I feel another campaign coming on !
Well played sir ! Take 10 man points !
Best
Rod

The king has decreed that all Grimbarians should be versed in the Lingua Latina

10 Oct. 5 Edw. VI. [1550], in favour of the Corporation, for a schoolmaster
to teach grammar and the Latin tongue at Grimsby.

A deed in the town’s repository.

N le

Donald.

regards
chris

Nowhere near there, Chris, about 800 km away, I’m in the “South- East” of South Australia. Where a Scotsman sees his first kilt. Google : Robe, Beachport, Rivoli Bay, Mt Gambier. ( St Andrew’s Day has dawned here, too.

A blessing really, or else ‘we’ might have expected a visit from the Irish criminal Ned Kelly around 1880
when he was relieving the Jerilderie bank of its savings.

Cheers,

Donald.

As I mentioned in the OP I think some idea of Latin and the influence it has had on language in general is a useful tool - one in fact whose usefulness can only be gauged once one is aware of it - perhaps a catch-22 !

Personally think it is a most graceful and elegant language.
Bingo - likewise Neville which is why I wish it was part of my schooling - a good grounding - nothing impressive is ever built on poor foundations !

iure divino
Rod

Lots of branches of human knowledge need Latin or at least some other universally agreed language and and as Latin is essentially ‘dead’ as a language of locus, there is no political bias to it. Medicine uses it all the time, as does chemistry, physics, botany, biology, geology, palaeontology et cetera, et cetera Doctors discuss your superior vena cava rather than having to say “the short fat vein that carries deoxygenated blood from the upper part of your body back into the right side of your heart.” Folk taxonomy just wouldn’t do, particularly when used in an international context, for instance if you said Oooh look, there’s a robin!” to an American, they would expect to see an entirely different bird, (Turdus migratorius), to that expected by an English person, (Erithacus rubecula). Of course there is always time for the name ‘robin’ in casual conversation or where it is accepted that all are on the same wavelength.

Then there are the aesthetics. Personally think it is a most graceful and elegant language. I am no Latin scholar but appreciate it and have been learning it, particularly for the purpose of translating historical documents, since the sixties.
Although I am an atheist I can appreciate the incantations of the Catholic church and keep among my music collection such works as The Te Deum; Ave Maria; Ave Verum; Adeste Fidelis etc.

Latin is not dead anyway. It is at the root of perhaps half of our English words and is still used in its pure form in words such as stadium; agenda; radius; omnibus; via; and so on.

I’d better stop ranting now but I feel quite strongly about this. I’m sure Rod expected a contribution on this thread from me in light of our recent investigations

Verba volant, littera scripta manet.

Vale,
N le

Language has ever evolved, arguably modern quality literary prose, when taken in general, is better now than it was100+ years ago.

A very interesting subject I think

Cave Canem
Rod