A language learners’ forum

lichtrausch wrote:"The classics department at Princeton University recently decided that the idea that classics majors ought to know Latin or Greek has been a mistake. Old-fashioned, perhaps. Until now, undergrads who wanted to major in the study of classical texts needed to come into the concentration with at least an intermediate level of Latin or Greek. But those students will no longer even have to learn either language to receive a degree in classics."

What's next - maybe that doctors don't have to know medicin, or that astronomers don't have to know any mathematics?

Re: Princeton, here's a posting on the university's webpage.

https://paw.princeton.edu/article/curriculum-changed-add-flexibility-race-and-identity-track

In classics, two major changes were made. The “classics” track, which required an intermediate proficiency in Greek or Latin to enter the concentration, was eliminated, as was the requirement for students to take Greek or Latin. Students still are encouraged to take either language if it is relevant to their interests in the department. The breadth of offerings remains the same, said Josh Billings, director of undergraduate studies and professor of classics. The changes ultimately give students more opportunities to major in classics.

If you go down "What Readers are Saying," the alumni letters appear to be uniformly critical of the decision.

sirgregory wrote:Re: Princeton, here's a posting on the university's webpage.

https://paw.princeton.edu/article/curriculum-changed-add-flexibility-race-and-identity-track

In classics, two major changes were made. The “classics” track, which required an intermediate proficiency in Greek or Latin to enter the concentration, was eliminated, as was the requirement for students to take Greek or Latin. Students still are encouraged to take either language if it is relevant to their interests in the department. The breadth of offerings remains the same, said Josh Billings, director of undergraduate studies and professor of classics. The changes ultimately give students more opportunities to major in classics.

If you go down "What Readers are Saying," the alumni letters appear to be uniformly critical of the decision.

Well, if their interest is the department, then the languages are probably relevant...

US higher ed is such a joke.

Has anyone seen audio materials of New Latin? Thomas More, Descartes, Spinoza etc. Renaissance Latin or earlier could also be great — basically anything but Classical Latin.

(Why on Earth all learning materials are centered around the Roman Empire??? I know why but I just need to vent a little bit...)

einzelne wrote:Has anyone seen audio materials of New Latin? Thomas More, Descartes, Spinoza etc. Renaissance Latin or earlier could also be great — basically anything but Classical Latin.

LibriVox has a small number of recordings in Latin, mainly of some Christian texts (search results). A contributor by the name of Bedwere is well-regarded and on his page I see a 15th c. text listed.

Are you also looking for Latin audio beyond readings of texts? If so (and disregarding the myriad of podcasts & vlogs by Latin teachers) you can find videos of lectures by classicists/philologists such as Luigi Miraglia, Terence Tunberg and Wilfried Stroh.

Beosweyne wrote:Are you also looking for Latin audio beyond readings of texts?

My major interest is New Latin texts and I would love to have an opportunity to dive in straight into More, Descartes, or Hobbes.
The usual excuse from Classicists is that the Latin grammar is pretty much the same, so once you have a firm grasp of Classical Latin you're good to go with New or Medieval Latin.
But I value my time and have zero interest in learning the vocabulary of Roman life: ostium, atrium, impluvium, peristylum etc Ølberg is great but, given my reading interests, I doubt I will ever need them.

And speaking about inclusivity: for various reasons, New Latin texts are easier for Latin language learners. So instead of dropping language requirements and virtue signalling, Princeton University could rather produce annotated Latin readers of Renaissance and Modern texts. Sometimes, such fetishization of Classical Latin texts drives me nuts.

Beli Tsar wrote:JACT's Greek course, Reading Greek, also has a CD available, I think of most of the reading sections (?)

Unfortunately, they only recorded a tiny bit of the readings. I wish someone like Scorpio Martianus recorded the whole thing.

Also, it's of minor importance, but, since the actors are British, initially I couldn't help but thinking that I was listening to some Shakespeare with a weird accent:)

I don't think I've seen any recordings of Neo-Latin works floating around. You might find the occasional colloquium taken from Corderius and others. As mentioned above, bedwere has produced some amazing (and lenghty, too) recordings of non-Classical works but they're mostly Late Antiquity/Medieval (Augustine, Imitation of Christ,...).

Out of curiosity...


I have been debating taking on the... apparent migraine... that is Sumerian. This wouldn't be for a while. I think it would be fun, and because I have always been fascinated with their culture. Would any of you recommend sites or books on the language? I'm not period-specific with this one, at least not right now.

Blue Saka wrote:Out of curiosity...


I have been debating taking on the... apparent migraine... that is Sumerian. This wouldn't be for a while. I think it would be fun, and because I have always been fascinated with their culture. Would any of you recommend sites or books on the language? I'm not period-specific with this one, at least not right now.

I'm no expert, but from what I understand you'd probably have to learn Akkadian as well, as I believe there's overall much more literature and materials and cultural overlap and I think stuff in Sumerian is more fragmentary and not as well preserved. I know This website has audio recordings from academics and parallel texts, which is very helpful although they're fragmentary. Doesn't say which language for each but I guess they're in Sumerian and Akkadian, but I could be mistaken.

Just an overall caution, even the really popular classical languages that have more materials available, are still fairly limited in terms of selection and could use a lot more audio recordings and learning tools to make them more manageable. With something like Sumerian, you're going to have far fewer materials and also won't have many modern language options to leverage learning some core vocab. I don't want to discourage you from trying, and I'll probably try dabbling out of curiosity some day, but I'm not sure how feasible it is to get to comfortable reading level unless you're a scholar dedicating your whole life and work to it. (Again I could be wrong if there's more materials I don't realize, but just based on how tricky it can be to learn classical languages with much better materials, I wouldn't be too optimistic).