". "Are you cold?" "Am"

Of course, informally they sometimes say "Joo" (pronounced roughly yaw)

As to Latin, what a waste of effort, why not teach a language that is actually useful? The idea that Latin is useful for learning other languages is flawed on two counts. Firstly, study of pretty much any language gives you the same grammatical basis (and it's actually useful as well). Second, the time spent on Latin could be employed making progress in a living language.

I studied Latin at school, but I actually learned about grammar in English and French classes. The only useful thing I can remember from Latin is that "paen insula" means "almost island".

Of course if you want to pursue a career in classical studies, it's very useful.

 

[T4tomo]

quod erat demonstrandum

Only because my maths teacher used it all the time at the end of a mathematical proof. I ended up doing the same at the end of my workings.

My maths was good, but my spelling poor, so I just used to write QED a lot.

 

[Blue Hills]

Anyone claim they can speak Latin?
Dreadful language, hated it at school. Conjugating objects, ridiculous.
Back then it was part of a classical education.

I have an o level in it, possibly a very good one (state educated I stress).
They used to get us to pronounce it in what seemed like to me to be a somewhat crazy over-stressed over precise way. As someone once said, how the hell do they know what folk speaking latin actually sounded like? And I'm pretty sure they couldn't have sounded like us. You could maybe surmise certain things from poetry but then poetry is not necessarily a guide to normal usage anyway.
I'm pretty sure that your average roman citizen didn't use it anyway.
We were also often fed the crap that it was vital for being a doctor/anything medical etc.
And various other things.

Dead language.
With good reason.

 

[Blue Hills]

Of course if you want to pursue a career in classical studies, it's very useful.

It's main use until far too recently was an an instrument of social division/control - providing a barrier to entry of "proles" to certain areas.

With it's final relinquishing of this dodgy power, some desperate souls in some areas have taken to wokespeak.

 

[Lozz360]

Anyone claim they can speak Latin?
Dreadful language, hated it at school. Conjugating objects, ridiculous.
Back then it was part of a classical education.

Just enough to order a round of drinks at the bar.

 

[Lozz360]

Formally there is no "yes" in Finnish. You reply with the appropriate verb in the affirmative. "Is the cat on the mat?" "Is". "Are you cold?" "Am"

Reminds me of a conversation with a friend from Finland who was brushing up on his English. It went something like:

Juha: “You know in English, your father’s brother is your uncle, yes?”
Me: “Yes”
Juha: “So what is your mother’s brother called?”
Me: “Uncle”
Juha: “No! That is your father’s brother!”
Me: ”Well, yes”
Juha: “So what is your mother’s brother called???”
Me: “Uncle!”
Conversation continued with increasing exasperation (alcohol was involved) until:
Me: “Hang on a minute. Is the Finnish word for father’s brother different to mother’s brother?”
Juha: “Yes of course!”

Problem solved.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Anyone claim they can speak Latin?
Dreadful language, hated it at school.Conjugating objects, ridiculous.
Back then it was part of a classical education.

I wouldn't say that the grammar itself is ridiculous. Lots of languages have conjugations and declensions and so on. But if you're going to go to the trouble of learning about the nominative accusative and genitive, and past participles and tenses and voices and so on then you may as well get the reward of a useful means of communication for your efforts.

But back to Yul Brynner ...

 

[Illaveago]

Just looked it up . He was originally Russian . I didn't think he was French .

There was a programme about him on the TV some time ago which I thought was really good . Trying to remember . I think he was very talented .

 

[Dirk]

I can use Google Translate.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

Anyone claim they can speak Latin?
Dreadful language, hated it at school. Conjugating objects, ridiculous.
Back then it was part of a classical education.

It’s still popular and useful. It’s true there are probably very few truly fluent speakers but there are plenty who can communicate in it and many more who can understand it.

English has a substantial foundation of Latin so it’s still a great tool for understanding our own language, not to mention French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian etc.

Latin’s often called a dead language when it would be more accurate to call it immortal.

 

[Blue Hills]

It’s still popular and useful. It’s true there are probably very few truly fluent speakers but there are plenty who can communicate in it and many more who can understand it.

English has a substantial foundation of Latin so it’s still a great tool for understanding our own language, not to mention French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian etc.

Latin’s often called a dead language when it would be more accurate to call it immortal.

Am sure there are lots of folk on cyclechat who can understand the language on here (OK - maybe not bits of the old Nacas) without having been anywhere near a latin grammar.

It was of course used by the catholic church for centuries with the specious argument that this made the priests' ramblings instantly understandable to folks wandering into churches of whatever background or nationality. In truth it kept folks away from the word and valid enquiry, gave power to the priests.

Yep english has elements of latin - and also losts of other stuff - hence it's strength.

Not saying anyone shouldn't study latin and old texts of course if they want to.

 

[Blue Hills]

Anyone claim they can speak Latin?
Dreadful language, hated it at school. Conjugating objects, ridiculous.
Back then it was part of a classical education.

On the classics, my state grammar school taught us all classics for the first year or two.
Then in an act of sheer genius, they separated us.
If you were good at classics, you studied latin.
If you were less good at classics, you then studied classics.
I went in to the latin stream but I always envied my mates who ended up in classics - lots of tales of derry doing, blood and guts and scandal.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

Am sure there are lots of folk on cyclechat who can understand the language on here (OK - maybe not bits of the old Nacas) without having been anywhere near a latin grammar.

It was of course used by the catholic church for centuries with the specious argument that this made the priests' ramblings instantly understandable to folks wandering into churches of whatever background or nationality. In truth it kept folks away from the word and valid enquiry, gave power to the priests.

Yep english has elements of latin - and also losts of other stuff - hence it's strength.

Not saying anyone shouldn't study latin and old texts of course if they want to.

I wasn’t suggesting that English couldn’t be understood without a knowledge of Latin, I was suggesting that such knowledge is a useful tool in gaining a better understanding of English.