Is Latin worth learning? How enlightened will I be?
That depends. Are you religious, or do you plan on reading a lot of historical texts?
Cause otherwise the only good it'll do you is reading the engravings on old buildings and learning Romance languages.
Unless you're specializing in that area or are attending a medieval university, can't say it is. I'd learn a language that at least a million people can speak.
I've known a biologist who said he found knowing Latin very useful since all those complicated organism names are easier to remember when you actually know what they mean.
Learn a modern Romance language first, then once you're good at that you can fucks with the Latin.
I learned Latin as my first "second language" and I don't regret it. It taught me how to learn a language by learning the grammar and learning how to read it first, which has helped me endlessly. After years of half-heartedly using shit like Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone, and watching friends use immersion methods that cost time and money and still wind up with horrible accents and shitty understanding of the language, it was refreshing to learn a language "by the books," from the ground up, and then apply that knowledge to others.
I would only learn it if you want to read Latin texts though. I mean, there are lots, and Latin remained a living language in many senses until just recently, but if you're not going to use it regularly, not only will you lose it, you will never really gain it to begin with. Once you have the grammatical foundation down, you really need two or three years of immersion to say you know the language for reals.
But after that point, it changes everything, or it did for me at least.
Can some people post good Latin pronunciation, I kinda just like to listen to it
How good is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBWsnxe1l9w
>>408575
Not religious, but historical texts aren't out of the question. If I were to try to learn it, my motivation would mostly be for it's connection to European history and for its uniqueness/rarity, to a slight extent.
>>408318
Learn Spanish first. It is basically vulgar Latin.
>>408814
Read De Bello Gallico
Just accept the future of Europe and learn German
Italian is the closest living language to Latin. Learning Italian is actually useful and most everything Latin has been translated into Italian. Surely there can't be anything significant lost in translation.
>>408318
Languages are means, choose a mean that suits your puroposes
>tfw don't know Latin, Ancient Greek and Sanskrit
>tfw I'll never complete the ultimate /his/ achievement
How do people usually find the time to learn languages? It takes almost a decade to master a language, so how does one learn many without taking a ridicoulous amount of years?
>>408318
you can decipher Pompeii memes
>>409145
Just a couple of hours each week will make you decent if you keep at it for long enough, takes forever to really master a language though.
>>408318
Yes, especially if you're a Roman Catholic. I'm currently beginning to learn it because next week I will start attending High Mass (Latin Mass) at my local church. :)
Useful if you're looking for a job in anthropology, archaeology, law, pharmacy, or teaching.
>>408638
He's pretty spot on. Also you need to know Greek. It basically is a nonscience term if there's no bastardized Latin or Greek involved.
t. Bio major.
>>409113
Why Sanskrit?
>>410207
The de-facto liturgical language of the southeast, in which a MASSIVE corpus of pre-buddhist Indian literature was recorded.
Basically, the Greek of poo-realm.
>>408953
I think you mean Arabic, senpai.
>>408318
If you're doing a law degree, you might learn 10 Latin phrases. Other than that, it's not particularly useful.
>>408318
I learned latin for 4 years on highschool, I hated it.
>>408666
Definitely, m80. I took 3 years of Latin at university and I still read it regularly today. Ancient Greek is fun, too.
>>410554
Saved lmao
>>410554
Sounds pretty neat. What are some of the major texts written in Sanskrit?
>>409580
I wish there was a church less than an hour from me that did Latin mass
At what point did latin turn Into Italian?
Do not learn Greek. Latin is so much better and considerably easier
>>408666
Nice trips Damien
>>412656
Probably divergent enough around 950 or something. Of course modern Italian is based off of one particular dialect out of the hundreds in Italy.
>>408318
A lot of literature pre 20th century was written in Latin, so if you are into that then yes
I am religious and I feel the urge to read lots of orthodox literature, I am planning on learning a language in that direction...
I was thinking about Greece what do you people suggest?
>>412776
Could Latin be considered old Italian? Or middle Italia?
>>412792
Latin transformed a lot from the days of the second punic war to Julius Caesar to Marcus aurelius to justinian
>>408318
I had to learn latin in school.
It's a horrible language
>>412656
Depends on what you define as Italian. Once the WRE collapsed Latin (which had many regional dialects, and would latter turn into the modern romance languages), was quickly sub planted as the language of power by new local lords. We know that Latin as a common man's language died around the 6th century, ERE Emperor Justinian, born in Illyria, was the last emperor to speak latin as his first language, and even then that was noted as being odd and archaic. So, really, the language spoken in Italy would have become pretty separate by that time if I were to bet. Modern Italian is a culmination of centuries of foreign invaders infusing their languages with the different local dialects into what we know today.
>>412824
Lel, when I was in I school I took German and the Latin fags came in there wearing togas, singing some stupid shit
Everyone laughed
>>412834
That's, really interesting. I've always loved the history of linguistics.
I'm currently struggling to learn german. I just wish I could immerse myself somehow and Force my brain to learn out of necessity
>>412856
>tfw continually GAULED
>>411760
The Vedas, Bhagavad Gita, the mahabarata and the Ramayana. those last two are long as fuck, though.
