Learn Latin on your next trip to Rome!

[Lepidina]

I *knew* slogging through 5 years of Latin in school would pay off some day...<br>
<br>
Rome Aims to Take Tourists Back in Time with Latin<br>
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story.news.yahoo.com/news...y_latin_dc<br>
<br>
deb <p></p><i></i>

[richsc]

I'm all for it, but did you catch the article on Latin in the Wall Street Journal of 5/19? <p></p><i></i>

[Musivarius]

Does sound like it may give a bit more interest for the tourists and I suppose with a lot of these things however tacky they may end up if they encourage people to look a little further into Romes sights and history it can only be a good thing.<br>
Musivarius <p></p><i></i>

[Lepidina]

Rich,<br>
<br>
Didn't catch the article. Could you post the link here? Aramaic has made a comeback thanks to the Passion movie. I figure Latin would too sooner or later. Should we tell the masses that the Trojians spoke Greek?<br>
<br>
Deb <p></p><i></i>

[Dan Diffendale]

or Hittite, maybe. <p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

Silly me, I thought it was enough that the Greeks spoke Greek... <p></p><i></i>

[Lepidina]

Well the Trojans had to speak some Greek after battling them for 10+ years. Wasn't Greek the language that all "civilized" people spoke anyway?<br>
<br>
Troy's technically in Turkey right? Would they have spoken an early form of Turkish or did that come later with the Muslim invasions?<br>
<br>
deb <p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp The release of the TROY film has archaeologists, historians, and classicists fulminating on the faults of the film. The lastest Archaeology mgagzine has a set of articles on sidebars on current digs and linguistic analysis. Current focus is on Hittite records of an Indo-European people who settled western and southern Anatolia, whom we call Luwians and their dialect Luwiyan, who had continuing conflicts with a seafaring peoples, the Ahhiyawa, in a region called Wilusa. Archaic Greek philology projects Bronze Age /w/ sounds that later disappear by Homeric times, and these become Illios from Willios, and Achaioi from Achaiwoi.<br>
&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Classical Greek as "civilized" was really an outgrowth of Alexander's Hellenic empire. Modern Turkish had its own distict origins; its relation to ancient Hittite is another can of worms entirely.<br>
&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Homer has Trojans speaking Greek, just as TROY has Greeks and Trojans speaking English (though there are some interesting background chatter as the Greeks land on the beach, with orders being relayed in both ancient and modern Greek dialects).<br>
<br>
Wade Heaton<br>
[email protected] <br>
www.togaman.com <p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

Yeah, that seems in line with my understanding as well. The Trojans likely spoke something Indo-European, but almost certainly not Greek (or really the "proto-Greek," as it were, that the Achaeans, Myceneans, whatever, would have spoken.) I am a little unclear why Turkish and its relationship w/ Hittite would be a can of worms. As I understand it, Hittite is clearly an Indo-European language and Turkish clearly is not. I've always understood that Turkish is a relatively recent import from central Asia, related closely to several languages in the regions known today as Turkestan (former USSR) and Sinkiang (a region of the PRC) but not particularly close to the Indo-European family of languages.<br>
<br>
In other words, I've always thought the "Turkishness" of Turkey was a relatively recent (a mere millenia or so) development.<br>
<br>
Aaron <p></p><i></i>

[Musivarius]

Heard on my local radio station, 'the new film about Jesus called the passion of Christ is all in arabaic, which means like it's like in arabic so they've got subtitles.'<br>
Also another DJ,'the brad pitt movie Troy is set a real long time ago,800AD.'<br>
Not quite the thread but it made me laugh.<br>
Musivarius <p></p><i></i>

[Lepidina]

>>Homer has Trojans speaking Greek,<br>
<br>
Ah, that's where I got the idea that the Trojans spoke Greek. I'm such a blonde sometimes.<br>
<br>
> just as TROY has Greeks and Trojans speaking English (though there are some interesting background chatter as the Greeks land on the beach, with orders being relayed in both ancient and modern Greek dialects).<br>
<br>
I thought Troy wasn't trying to be historically accurate. I certainly didn't see all the "period hype" around this movie that I did with Gladiator, which really seem to play up the historical research.<br>
<br>
deb <p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

Deb,<br>
<br>
Yeah, actually, keep in mind that this business of Greek being the language that "civilized people spoke" is from a much later time period. After Alexander and the dramatic outward expansion of hellenism, a dialect of Greek began to emerge that sort of blended the various dialects (with, as I understand it, an overall heavier emphasis on Attic influence because of the importance of Attic lit) called "koine" which did, in fact, become the language of "civilized people." (I'm assuming that truly "learned" people would have gone on to master the greater complexities of Attic and Homeric Greek, as well, btw. I'm no Greek scholar and have only just begun to work on mastering koine, much less the other dialects.) But yes, the bottom line is that Greek DOES become the "language" of the civilized, well into the Roman empire... So much so, in fact, that Marcus Aurelius wrote his <em>Meditations</em>, which was essentially his "journal" or book of very personal thoughts, in Greek! So, you're right... just a little early.<br>
<br>
Aaron <p></p><i></i>