Guyome's log

[guyome]

I haven't updated this log in a long time but things are getting a bit out of hand right now and I don't have much time for languages.

Occitan
No Assimil done. I have started reading Vautres que m'avetz tuada (Y'all who killed me), a crime novel by Joan Ganhaire and have reached page 90 or so. So far, two doctors have been killed in a small city and a third murder has been committed.
Despite being written in the Limousin dialect (it uses the Classical spelling though), I find it very readable.

Yiddish
Still reading Tambur's Lebedike Meysim (Living dead), I should be able to finish it tomorrow. This will be the first Yiddish book I read cover to cover in a long time (maybe even years) and it feels good to do so. On a more concrete level, there is of course much to say for sticking with one author for 300 pages instead of reading short bits here and there, as I have done over the last few years. That's why I might go for another of Tambur's books after this one: Lebedike Meysim is interesting enough and pleasant to read, so I expect other works by the same author to be as good. I also have my eyes on various collections of short stories (Jewish life in Argentina; humorous short pieces; classical interwar literature from Poland;...), we'll see. Yiddish literature may seem limited in scope when compared to bigger, more modern ones, but it is so much more varied than Latin or Manchu that I sometimes have trouble choosing and focussing on one work.

[Maiwenn]

I don't know if you've come across this resource, but Audio Lingua has Occitan recordings organized by CEFR level: https://www.audio-lingua.eu/spip.php?rubrique10

I really enjoy reading your log! :) I'd love to study Yiddish one day.

[guyome]

Thank you, Maiwenn! I had no idea this existed and having listened to some of them it looks like a very useful resource.

I really enjoy reading your log! I'd love to study Yiddish one day.

Thank you for your kind words. I hope you'll find time for Yiddish some day but I guess Arabic is more than enough to keep you occupied at the moment Do you find learning both a dialect and MSA at the same time to be confusing or are they different enough?

[guyome]

Yiddish
I still haven't picked up a new book to read so the last few days were my usual mix of reading short things here and there, with the occasional talk in between.

Latin
Latin has been making a small comeback of sorts in my schedule. Mostly some Medieval miracle stories from Cesarius of Heisterbach's Dialogus Miraculorum.

Occitan
Almost nothing done with Assimil but I finished my crime novel (about 200 pages), so there's that...I had less time available for language learning lately and I guess it is becoming harder to push myself to work with a textbook when I can already enjoy native material (not with full understanding and perfect ease of course).

I got the lyrics from the comment section but I think there may be a couple of places where what's actually sung differs slightly. Sill, the lyrics seem close enough.

Cruèla si tu’m vòs aimar
Crual, if you want to love me

Perqué e’m deishas tan sospirar ?
Why do you let me sigh/yearn so much?

Espia’m dab doçor e compassion
Look at me with gentleness and compassion,

Espia la sofrença de ton aimador
Look at your lover's suffering.

Ça-vi lèu solatjar ma pena
Come here soon to ease my pain,

Brisar mas cadenas
To break my chains.

Mon còr qu’ei enclavat
My heart is locked,

Qu’ès tu qui l’a charmat
You're the one who enchanted it.

Los tons uèlhs semblan dus lugrans
Your eyes look like two stars,

Arren de mei beth com las toas mans
Nothing more beautiful than your hands,

Ni la lua ni lo só e suban jo
Neither the moon, nor the sun, and (in my opinion)

Non an ni l’un ni l’aute autant d’esplendor
Neither one has as much splendor.

Veds l’estela maitinèra
See(?) the morning star,

Cèrtas qu’ei tant bèra
It sure is beautiful

Mès n’a pas tant d’esclat
But it doesn't have as much brightness

Com tu as de beutat
As you have beauty.

Some Gascon characteristics: the ubiquitous particles (enunciative que, interrogative e); clitic pronouns (Perqué e’m, Espia’m); vowel before initial (in other dialects) r- (arren), possibly a Basque influence.

[guyome]

Latin
Mainly Latin this week, with plenty of reading done. One of the things I read was Pullus Nicolellus, a Latin translation of eight stories of Le Petit Nicolas published in 2012. I bought it on a whim after finding a used copy in a bookshop yesterday and finished it today (it is only 60 pages long). In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have done that since 1) I have plenty of Latin books already 2) the translation is not really good. There's something to be said for not Latin shaming the brave translators/authors who have the courage to produce something in what is by definition not their native tongue, but I think the fact that such a translation could have been published as such, when so many mistakes remained, is symptomatic of what can happen to a language once native speakers are gone: if there is not enough material or ways to immerse yourself in the language, it is very hard to develop even an intermediate active proficiency.
Still, despite all these hurdles, developing active Latin skills is possible. I mean, if something like the Carolingian Renaissance could take place in 8/9th c. Europe, it is probably not out of our reach to achieve something of the kind (mutatis mutandis, of course). It seems then that the low point reached by Latin writing skills today is more the result of a "don't care" attitude than of a lack of means. There seems a growing movement claiming back Latin as a "normal language", i. e. one that can and should be learned, written, and spoken just like any other language. Will it succeed in producing more people with a reasonable command of Latin?

All this reminds me that I must find time to work on my active Latin skills!

[guyome]

With lockdown ("confinement") now a reality, I do have a lot of time available but I'm not sure this will actually translate to much more done in terms of language learning. Time will tell.
A (very) minor inconvenience: a package containing Latin material I wanted to use to develop my active skills is now held up in the nearest post office and will probably remain there in the foreseeable future. I guess I could try and get it tomorrow but it really isn't worth it. I'll be lucky if this is the only inconvenience brought by this whole situation.

Latin
Read Cicero's Catiline orations between yesterday and today (around 80 pages). It's the first Latin book I ever bought but I had only read (with much difficulty) the first oration. Cicero's high self-esteem is everywhere to be seen, but it is a wonderful read nonetheless.
Started working through a composition textbook. The main goal is to make vocab and grammar I already passively know available for active use (it should also help making my reading quicker by solidifying knowledge which is still somewhat 'hazy'). I have my doubts whether it will be enough to do the trick but worst case scenario is I learn a few new words.

[indeclinable]

Will it succeed in producing more people with a reasonable command of Latin?

It already has, look up:

Michael von Albrecht's De simia Heidelbergensi or Scripta Latina.

Wilfried Stroh's University Lectures in Latin.

Luiggi Miraglia's valiant efforts to reform Latin teaching.

Terence Tunberg's Intitute and his De rationibus quibus homines docti artem Latine colloquendi et ex tempore dicendi saeculis XVI et XVII coluerunt

Milena Minkova's Florilegium recentioris Latinitatis.

Christophe Rico's equally valuable efforts in the same sense.

Patrick Owens' Lexicon.

Paolo Pezzuolo's https://scholahumanistica.com/welkome/

Justin Slocum Bailey's http://indwellinglanguage.com/

Roberto Cargafni's https://scholalatina.it/

Jorge Tarrega's https://collegiumlatinitatis.com/

Alexis Hellmer's https://studiumangelopolitanum.wordpress.com/

Giampiero Marchi's https://www.grecolatinovivo.it/

Martinus Loch's https://scholaaestivaposnaniensis.wordpress.com/

Jiří A. Čepelák's Circulus

There's the St. Theresa Catholic School in Sugar Land, Texas

You also have the Oxford Latinitas Project and the Schola Sorbona

At the end of this website you'll find a list of podcasts https://scholaeinterretiales.wordpress. ... elf-latin/

That's just at the top of my head... I'm sure there are many more. In fact it is not rare that I meet people with whom I only speak in Latin when I travel, not surprisingly most of them are former students (or students of students) of some of the gentlemen I've just mentioned; so you can safely say that it has taken firm hold. Luke has an excellent video about the Culture of Latin Speakers.

I know of at least three people that are teaching Latin to their babies as their first (and so far only) mother tongue, much like this guy.

Pd. I've linked the names of the people I mention to some conference or class they gave in Latin so that you may judge the level of command that's possible to archive.

[guyome]

Thanks for the list! I know most of these people already (I mean, not personally, just watching/listening to them for the last few years ) but there's a couple I didn't.

Many of them though (at least the big names like Albrecht, Minkova, Miraglia, Stroh, Tunberg, etc) are, as far as I know, not products of the living/active Latin movement, but rather initiators/proponents of it. That's why I said that it is unclear to me whether more competent users are showing up because of this "new" emphasis on living Latin (which has in fact been there for a long time but seems to have gathered speed recently). Sure, there are new faces and new content, which is great!, but it seems to me that it is too soon to tell if this is really growth or just the consequence of generational turnover and/or content being easier to produce than 10/20 years ago.

So, yeah...I firmly hope more and more will be done in (good) Latin in the near future. I'm subscribed to two Neo-Latin periodicals, I occasionally wrote in Latin here and there, I listen to the occasional podcast/video, so I'm all for it, but it seems to me that we are just at the very beginning. But I agree, things are looking good!

[guyome]

Day 3 of lockdown is drawing to a close. Can't complain about how things are going so far, my flat has a large balcony and I can enjoy the weather while spending my time reading.

Occitan
No formal learning done in a long time. I read a few articles at jornalet.com and that's all. I am maintaining what I have learned so far and that's enough for me at the moment. I know the urgeto do more will be back at some point.

Latin
Done a few exercises in my composition book. I have to find a way to use the vocab I am learning/refreshing. I thought I could write some simple stories but I feel that the result would look rather silly. Of course, this reaction is silly because what the result would look like should not matter.

Read today:
- Cicero's Somnium Scipionis
- Seneca's De Vita beata (On the Happy Life)
- Seneca's De Otio (On Leisure)
All of these are short works (sometimes fragmentary) so reading a few of these in one day is not an impressive feat.
The last one is fitting reading material given the overall situation here. Next in line could be his De Constantia sapientis (On the Firmness of the Wise Person) or his De Tranquillitate Animi (On tranquillity of mind), while I hope the De Brevitate vitae (On the shortness of life) will not be required reading.

Seneca is a higly quotable author (arena sine calce), it is what makes him both enjoyable and annoying. Here are a few lines that popped out during my reading in these times of contagion, self-isolation, and lockdown:

sanabimur, si modo separamur a coetu (BV I,4)
we should be cured of this if we were to disengage ourselves from the herd

qui se deteriorem facit, non sibi tantummodo nocet, sed etiam omnibus eis, quibus melior factus prodesse potuisset (O III,5)
Just as he who makes himself a worse man does harm not only to himself but to all those to whom he might have done good if he had made himself a better one

Sed iidem nihilominus non segnem egere vitam: invenerunt quemadmodum plus quies illorum hominibus prodesset quam aliorum discursus et sudor (O VI,5)
Yet for all that they did not live an idle life: they found the means of making their retirement more useful to mankind than the perspirings and runnings to and fro of other men

(translations taken from the corresponding Wikisource pages)

[guyome]

Latin
Quattuor abhinc diebus edicta est lex, qua omnibus Galliae incolentibus domi manendum est. Sol toto die illuxit, quo haec nobis nova condicio facilius tolerari potest.
Haec est causa cur multum hodie legi, praecipue librum primum Historiarum Taciti. Etsi multa, quae haud jucunda sunt, de civilibus bellis caedibusque narret, fit tamen liber lectu jucundissimus scriptoris arte. Tacitus enim est, omnium sententia, inter optimos Romanos scriptores collocandus.

Day 4 of confinement, another good day for Latin reading. I read a bit here and there but mainly it was the first book of Tacitus' Histories (around 50/60 pages). Another book I've had for years but never read.