Latin Archives - Page 3 of 3 - Tales of Times Forgotten

Common English Words You Probably Didn’t Know Came From Ancient Greek

There is a popular perception that words derived from Greek are long, exotic-sounding, and mostly only used in discussion of science and philosophy. It’s true that there are a lot of Greek words that fit this description. For instance, very few people would use words like otorhinolaryngology, homoousian, ataraxia, or peripeteia in casual conversation.

There are, however, a lot of really simple Greek words that people use nearly every day. Some of these words don’t sound Greek at all because they have passed through so many languages that they no longer bear any of the distinctive sounds or spellings that we normally associate with Greek words, but they are still of Greek origin.

Sean Hannity Does Not Know Latin

Apparently, Sean Hannity, the conservative host of the political commentary show Hannity on Fox News, has a new book. The title is Live Free Or Die: America (and the World) on the Brink. The book is currently set to be released by the conservative publishing imprint Threshold Editions on 4 August 2020. Judging from the description on Amazon, the book is going to be yet another banal diatribe attacking liberals as evil and praising President Donald Trump as the savior of American freedom.

Some people have noticed, though, that there is a Latin motto that appears on the front cover. It reads: “Vivamus vel libero perit Americae.” Ordinarily, this wouldn’t warrant any attention. After all, Sean Hannity—an older conservative white man who thinks he knows a lot more than he really does—is exactly the sort of person you would expect to have a Latin motto. There is a slight problem with this particular motto, though; it’s complete and utter gobbledygook. It is clear that whoever came up with this motto does not even know the basic noun cases in Latin or how they work.

No, “Secretary” Does Not Mean “Secret-Keeper”

There is a popular claim that has been circulating for a long time claiming that the word secretary comes from Latin meaning “keeper of secrets.” This idea stems from a misunderstanding of the meaning of the Latin word secretum, which is the source of our English word secret but usually has a slightly different meaning in Latin.

Here Are Some of the Most Ancient Christmas Carols

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is singing carols with my family. Nowadays, we tend to think of many of our carols as being extremely old and traditional. After all, as I discuss in this article I wrote about the history of Santa Claus, even the song “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”—arguably one of the least traditional Christmas songs—is over seventy years old. Nonetheless, most of the songs we know today are actually relatively young compared to some of the other songs that have been sung historically. Few of the songs we know today were composed before the nineteenth century.

Here I have collected a few of my favorite extremely old Christmas songs, some of which date all the way back to the Middle Ages. I have gathered songs from places as diverse as the Byzantine Empire, late medieval Spain, Renaissance Finland and Sweden, and Early Modern England. All of these songs were composed before the nineteenth century and nearly all of them were originally composed in languages other than English. Enjoy!

Good and Bad Reasons to Learn Latin

You often hear people talk about the “practical benefits” of learning Latin, such as being able to understand legal, medical, and scientific terminology, expanding your vocabulary, and gaining a better understanding of English grammar. These certainly are real benefits to learning Latin, but, to be honest, at least on their own, they aren’t really very good reasons to learn the whole language, for reasons I will explain in a moment.

There are plenty of apologists for Latin out there who often try to justify learning Latin by listing these supposed “practical benefits” to learning Latin that apply to most people. The problem is that, if these benefits are the only reasons you are studying Latin, and you have no real interest in the Latin language or in reading Latin literature, then learning a whole new language may not really be worth it. There are, however, still very good reasons for learning Latin; they just don’t necessarily apply to everyone.

Famous Classical Authors Who Were Probably Not What We Would Consider “White”

Classical studies has long been perceived as the study of “dead white men.” This is a reputation that has certainly greatly injured classical studies as a discipline in recent years. I remember reading a rather disturbing answer on Quora a while ago written by a history professor in which he argued that, since we are now living in a modern, racially diverse world and classical studies is nothing more than the study of dead white people, universities should stop teaching the classics and, instead of hiring classics professors, only hire professors to teach subjects dealing with non-white history, like East Asian history or Latin American history.

One thing that many people do not realize, however, is that the ancient Mediterranean world was actually much more racially diverse than it is often portrayed. In fact, a very large number of the most revered classical authors were probably not what we would call “white.” Many of them came from lands all across the Middle East and North Africa, including the lands that are now the countries of Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria.

How to Revive a Dead Language

I am frequently asked the question of whether or not it would be possible to revive a dead ancient language in the modern world. Many people I have talked to seem to find the idea of bringing back ancient languages fascinating, even though most people interested in this subject do not speak any ancient languages themselves.

The answer to this question is that it is certainly possible to bring an ancient language back to life, but it is extremely difficult and it can only be done if all conditions are just perfect. As far as I am currently aware, only one ancient language that was completely dead has ever been successfully brought back as a living vernacular and that was in one very particular, unique case. The vast majority of attempts to revive dead ancient languages have not been successful.

Believe It or Not, the Romans Spoke Latin

We all know that the ancient Romans spoke Latin. If you know one thing about the Romans, it’s that they spoke Latin. As it turns out, that is actually correct. The ancient Romans really did speak Latin. (I know; it’s baffling that something ordinary people believe is actually correct, isn’t it? The very notion seems so foreign.)

Nonetheless, there is a fairly widespread misconception that the upper classes in ancient Rome normally spoke in Greek, not Latin. This misconception has, ironically, been primarily promoted by debunkers of popular misconceptions. This notion that upper-class Romans normally spoke in Greek does, in fact, have a tiny bit of truth to it, but it is largely inaccurate.

Google Translate Cannot Handle Dead Languages

Google Translate is notoriously bad at translating even when it comes to living languages. You can find plenty of memes and articles online about its comical ineptitude at translating from, say, English to German or Spanish to English. Believe it or not, though, Google Translate is even worse at translating when it comes to dead languages. Google Translate is completely, utterly, thoroughly inept when it comes to translating things written in Latin and Ancient Greek.

Caesar’s Real Last Words

On 15 March 44 BC, an event happened that changed history forever: a group of over thirty conspirators led by Gaius Cassius Longinus, Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger, and Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus assassinated the Roman politician and general Gaius Julius Caesar in the Theater of Pompey. It is an assassination that has gone down as one of the most famous in history. The assassination of Julius Caesar has been the subject of countless plays, books, films, television shows, and even video games.

Partially reinforced by these takes on Caesar’s assassination in popular culture, many people mistakenly believe that Julius Caesar’s last words were, “Et tu, Brute?” which means, “And you, Brutus?” in Latin—allegedly an expression of shock and horror at Marcus Junius Brutus’s betrayal. In reality, however, the historical Julius Caesar never uttered these words; no one knows what Caesar’s real last words were, but ancient writers attribute a number of different phrases to him in the moments leading up to his death.