Recent Latin

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Recent Latin is the form of Latin used from the late nineteenth 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 Akihito and Princess Michiko of Japan
A Recent Latin inscription at Salamanca University commemorating the visit of the then-Prince Akihito and Princess Michiko 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).

Creative Latin composition, for purely artistic purposes, was very rare by the end of the 19th century. Authors such as Arthur Rimbaud and Max Beerbohm wrote Latin verse, but these texts were either school exercises or occasional pieces.

[edit] Emergence of Recent Latin

The emergence of Recent Latin can be traced back at least to the late nineteenth century. During that period, Latin periodicals flourished that advocated 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 followed in the tradition of previous pronunciation reformers; cf. Erasmus's De recta Latini Græcique sermonis pronuntiatione dialogus and even Alcuin's De orthographia.

The essentials of the classical Roman pronunciation had been defined since the early 19th century (e.g. in K.L. Schneider's Elementarlehre der Lateinischen Sprache, 1819), but in many countries there was strong resistance to adopting it in instruction. In English-speaking countries, where the academic pronunciation diverged most markedly from the restored classical model, the struggle between the two pronunciations lasted for the entire 19th century. The transition between Latin pronunciations was sudden (in England, the "new pronunciation" was adopted throughout the schools in 1907[1]), drastic, and confusing, as the older pronunciation, as found in the nomenclature and terminology of various professions, continued to be used for many decades, and, in some spheres, to the present day.

[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] Latin in science

Up to World War I, scholastic Latin was the main professional language in scientific field such as medicine, veterinary medicine, pharmacy, and zoology with many periodicals, itineraries, and important monographs written in Latin. Nowadays Latin is chiefly used in the nomenclature of animals, drugs, illnesses, anatomy, etc. An exception is botany, where full Latin texts have persisted to the present day.[citation needed]

[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 September 11, 2001 attacks:

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] Recent Latin in the Catholic Church

Latin remains the official language of the Holy See and Vatican City. The Latin Language Department of the Vatican Secretariat of State (formerly the Secretaria brevium ad principes et epistolarum latinarum) is entrusted with the task of translating into Latin the writings of the Supreme Pontiffs. The celebrated Latinist Fr. Reginald Foster, O.D.C., works here. Up until the 1960s, Roman Catholic priests studied theology from Latin textbooks, and the language of instruction in many seminaries was also Latin. Use of Latin in pedagogy and in theological research has fallen out of use. Latin was still spoken in recent international gatherings of Roman Catholic leaders, such as the Second Vatican Council, and is still used at every papal conclave to elect a new Pope. The X Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in 2004 was the last to have a Latin language group for discussions. Although Latin is the traditional liturgical language of the Roman (Latin) Church, the liturgical use of the vernacular has predominated since the liturgical reforms which followed the Second Vatican Council. Ecclesiastical Latin is pronounced like Italian and hence sounds different from the "received pronunciation" generally (but not exclusively) in vogue among enthusiasts of Recent Latin. In 1976 the Latinitas Foundation (Opus Fundatum Latinitas) was established by Pope Paul VI with the aim of promoting the study and use of Latin. The foundation publishes a quarterly in Latin, Latinitas.

[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
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—75 BC    75 BC – 200    200 – 900    200 – 1300    1300 – 1600    1600 – 1900   1900 – present
Old Latin    Classical Latin    Vulgar Latin    Medieval Latin    Renaissance Latin   New Latin    Recent Latin
See also: History of Latin, Latin literature, Vulgar Latin, Ecclesiastical Latin, Romance languages, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
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