Studying A Dead Language

When I was a young and immature high school freshman, my classmates and I used to chant to my long-suffering tutor and father;

"Latin's a dead language,
Dead as dead can be,
First it killed the Romans,
And now it's killing me!"

(I believe we thought at the time that we were rather clever.)

But now, four years of Latin study later, I realize that there was actually a bit of truth to our ingenious little rhyme, at least in regards to the first half. (The fact that the complexity of the Latin language contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire is somewhat more disputable.) Latin is a dead language, "as dead as dead can be." Why, then, did I devote so much time to learning a tongue which I will never speak? (Unless I travel to the Vatican City someday to converse with the Pope - an event which I think is pretty unlikely.)

The simple answer is that my father, a former private high-school teacher and a highly educated individual, firmly believed in the rigors of a classical education and put us through unusual, intensive courses such as analytical logic, Latin, Hebrew, rhetoric, classical literature, and geography with all their old-fashioned trimmings. Thus, I had no choice but to memorize lists of grammatical chants and verbal rules in a dead language.

The more complex answer lies in the fact that, in spite of being "forced" to study a language I'll never speak, I actually enjoyed the learning process. Moreover, during the course of studying Latin, I came to more fully understand my father's reasoning behind teaching us this particular language. I also discovered a few reasons of my own for learning Latin.

Abba used to tell us; "Once you learn Latin, you have the perfect tool in your hands to easily learn all of the Romantic languages," (which include French, Spanish and Italian.) His former students often tell him how grateful they were to have learned Latin in high school - Latin made it simple for them to grasp entirely different Romantic languages in college much more quickly than their classmates who lacked Latin backgrounds. My piano teacher, who studied Latin throughout high school, simply tacked on Italian endings to her Latin vocabulary when she visited Italy, and the native Italians understood her just fine. Not to argue that a grasp of the Latin language is sufficient to communicate in other Romantic languages; but a knowledge of Latin certainly makes learning these languages much simpler. Or so I've been told.

I would often came back at my father's argument with the retort, "Well if I'm going to learn Spanish, why don't I just learn Spanish, and not waste my time learning its foundational language?" His excellent reply; after Latin, you can easily pick up any Romantic language. You can become fluent in Spanish as well as French as well as Romanian as well as Italian as well as Portuguese. Your options are numerous - you can quickly become polylingual, instead of settling for bilingual.  Latin must thus be understood, in some ways, as a language-learning tool, not simply as a language in and of itself (though of course it is that as well.)

However, Latin isn't just a tool for learning fancy foreign languages. Its profound influence on the English language must never be underrated. My father estimates that as much as 80% of the English language comes from Latin and Greek roots. Think of that - 80 per cent of an entire tongue! I can think of quite a few English words off the top of my head right now that come from Latin... "Umbrella" - from the Latin word "umbra", meaning "shade." "Sedentary" - from the Latin "sedes", meaning "seat". "Nocturnal" - from the Latin "noctis", meaning "night". "Deity" - from the Latin "Deus", meaning "God." "Language" - from the Latin "lingua", meaning "tongue." ("Think 'linguini'", as our classmate Becca used to remind us helpfully.) There are literally hundreds more. I'm quite proud of the fact that when I hear or read a new English word that I've never come across before, more often than not I can figure out its meaning from my knowledge of Latin. Thanks to my father/tutor, of course, who insisted that he teach us this "dead" language, and who taught it well.

Latin did not only provide me with a broad, comprehensive basis for English vocabulary - it also contributed to my understanding of English grammar as well. Latin mechanics does not work the same way as English. The Latin language is infinitely more complex, yet at the same time more efficient. For example; in English, we can tell if a word is an adjective, adverb, or noun by the word itself (beautiful, swiftly, person.) In Latin however, we figure out how the word is being used in a sentence by its particular ending. Certain words have certain sets of endings. The endings for first-declension nouns are; -a, -ae, -ae, -am, -ah, -ae, -arum, -is, -as, -is. (Yup. Most of the chants are still hard-wired in there...) So, depending on context, a first-declension noun will end in -a if it's being used as a singular noun, -ae if it's being used as a singular direct object, -am if it's being used as a singular possessive noun, etc. There are several sets of declensions, many different ways the endings can be used, and quite a few different names for each of those uses (accusative, genitive, nominative, ablative, dative.) I won't even try to explain what happens when it comes to Latin verbs.

See what I mean? Complex... yet systematic, economical, efficient. Because of this complexity, English grammar in contrast is a piece of cake. Learning how to wrap my mind around the details of Latin grammar gave me a very solid understanding of words in general, and all of the different ways in which they can be used.

It might sound like the dullest class in the world. But sometimes it was actually enjoyable. We had Latin vocabulary contests (played sort of like an ancient Roman "Blurt!"), translated the entire book of James from Latin to English, and read the stories of Troy, Aeneas, Dido, Caesar, Romulus and Remus in their originals. We encouraged each other in Latin - Perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim - ("Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you"), complained in Latin - Cogito ergo doleo - ("I think, therefore I am depressed"), and apologized in Latin - Absit invidia - ("No offense intended"). Stacks and stacks of vocabulary cards, lists and lists of chants to memorize, pages of ancient sentences and stories to translate. It was fun.

I certainly don't regret it. The fact that I'm able to read Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame and O' Henry's Short Stories and understand their numerous Latin references without the help of a Latin-to-English handbook... that alone makes those four years worth it to me. I've come to agree wholeheartedly with my father's decision that a truly classically educated person is at least superficially familiar with the rudiments of the Latin language.

And last, but not least, Latin certainly comes in handy when you wish to show off... As the ancient Romans used to say;
"Quidquid Latina dictum, altum videtur": "Anything said in Latin sounds profound."

A Personal Post For New Year's Eve

I haven’t written anything on this blog for a long time. I have a variety of reasons for my absence, which are mostly covered by the excuse “Life Got In The Way.” College, new blogs, working too many jobs to count, and family obligations, among other things. But now it’s New Year’s eve, I don’t have to work or study tomorrow, and thus have absolutely no excuse for not taking a few moments to write a short(ish) contemplative post.

Except I’m not really sure what to write. 2012 is almost over, and I have no idea how I am supposed to feel about that. When I start musing about this year and everything that it brought forth, I am overwhelmed with nostalgia, gratitude, sadness, regret, ecstatic happiness, fear, hope, and anger, among other emotions. So I’m having a hard time deciding what I think about this past year and how I feel about the coming year.

I can certainly say that last December lots of things were very different… I was in my senior year of high school, hell bent on going to an Ivy League college, experiencing painful jealousy, bitterness, and disillusionment in my personal life, questioning the most important of my foundational values, doing a lot of writing, reading a lot of poetry I didn’t understand, and listening to a lot of Maroon 5. They were interesting times, albeit the darkest times of my life thus far. But I think I learned a lot about life last December, nonetheless…

Personally, 2012 was a year of new beginnings. Starting college was a big one. I graduated high school in May, and I think since then I’ve been learning to cease worrying (somewhat) about people’s opinions and instead learn to love the path I’ve chosen for myself. (Not an easy lesson.) I learned to only worry about the opinions of the people I’ve come to respect and love – people who have earned my trust – instead of giving credence to every opinion with which I come into contact.

And that’s another thing. (Pardon my whimsical rambling here… I’m just writing down these thoughts as they come into my head.) I’ve learned not to give away trust, but to instead allow others to earn it. This doesn’t mean I’ve become untrusting. I’m merely learning that, especially in this culture and country, people have no idea what it means to stick with commitments. I’ve learned the hard way that when the going gets tough, the solution for most people is to leave. I’m not bitter about that – (well, at least I try not to be.) Rather, the realization has embedded within me the firm belief that trust should be earned, not given away.

In 2012, I lost a great deal and learned a ton. I fell in love with life, and made a (probably momentous) decision to take that life in both of my hands and stop quantifying/qualifying it by numbers. My GPA, exact hours of study, daily compliments, minutes of practice, followers on my blogs, professional or educational accomplishments, pats on my back, places I’ve been, things I’ve done… I’m not so sure the numbers of those things matter so much anymore. They’re still relatively important, but 2012 taught me not to let them define my success.

I guess I better wrap this up, because 2013 is coming on, bringing with it all the new battles I’ll be fighting, all the new hills I’ll be climbing, all the tests I’ll fail and pass, all the lessons I’ll learn. I’m afraid, but I’m also excited. So much lies before me, and I can’t wait to see what it is.

L’Shana Tova!

The Only Free Man

I don't presume to be a writer on the same level or of the same quality as W. Somerset Maugham, one of the greatest English authors of the twentieth century. I don't claim to hold all of his views or admire all of his ideas. However when I came across this passage in one of his greatest novels, (though one of his most depressing and satirical,) "Cakes and Ale", its profundity and truth gave me cause to stop reading and contemplate it for a few moments.
                 "She embarked upon a conversation which, I gathered from her tone, was of a facetious and even flirtatious character. I did not pay much attention, and since it seemed to prolong itself,  I began to meditate upon the writer's life. It is full of tribulation. First he must endure poverty and the world's indifference; then, having achieved a measure of success, he must submit with a good grace to its hazards. He depends upon a fickle public. He is at the mercy of journalists who want to interview him... of editors who harry him for copy... of persons of quality who ask him to lunch and secretaries of institutes who ask him to lecture, of women who want to marry him and women who want to divorce him, of youths who want his autograph... of agents, publishers, managers, bores, admirers, critics and his own conscience. But he has one compensation. Whenever he has anything on his mind, whether it be a harassing reflection, grief at the death of a friend, unrequited love, wounded pride, anger at the treachery of someone to whom he has shown kindness, in short any emotion or any perplexing thought, he has only to put it down in black and white, using it as the theme of a story or the decoration of an essay, to forget all about it. He is the only free man."
                I am not sure if any English professors or literary analysts would agree with me, but to my mind this idea as Maugham expresses it here actually encapsulates the whole of this particular work. "Cakes and Ale" satirizes the social and personal lives of authors in twentieth century England through the characters of Alroy Kear, William Ashenden, Edward and Rosie Driffield. The long-suffering author Edward Driffield is forced to put up with the antics of his coarse and wayward wife Rosie as she flouts the conventions of the times and carries on affairs with all of his friends, including Ashenden. Maugham leads one to believe that Edward has no idea of what is going on, and indeed, not even Rosie suspects that Edward is aware of her behavior until the very end after she has run away with another man. Edward then publishes a book in which the heroine, obviously Rosie, is unfaithful to her husband in his time of deepest need, describing her actions with the greatest of detail. This leaves Rosie to wonder in the end how much her husband really knew, and moreover, why he never gave any indication of his knowledge. Driffield offers no explanation, and Rosie, leaving the past behind and moving on with life, remains untroubled by too much speculation. But the answer is given to us the readers by the narrator Ashenden in the passage above.
              Driffield was, in every sense of the term, an author. His refuge was his writing. He was "the only free man", because no matter what happened to him, it could go down in black and white and he would be untroubled by it forever after. Friends could disappoint and betray him - his wife could run away with another man - his child could die - he would pay heavily the price of fame. And yet none of this could ever inhibit his one true gift, nor quench his one true passion - it could only fuel it and enhance its quality. This is why Maugham describes the author as "the only free man."
              This led me to reflect upon the real true freedom of writing. I have never had to pay the price of fame, and I hope that I never will. Yet in some small measure I can understand what Maugham meant when he said that the writer has one compensation, because the most significant freedoms of the writer are his freedoms of thought and expression, and these are the liberties that are the most precious and the most useful to him. They are also the most precious and useful to those around him privileged to share in his thoughts. A truly gifted author stands above the common folk only because he has found a way to express thoughts and experiences that everyone has in an eloquent, poignant, and unique way - he has a voice that people want to listen to. This is his liberty - that when he encounters life's pitfalls he is merely given more words for that voice.
              Some people express themselves through music - some through their clothing - some through their speech. Most of us express ourselves partly through all of these things. But the author is unique. He expresses himself by taking to pen and paper (or nowadays, to Microsoft Word) and literally expressing his opinions, his thoughts, his experiences, and his ideas to the world. Sometimes the world listens. Sometimes it doesn't. It really shouldn't matter. The writer writes because he loves writing for its own sake, because it is a sweet freedom to him, as essential to him as food.
            But don't envy the writer this unique freedom, for it comes at a heavy cost, as Maugham expresses above, a cost that includes "persons of quality who ask him to lunch, and secretaries of institutes who ask him to lecture, women who want to marry him and women who want to divorce him, of youths who want his autograph..." Only an author can understand the longing to express life's turmoil in order to be free of it; only a gifted writer can live contently in his rich inner world while the rest of mankind tumbles head over heels attempting to make sense of life. The author's refuge enables him to analyze what has gone wrong - and if not fully understand, at least relocate it to a solid black-and-white place where it can bother him no longer. When I think about the unique refuge the writer has in his writing, I realize that indeed, the writer is as Maugham claims -  "the only free man."