25 August 2008

Latin's day in the sun

The 3sat television network has produced a 37-minute feature in Latin (with German subtitles). You can see it here. This is probably the biggest thing that will happen to Latin this year.

When I was 11 or 12 years old I went through a phase of thinking Latin should be the global auxiliary language. There are a few people scattered around the world who feel that way, and others who are keeping the language alive just because they find it aesthetically appealing. There is a new Yahoo group for Latino sine Flexione and there are also several groups for students of traditional Latin.

3 comments:

Bill Chapman said...

I wish people well in learning and using any language.

However, it is clear to me that the nearest we have to a "global auxiliary language" is Esperanto.

Anonymous said...

Every region that needs a lingua franca has one: Spanish in Central America, Swahili in East Africa, etc. On a worldwide basis English and French have been quite popular. Some observers are predicting that Chinese will gain popularity during this century. These things tend to be driven by economic needs. There is no raw material or finished product that you can only buy from Esperanto-speakers or Latin-speakers, so those languages have little chance of achieving mega popularity.

Anonymous said...

Bill Chapman is right to point to the need for a new global language, but that lanugage should act as a common, not dominant single language.

Interestingly nine British MP's have nominated Esperanto for the Nobel Peace Prize 2008.

Detail can be seen at http://www.lernu.net