Talk:Contemporary Latin

Poetry

Can we have a translation of this. My latin is really bad but I do know that some of the feeling has to be lost when it's in english. 75.144.33.177 (talk) 17:19, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

"Recent Latin" Not a Well Accepted Definition - Merge with New Latin

The entire premise of this article is non-standard. The content should be merged with New Latin (which also needs reform). See further comments there.

The Recent Latin content is also somewhat opinionated — "it is primarily used as a form of entertainment" (Church Latin?); "intending to shrink readership, not expand it" (who's given the mandate readership should be expanded?). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.36.147.195 (talk) 19:26, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Do not merge.

There is a stark contrast, in content, style, and even in pronunciation, between the Latin writings of the 20th century and those of the 19th century and earlier. Although any form of chronological classification is ultimately arbitrary, this division has a better claim than most. The terminology "Recent Latin" is novel, but some title must be used, and if you can think of a better, feel free to move the article. "New Latin" and "Neo-Latin" are, however, firmly entrenched as terms for the Latin used from the 16th or 17th centuries to the 19th.

Roman Catholic Church Latin has its own article, Ecclesiastical Latin. It's not the subject-matter of this article.

That Latin was used at the end of the 19th century and in the earlier 20th c. as a means of encoding certain passages considered 'indelicate' or obscene, and thereby protecting the casual reader, is not a matter of opinion but of fact. One may note the following policy entered on in early editions of the Loeb Classical Library:

"Offending passages were not always deleted or altered; sometimes they were simply translated into another language. Greek was usually translated into Latin on the facing-page English text, and in the first edition of Martial, the offensive Latin was translated into Italian. This--while not necessarily poor scholarship--makes it difficult for someone without a knowledge of Latin (or Italian) to profit from the translation." [1]

Such a policy was by no means restricted to the Loeb books, but was followed by many translators of works from foreign languages, times, and cultures where Edwardian standards of "delicacy" were not observed.

RandomCritic (talk) 03:10, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Why not split, and create new page; 'Living Latinity' for recreational usage?

Neo-Latin survives in the fields of botany & within the Catholic Church, where the new pronunciations have no accepted standing, even though such reforms in pronunciation were initiated by such historical figures as Erasmus at the dawn of Neo-Latin. The use of Latin for sensitive subjects surely is a mere, insular remnant of scientific Neo-Latin. The Latin version of this page simply refers to 'latinitas viva' - living latinity.

Perhaps this spurious term 'Recent Latin' should be split; the recreational use of Latin, renamed 'Living Latinity' which might be regarded as a movement from the beginning of the 20th Century, attempting to revive Latin or restore its former vehicular applications, within new and entertaining dialogues and publications in the Neo-Latin medium. All surviving, official applications of Latin today, ought to be acknowledged as integral to the Neo-Latin tradition (which is precisely what they are (they clearly did not die in the 19th Century) irrespective of the trends of official establishments largely abandoning Neo-Latin for vehicular publications).

Homoproteus (talk) 14:14, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I've attempted to edit the pages in a way that will answer some of the well-founded critiques above. I chose "contemporary Latin" (where "contemporary" is to be understood strictly adjectivally, and not as part of a technical term) as the new name for this article, because it was used by a plurality of the linked articles, and because "Living Latin" seemed a little too narrow in application. However, the greatest part of the article deals with aspects of this movemment. RandomCritic (talk) 19:35, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Dispute section

Wow! The new dispute section sure spices up this happy but somewhat humdrum article. I like it, but I have one problem with it. It lacks references. If it is going to stay long it will need references, or the evil classicist assassins will come along and delete it. It could also benefit from accounts of Albino Opus Dei assassins dispatched by Latinitas to attack publishers of Vox Latina or other examples of sectarian violence from the "other side" if such exists. Just my $0.02. Rwflammang (talk) 17:55, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Any use of Latin in video games?

I wonder if Latin had ever been used in videogames. I wanted to put in the information, that's all. If you know any video game that uses Latin, tell me, OK? Joe9320 of the CUWP | Contact the Council 06:12, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Conquests of Camelot has a manual which is titled in Latin "Liber ex Doctrina". In Jerusalem the shops have Latin inscriptions (eg. the butchery was "tabulae lanius"). pictureuploader (talk) 12:50, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

The Final Fantasy series has a tendency to use bits of Latin in songs (One Winged Angel, Somnus), and the title of the collective current few games (can't think how to put it >_<) is Fabula Novum Crystallis iirc 86.29.29.77 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:02, 1 October 2009 (UTC).

Trivia or examples of a particular kind of use of contemporary Latin?

One of the contributors to this article, JonHarder, whose objectivity and good sense has been proven, has deleted a section under the title Other instances that contained the following two examples of contemporary use of Latin in public spaces:

The Wallsend Metro station of the Tyne and Wear Metro has signs in Latin.

In the Vatican City there is an ATM (bank machine) with instructions in Latin: image.

His edit summary was "Can we just drop this section? It is essentially trivia and undocumented; the quality of the image is so poor."

I agree that the section looked awkward. Originally it contained much more data, but the rest has been relocated to more appropriate places, whereas those two continued to defy classification. Yet, I think they are useful illustrations of a form of contemporary use of Latin which would remain otherwise unrepresented in the article. I am therefore going to restitute them, with your permission, under what I hope will be a more productive heading, which I hope will be enriched in due course: In public spaces. If a more meaningful title can be found, it will of course be more than welcome, but I don't think those two instances should be deleted from the article as they are a specific type which would be otherwise absent from the article.

I'll put the image as a footnote. Its quality would not appear to be an argument for silencing the whole item. Also I understand that the pictures (good or bad) amount to making the information sufficiently documented for the purposes of verification.

Thanks to all. Aggfvavitus (talk) 16:29, 31 January 2010 (UTC)