Recent Latin

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Recent Latin is the form of Latin used from the late ninteenth century down to the present. Unlike all previous varieties of Latin, it is neither used as a living language nor as a textual vehicle for literature, philosophy, and science; instead, it is primarily used as a form of entertainment, practiced among a small group of Latin devotees.

A Recent Latin inscription at Salamanca University commemorating the visit of the then-Prince "Akihitus" and Princess "Michika" of Japan
A Recent Latin inscription at Salamanca University commemorating the visit of the then-Prince "Akihitus" and Princess "Michika" of Japan

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[edit] Decline of New Latin

The New Latin of the 17th to 19th centuries had become otiose by 1900, confined to a few very technical areas (e.g., botany) where it functioned as a code, capable of only very limited types of expression, and not as a fully functional language. In other fields (e.g. anatomy or law) where Latin had been widely used, it survived only in technical phrases and terminology. The last survivals of New Latin to convey non-technical information appear in the use of Latin to cloak passages and expressions deemed too indecent (in the 19th century) to be read by children, the lower classes, or (most) women — intending to shrink readership, not expand it. Such passages appear in translations of foreign texts and in works on folklore, anthropology, and psychology, e.g. Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis (1886).

[edit] Emergence of Recent Latin

The emergence of Recent Latin can be traced back at least to the late nineteenth century, when different Latin periodicals flourish, which advocate the use of Latin as an international language.

Between 1889 and 1895 Karl Heinrich Ulrichs published in Italy his Alaudæ[1], which found continuity in the Vox Urbis: de litteris et bonis artibus commentarius[2], published by the architect and engineer Aristide Leonori from 1898, twice a month, until 1913, one year before the outbreak of World War I.

Soon after the end of World War II, the movement bounced back with renewed force, yet again as an attempt at a cultural amalgam based in the long Latin tradition, and aiming towards a more integrated Europe, hand in hand with other pan-European movements like the one originating the present European Union, which started around the same time. It may have also taken strength from the example of the revival of the Hebrew language which had been successful in the State of Israel. One of its foundational moments was the first International Conference for living Latin (Congrès international pour le Latin vivant) held at Avignon (France) in 1956.

More Latin periodicals continued to be published in the twentieth century after the wars, like Vox Latina (published by Cælestis Eichenseer, from the University of Saarbrücken, Germany, from 1965 to the present) or Melissa (published by Guy Licoppe, in Brussels, from 1984 to the present).

It has also been used as a spoken language from the beginning in numerous summer conferences throughout Europe, and more recently in America.

Recent Latin is characterized by the general adoption of the classical pronunciation of Latin as restored by the best specialists in the area, like Prof. Edgar H. Sturtevant (The Pronunciation of Greek and Latin, Chicago Ares Publishers Inc. 1940) and Prof. W. Sidney Allen (Vox Latina, A Guide to the Pronunciation of Classical Latin, Cambridge University Press 1965), who were just perfecting a learned tradition which can be traced back to Erasmus's De recta Latini Græcique sermonis pronuntiatione dialogus and even Alcuin's De orthographia.

[edit] Spoken Latin

Most users of Recent Latin promote its use as a spoken language, a movement that dubs itself "Living Latin". Among the proponents of spoken Latin, some promote the active use of the language to make learning Latin both more enjoyable and more efficient, in this respect drawing upon the methodologies of instructors of modern languages. Others pursue a more radical approach, supporting the revival of Latin as a language of international academic, perhaps even scientific and diplomatic, communications (as it was in Europe and European colonies through Middle Ages until the early 19th century), or as an international auxiliary language. However, as a language native to no people, this movement has not received support from any government, national or supranational.

A substantial group of institutions (particularly in Europe, but also in North and South America) has emerged to support the use of Latin as a spoken language. Many of these institutions are listed at the links page of the Societas Circulorum Latinorum; others can be found in the external links list below.

An example of the living use of the language by two of its most prominent advocates, Prof. Terentius Tunberg, from the University of Kentucky (USA), and Dr. Cælestis Eichenseer, from the University of Saarbrücken (Germany), can be watched here.

[edit] Original literary production

[edit] Poetry

The use of the Latin language in poetry never fully disappeared, and contemporary Latin literature has produced, without interruption from the Renaissance to the present, a series of very interesting Latin poets, including Arrius Nurus, Geneviève Immè, Alanus Divutius, Anna Elissa Radke, Ianus Novak, Thomas Pekkanen, and others.

This pocket watch made for the medical community has Latin instructions for measuring a patient's pulse rate on its dial: enumeras ad XX pulsus, "count 20 heartbeats".
This pocket watch made for the medical community has Latin instructions for measuring a patient's pulse rate on its dial: enumeras ad XX pulsus, "count 20 heartbeats".

There follows a sample poem by Alanus Divutius, from Brussels (Belgium), in memory of those who died in the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York (USA) on the 11th of September 2001:


Ite viatores et mundo dicite vasto
nos híc innocuos mole jacere sub hac,
nos cives placidos, patres matresque quietos.
Cordibus in nostris nullum odium fuerat.
Nosque laborantes rapuit mors invidiosa,
nunc sumus heroes, nunc sumus astra poli.

[edit] Translations into Recent Latin

Various texts—usually children's books—have been translated into Latin in the twentieth century, for various purposes, including use as a teaching tool or simply to demonstrate the author's command of Latin in a popular context.

Recent Latin texts include:

[edit] Other examples of Recent Latin

[edit] Church Latin

A body of mostly theological work has continued to be written in Latin by Roman Catholic writers. Up until the 1960s, Roman Catholic priests studied theology from Latin textbooks, even if the language of instruction in most seminaries was the local vernacular. Although Latin plays a less prominent role (liturgically and instructionally) in current Roman Catholicism, Latin is still spoken in international gatherings of Roman Catholic leaders, such as the Second Vatican Council or a papal conclave to elect a new Pope. Ecclesiastical Latin remains distinct in pronunciation from the Latin used by aficionados of Recent Latin.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Cf. Wielfried Stroh (ed.), Alaudæ. Eine lateinische Zeitschrift 1889-1895 herausgegeben von Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. Nachdruck mit einer Einleitung von Wielfried Stroh, Hamburg, MännerschwarmSkript Verlag, 2004.
  2. ^ Cf. Volfgangus Jenniges, "Vox Urbis (1898-1913) quid sibi proposuerit", Melissa, 139 (2007) 8-11.
  3. ^ Asterix in Latin.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links


Ages of Latin
v • d • e
—75 BC    75 BC – 200    300 – 1300    1300 – 1600    1600 – 1900   1900 – present
Old Latin    Classical Latin    Medieval Latin    Renaissance Latin   New Latin    Recent Latin
See also: History of Latin, Latin literature, Vulgar Latin, Ecclesiastical Latin, Romance languages
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_Latin"
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