>no Latin thread What the hell. In the golden olden days there would be threads about Latin and Classics all the time up for days. I can't be the only one here who reads the only language that's literally patrician.

File: 140 KB, 869x867, Portrait_of_Terence_from_Vaticana,_Vat._lat.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 09:35:49 2014 No.5436959 [Reply] [Original]

>no Latin thread

What the hell. In the golden olden days there would be threads about Latin and Classics all the time up for days.

I can't be the only one here who reads the only language that's literally patrician.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 09:42:39 2014 No.5436972 Facit

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 09:43:33 2014 No.5436976 χαῖρε!

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 09:46:07 2014 No.5436986 >>5436976 Greekbros welcome too; I want to and will learn Greek eventually but I want to focus on Latin for a few more years first.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 09:48:09 2014 No.5436991 You mean literally plebeian? Patricians spoke Greek.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 09:49:00 2014 No.5436993 >>5436972 kek I had a kid in my high school latin class that didn't know what the fuck was going on, and every time he took a test or even just felt likeit, he would yell FACIT and then walk out of the room

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 09:50:24 2014 No.5436995 >>5436959 But, uh, what's the point of reading in Latin, assuming it's not part of your career? I honestly doubt there's anything out there that doesn't have a large bunch of good translations. The thread just comes across as needlessly snobbish.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 09:52:53 2014 No.5437000 >>5436995 Latin translates almost perfectly to English, too.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 09:53:50 2014 No.5437003 >>5437000 >Latin translates almost perfectly to English, too. le epic troll xD

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 09:55:42 2014 No.5437007 >>5436995 >reading translations

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 09:56:54 2014 No.5437015

>>5436995
>But, uh, what's the point of reading in Latin

Let's see:
>not so difficult language
>good intro into romanic languages
>good intro into languages in general (learning latin grammar will clarify your idea of grammar forever)
>good intro into modern law and statemanship
>actually fun to translate (as in, interesting but not too difficult, unlike Greek)
>reading works in the original, comparing them to translations is always interesting and leads to a greater understanding of both latin and your native language
>translation is basically very close and interactive reading, it's one of the best way to understand a text
>can be achieved by spending half an hour a day for a handful of years

The question would rather be: what's the point of not reading Latin ?

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 09:57:26 2014 No.5437017 >>5436959 > I can't be the only one here who reads the only language that's literally patrician. Latin is like babbymode patrician language. If you really wished to transcend your low social class, you would learn Sanskrit.

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 10:00:10 2014 No.5437028

>>5437015
because latin feels like you're deciphering a code, which is cool in its own right, but it lacks the things that I like most about reading, and that's interesting prose, tone, etc.

When you read Kafka in german, you can tell it's fucking Kafka. But when you read Aurelius, I don't know, not so much.

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 10:02:01 2014 No.5437036

>>5437015

I respect your opinon, but it's a very personal argument.
I studied Latin very briefly in high school and didn't end up enjoying it.
And, to be honest, I find the structural formalities of ancient writers rather boring.
I already speak two romantic languages and habitually translate what I read in my head, just to be sure I got the nuance right.
I'm not saying you're wrong, mind you, but all that doesn't really apply to me.

Also: the law and statesmanship bit, while interesting, doesn't really appeal to me enough.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 10:06:01 2014 No.5437050 >>5437017 >not knowing aramaic laughing_neo-assyrian_clerics.jpg

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 10:10:26 2014 No.5437060 >>5437017 the problem is there is basically nothing worth reading that is written in Sandshit as opposed to over 1500 years of grade A+ literature, science and philosophy

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 10:12:56 2014 No.5437070

>>5437028
>>5437036
>I respect your opinon

Why would you respect that bullshit opinion? Why tiptoe around blatant falsehoods?

>not so difficult language
Apart from being vague to the point of being completely vacuous, it's also factually wrong.

Whatever measure of difficulty you want to apply to language-learning, Latin will not fare particularly well. Add to that the fact that learning a language is easiest (several orders of magnitude easier than any alternative) by actually speaking it, which is almost impossible for Latin.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 10:15:58 2014 No.5437079 >>5437070 I tiptoed around it because I didn't want to get beasted on by people with better knowledge of latin than me>>5437028

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 10:15:59 2014 No.5437080

>>5437070

Because it's an opinion. A subjective conclusion of personal habits, feelings and tendencies.
You can't prove he doesn't find Latin easy. Or fun.
I'm fairly certain he's right about it helping learn Romance languages, for obvious reasons.
It's not 'blatant bullshit'.
I did, after all, disagree with him on most things. That doesn't mean I have to be a confrontational ass, seeing as he wasn't one.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 10:17:24 2014 No.5437082 >>5437060 > There is nothing worth written in Sanskrit Most of important Indian/South Asian Literature, science and philosophy for 4000 years?

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 10:17:53 2014 No.5437083 >>5437082 Shhh, it's eurocentrism. Just let it happen.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 10:22:20 2014 No.5437095 >>5437050 >not knowing aramaic is THE pleb language laughing_ensi.stele

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 10:27:37 2014 No.5437111

>>5437080
>You can't prove he doesn't find Latin easy.
And that's not what he said, either. If he said
>Latin's not such a difficult language FOR ME
I wouldn't have said anything.

And just to show you that there are objectively easier and harder things in language-learning, please read up on the Korean alphabet (Hangul) as opposed to the Chinese script.

One you can learn in two days, the other one you can learn a lifetime and still be stomped when somebody asks you to write down basic vocabulary. Yes, non-phonetic pictographic writing systems are idiotically difficult.

Yet, you will hear people learning Chinese (or Kanji) say things like
>Well, it isn't really that difficult, you just need to find the beauty in it
>After some time you'll recognize certain similarities and that really helps
etc. and bla bla fucking bla.

Here's the thing: these people learn Chinese, therefore they want to find ways to make it seem pallatable to them. It's called rationalization and everyone does it.

However, if they start writing their rationalizations in public forums ("Chinese script isn't really that difficutl") as if they're legitimate opinions, one has to speak up against them.

Chinese script is brutally difficult and anybody who says differently is a fucking self-deluded idiot trying to prove to the world that he isn't wasting his time learning that shit.

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 10:31:31 2014 No.5437123

>>5437111

It is exceedingly rare for anyone to say exactly what they mean. When someone says something along the lines of "This is easy, look I did it in X days" they're relating to you their experience. Which is subjective.
Unless someone actually makes the claim "X is easier than Y" and provides a proof of some sort, it is an opinion.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 11:04:32 2014 No.5437205 >>5437111 epik

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 11:08:10 2014 No.5437221 I want to read church latin, how does it differ from classical

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 11:10:45 2014 No.5437230

I had latin for a couple of years in high school, and while I'm not even close to reading it I can confirm that it does help a lot with reading other languages.
There's a lot of shit in both my mother language and english that I go "oh right that means x in latin"
I figure knowing both latin and greek would help you grasp a LOT of vocabulary

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 11:11:29 2014 No.5437233 >>5437221 It's much more boring and repetitive, otherwise I don't think there are many differences >>5437070 nigga, I've only been studying Latin a year and I can enjoy reading things like Ovid and Pliny. You must not be reading anything interesting.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 11:12:44 2014 No.5437236 >>5437082 and? >implying any Indian Literature,science or philosophy is worth reading

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 11:13:54 2014 No.5437240

>>5437111
The similarities in Chinese thing is true though. Not to disagree with anything else in your post (Hangul is easy compared to Cyrillic even) but learning to stop some similarities and a few basic ideograms made me understand more Chinese than I could Russian in the same time. That more complex ideograms come once basic arrangements are used up can point to what a word is not and when it became necessary also relates to the same idea.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 11:15:05 2014 No.5437242 http://www.learnlangs.com/biblelatin/

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 11:24:17 2014 No.5437268
File: 2.87 MB, 320x240, 1410043620578.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>5437242
>four lessons in before learning any declensions
>starting with second declension
>basically no mention of grammar
>no mention of learning declensions and conjugations by heart

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 11:25:24 2014 No.5437272

>>5437028
>because latin feels like you're deciphering a code

Frankly, there's a bit of that, but if you don't get the beauty of Ovid while translating his take on Orpheus' mythos, it just means that Latin litrature is lost on you.

Of course you need a bit of practice before being able to decently translate Ovid, when you start learning latin translating is little more than applying the same algorithm.

>I studied Latin very briefly in high school and didn't end up enjoying it.

It's often boring at first. I disliked it in midschool but liked it in highschool.

>I'm not saying you're wrong, mind you, but all that doesn't really apply to me.

It depends what you are into, but anybody into languages should give it a try (and you did, from what I gather). Now of course some won't like to learn a language that is not spoken anymore. That's the biggest con I can think of.

>Also: the law and statesmanship bit, while interesting, doesn't really appeal to me enough.

I understand that, that one was merely a bonus.

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 11:25:33 2014 No.5437274
File: 92 KB, 500x373, Aeneasmyman.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

English speakers have the worst accent when trying to speak latin, not to mention they already butcher it in english:

>see-sawr
>see-suh-row

Also,
>not using classical pronounciation

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 11:29:32 2014 No.5437291 >>5437274 >using classical pronounciation >not appreciating the tradition of church and academic latin seriously though, when you mention "kikero" and "kaysar" to people they'll just go "huh?", defeats the point of language

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 11:41:37 2014 No.5437337 >>5437274 >classical latin >using a thrown-together version of "roman" latin that's probably incorrect anyway >not using the clear and coherent ecclesiastical latin

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 11:46:56 2014 No.5437355 >>5437017 Is this an ebin new meme, you've been shilling Sanshit all week. Although the script is pretty, it hasn't the rich library of texts that true patrician languages like Greek and Latin have >muh vedas >muh gurus

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 11:48:41 2014 No.5437362

>>5437070
I understand your need to be a prick on 4chan, but perhaps you should have taken the time to address more than one point out of eight ?

You didn't address that one very efficiently either. You called me vague and answered with more vagueness. Latin will be easier for English speakers (and most European languages natives) than almost any other except languages derived from English, romances languages and perhaps German (and I'm not even sure about that one). The only thing remotely difficult about it is learning declensions. And that just a matter of memory and a bit of practice (and that practice is of the kind that is useful in most languages, hence some of my earlier points).

You're right about speaking making things easier. It isn't as relevant when it comes to reading authors in the original, which was the issue being discussed. The effort you have to make to seriously learn a language (as opposed to be able to handle casual conversatins about not too specific topics) is not much different than the effort you have to make to learn Latin: learning grammar and regular close reading.
I honestly can't see how you can be so offended over my post, unless you've been raped by some Latin teacher in your youth, in which case I'm sorry. If that's the last bit "what's the reason not to learn Latin" I was just being playful.
>>5437221
It's slighlty closer to modern romance languages and to English. Main difference is that it relies less on declension and more on prepositions than classical Latin to build a sentence, which makes word order more rigid. So it's probably easier to learn (but not necessarily the best way to get into Latin grammar).

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 11:50:36 2014 No.5437366 >>5436959 Currently studying it myself. The only second language I will ever study.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 11:50:53 2014 No.5437367 how to learn latin on my own?

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 11:51:31 2014 No.5437373

>>5437362
Are there any textbooks specifically made for ecclesiastical latin? It all seems geared towards reading Romans. I figure I'd be more motivated to learn while reading scholastic philosophers, the Vulgata and things like canon law, I find that stuff pretty fascinating

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 11:57:44 2014 No.5437400 >>5437367 books

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 12:10:15 2014 No.5437430

>>5437373
>Are there any textbooks specifically made for ecclesiastical latin? It all seems geared towards reading Romans.

I don't know, but ecclesiastical latin will probably be easier after learning roman latin.

My bet would be: learn Lating grammar. You'll need that one for both ecclesiastical and roman.
Learn some vocabulary (that obviously is a step you can't skip). Get a dictionary, as those are always useful (I don't know which is the reference Latin dictinary in English, probably the Oxford one).
Once you have a firm hand on your declensions and conjugaisons, start with the Vulgate Bible. It shouldn't be very hard (particularly if you know French, Spanish or Italian, in which case you'll be able to translate some sentence almost at reading speed).

Always have your dictionary by yourself. Try to translate into your native language at first, will compel you to be more conscious of the actual specificities of the language.

Once the Bible starts to feel really easy to you (say after 2000-3000 words) you can give a try to scholastic philosophy. Beware, as some texts can be obscure even in translation.

Thus you build your way up from the Bible, adjusting your reading on basis of how fluently you can read them.

That's how I would do it anyway.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 12:20:11 2014 No.5437453 >>5437221 Learn classical. You will still understand easily church latin, which wouldn't work other way around.

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 12:48:16 2014 No.5437531

Latin is very easy to learn with a grammar + translation approach. Try Wheelock or Shelmerdine or JACT (maybe, not sure on this one), simply work through all levels of it, and then start translating Caesar with a dictionary and more advanced grammar book.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 13:14:35 2014 No.5437596 File: 11 KB, 231x250, 1409872674502s.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5437291 >>5437337 Look at these 2 pleb barbarians. Go back to Germania.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 13:17:57 2014 No.5437603 >>5436959 >Latin >Patrician That's why the Romans pretended to be Greeks right?

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 13:25:03 2014 No.5437627 >>5437596 we all know ur a visigoth

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 13:25:19 2014 No.5437630 >>5437291 > when you mention "kikero" and "kaysar" to people they'll just go "huh?" Oh so you live in the US? Here in the civilized world things are different, you should try sometime ;^)

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 13:25:54 2014 No.5437631 >>5437291 when you mention "cheyar" and "checero" to people they'll just go "huh?

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 13:48:22 2014 No.5437710 Maybe we should have /lit/ latin courses like /jp/ and /int/ do for other languages

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 13:56:57 2014 No.5437734 >>5437710 It has been tried several times.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 14:28:40 2014 No.5437825 File: 217 KB, 731x520, shotsfired.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] Agree, /lit/?

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 16:20:20 2014 No.5438315

>>5437028

>because latin feels like you're deciphering a code, which is cool in its own right, but it lacks the things that I like most about reading

If you learn Latin properly this is not the case; I read Latin poetry in its original word order just like English poetry. Most teachers don't know how to teach that though.

>>5437221

Modern Church Latin is just classical Latin with ecclesiastical vocabulary; same for ancient church latin (Tertullian and Augustine and whatnot); medieval Chuch Latin is often pretty much Classical, sometimes divergent towards romance languages (i.e. Jerome's bible uses ad + accusative instead of dative often; even though Jerome knew well enough what the proper grammar was but he did this to make it more understandable).

Basically to learn ecclesiastical Latin you learn classical Latin

>>5437367

Orberg

I don't understand this big debate over whether Latin is "useful". Not everything has to be useful. You could make the same argument about reading English literature. Some people are very interested in the thought and literature of the ancient mediterranean and those people learn Latin and Greek.

>>5437017
>Latin is like babbymode patrician language.

Quidnam dixisti modo mihi, cinaedule? Ego te certiorem faciam me exiisse e Phocis Classiariis optimum meae ordinis et in frequentibus incurisonibus occultis contra Al-Qaeda expertum esse, et plus quam trecentas caedes probatas habere. In bello latrocinii educatus sum et ego sum optimus ictor in totis FC viribus armatis. Nil mihi es praeterquam aliud destinatum. Ego te, scelus, conteram adamussim ut numquam usquam visum est in orbe terrarum, annota mea, malum, verba. Arbitrarisne te posse illas contumelias dicere impune per interrete? Iterum arbitrare, nequam. Etiam cum colloquimur advoco meum secretum rete curiosorum per totas FCA et tuum IP excipitur, iamiamque ita potius est te parari procellae, vermis. Procella quae omnino perdat illud miserandulum quod tu tuam vitam nominas. Per deos immortales tu es mortuus, puercule. Ubivis, quandoque esse ego possum et novi te trucidare pluribus quam septingentis modis - et illis meis manibus solis. Non solum sum educatus plurifariam in proeliis inermis sed usu ego fruor toti armentarii Foederatarum Civitatum Marini Corporis et eo utar effuse ut detergam tuum miserum os de facie telluris, caenulum. Si novisses defamatam ultionem quam "callidum" tuum dictum inlaturum fuisse fortasse retinuisses tuam linguam. Sed non poteras, non fecisti, et nunc poenas solvis, fatue miselle. Ego furiam cacabo super te totum et tu in illa merges. Per deos immortales tu es mortuus, puercule.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 16:23:50 2014 No.5438334 >>5437028 >Aurelius Aurelius wrote in Greek

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 16:27:08 2014 No.5438347 >I can't be the only one here who reads the only language that's literally patrician. Actually OP assuming you don't know Greek as well that makes you just a pleb.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 16:32:27 2014 No.5438370 >>5438315 ⇒In bello latrocinii educatus sum Don't you mean "bello gorillari"?

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 17:07:52 2014 No.5438501 >>5438370 Nah I did mean latrocinio and not ii though; I forget where I read the phrase (Sallust?) but some auctor uses "bellum latrocinium" like "guerrilla war" somewhere.

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 17:17:26 2014 No.5438552

>>5437825
Agree with first paragraph.

What follows is debatable. The whole "naturalness" argument often sounds shallow to me, and this excerpt is no exception. Tacitus for instance didn't wrote in an "authentic" or "unrestricted" way, but his economy is remarkable and makes his works all the more striking, without falling into verbosity or pretentiousness.

Of course you can argue that Tacitus fits into the "very best" described as escaping the flaws of the majority, but that would be making the whole point a bit moot (more precisely it would make the whole thing amount to "good writers are good but most writers are bad").

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 17:18:55 2014 No.5438559 >>5438501 Why would you do that? Why would you take away the only joke making that stupid copypasta worth reading?

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 17:24:06 2014 No.5438590 How different was Old Latin from Classical? Could people from the late republic and empire understand it? Did Gaius Marius and Sulla speak Old or Classical?

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 17:42:51 2014 No.5438683

>>5438590

Depends on how old. Gaius Marius and Sulla would have both spoken Classical Latin. There's older Classical Latin, like a few decades before them, and it has some peculiarities but is not that different (passive present inifinitive in -ier; more future imperatives; "quom" for "cum"; 2nd declension endings in -os and -om; etc.)

There isn't any old Latin literature just inscriptions so it doesn't matter that much to someone interested in Classics but yeah depends how old the Latin is.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 18:45:24 2014 No.5439042 >>5437603 Woah look out, we clearly have an expert on history here.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 18:50:46 2014 No.5439073 >>5437036 >I studied Latin very briefly in high school and didn't end up enjoying it. lol is there a more personal argument than this?

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 18:54:37 2014 No.5439096 >>5436959 I can read Latin, and I love it, but I have never studied Greek. Should I, /lit/? Is it worth my time?

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 19:09:02 2014 No.5439159 >>5437291 0/10

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 19:11:27 2014 No.5439164

>>5439096
f you love Latin, probably.
Keep in mind that Greek is a much more unsettling language with plenty of exceptions and peculiar forms while Latin is mostly regular. So don't do it unless you're ready to dedicate a significant amount of time to it.

In the words of my highschool Latin teacher:
"Translating Latin doesn't change much after the 20th text, but every new Greek translation brings me a new difficulty".

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 19:21:20 2014 No.5439217

>>5439096
Are you a student? Greek will be a much more pleasant learning experience if you take it in college. I suppose you could learn it on your own with the Hansen & Quinn book or something of the sort, but you'd lose a lot of the experience that way. This is coming from someone who essentially taught himself Latin and didn't appreciate the language till I took a real course in it.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 19:26:48 2014 No.5439236 Latin was Patrician. English is Patrician. Catch up with the times, we're in the Anglo Epoch now.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 19:31:05 2014 No.5439265 >>5439236 Since when has English literature been good?

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 19:32:11 2014 No.5439266 >>5439265 Please, when has Latin literature been good?

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 19:33:26 2014 No.5439272 >>5439236 >Catch up with the times, we're in the Anglo Epoch now. That's pretty much the reason why English is the ple language now.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 19:34:25 2014 No.5439276 >>5439236 >on þissum geare MMXiv >ne leornen Ænglisc Fuck all you foreign scum ruining the mother tongue.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 19:37:13 2014 No.5439282 >>5439266 Have you actually read any, kid?

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 19:38:05 2014 No.5439286 Learning Latin now, about twelve chapters into Wheelock's. Can anyone recommend some easy jumping off points into Latin literature? I've heard Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic Wars are good for beginners, but what else?

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 19:42:01 2014 No.5439301 >>5439282 >Divine Comedy >good

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 19:47:13 2014 No.5439318

>>5439286
Wheelock doesn't introduce many of the most fundamental components of Latin writing until the second half of the book; i.e. participles and subjunctives. Once you learn these you'll be able to get through some full things.

In the meantime, you might want to check these out: http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/101/index.html (scroll down to where it says "Latin Readings"

>>5439301
>Divine Comedy
>Latin

lol

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 19:55:37 2014 No.5439348 >>5439282 >>5439318 >falling for such obvious bait

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 20:13:44 2014 No.5439438

>>5437082
i took a class on indian philosophy in college. it's shit. it makes the ancient greeks look reasoned and non-dogmatic. and pre-20c india had no real science. it holds some philological interest, but the literary, let alone intellectual, merit of any of it is really slight.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 20:16:07 2014 No.5439453 >>5437221 >>5437453 this. church latin is basically easymode romancized latin, with a lot less that most people would find worth reading.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 20:19:16 2014 No.5439477 I don't wear my glasses when I read so i can't see the accents in Greek. I am having trouble learning the accents.

Anonymous Mon Sep 15 20:39:13 2014 No.5439609

>>5437825
no. oratio obliqua is easy to understand, and it's a very natural construction. it just doesn't exist in english or modern romance languages, so the writer projects his own preferences back in time. some latin verse would actually be difficult for latin speakers, but only as much as shakespeare might be difficult for an english speaker.
what he's saying about the lack of substance is simply untrue. virgil, ovid, catullus, juvenal, etc. all have very clear moral perspectives (which your writer apparently just doesn't like). if anything, they're too preachy.
as for the borrowing of subject matter, this has to be put into context. the native, pre-hellenized roman religions is fairly poor in stories--mostly it's focused on annual celebrations and a cyclical conception of time. and the main narrative mythology that exists, the legendary history of rome, is highly political--way too easy to say something that could be taken the wrong way. in that light, it makes sense that so many roman authors would use greek legends as source material.
this guy has an axe to grind.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 20:41:03 2014 No.5439620 >>5436959 >the only language that's literally patrician The educated Romans were required to learn Greek

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 20:55:42 2014 No.5439681 >>5439620 The educated of today (globally) are required to learn English. That's patrician.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 21:01:22 2014 No.5439711 >>5439164 >>5439217 I find the difficulty of greek overstated; the morphology is difficult but the grammar is not.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 21:03:25 2014 No.5439722 Anyone hear read Catullus in the original? Are you single?

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 21:03:27 2014 No.5439723 >>5439276 >>5439276 Muh nigga. Wes hael min cyning.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 21:04:04 2014 No.5439728 >>5439620 It's still the only language that's literally patrician.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 21:04:27 2014 No.5439730 >>5439722 yes and yes.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 21:04:29 2014 No.5439731 >>5439722 fuck I meant "here". Please don't shun me patricians

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 21:05:06 2014 No.5439736 >>5439722 Yes

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 21:11:58 2014 No.5439758 >>5439730 >>5439736 That's pretty cool

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 21:20:50 2014 No.5439804 >>5439620 I don't think they were't required to, it was a social status thing. Anyway, the Romans regarded themselves more patrician and superior than anybody else, no matter how much they admired Greek culture.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 21:30:49 2014 No.5439850 >>5439042 >being this mad you were tricking into thinking a knock-off culture was tops

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 15 21:54:58 2014 No.5439963 >>5439318 Thanks a lot.

Advanced search
Text to find
Subject [?]Search by post subject. Leave empty for any.
Username [?]Search for user name. Leave empty for any user name.
Tripcode [?]Search for tripcode. Leave empty for any.
Email [?]Search by email. Leave empty for any.
Filename [?]Search by image filename. Leave empty for any.
From Date [?]Enter what date to start searching from. Format is YYYY-MM-DD
To Date [?]Enter what date to start searching until. Format is YYYY-MM-DD
Image hash
Search in	All Posts OPs Only
Deleted posts	Show all posts Show only deleted posts Only show non-deleted posts
Internal posts	Show all posts Show only internal posts Show only archived posts
Order	New posts first Old posts first
Capcode	All Posts Only by Users Only by Mods Only by Admins Only by Developers
Results	Posts Threads
Action	[ Simple ]

/lit/ - Literature