Why do you want to learn?

[SAIYAN48]

Why do you want to learn Latin? I took it all throughout high school and loved it; kept going ever since. It helps that I'm half Italian and probably descended from Romans.

 

[Nikokaro]

"Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor" (I see the best things and approve of them, but follow the worst ones ) Seneca

Hi.
I am Italian, and I studied Latin in high school and at university.
I was especially fascinated by the wisdom, still relevant today, of the stoic and eclectic philosophers such as Cicero and Seneca. The "epistulae ad Lucilium" of the latter I have read several times, while the "epistulae ad familiares" of the former, which are numerous, I have yet to finish them (but I have very little free time, and I prefer to play with the DS or PSP lol).
Sometimes I post on my profile some aphorisms that have intrigued me particularly for their truth and modernity.

 

[VinsCool]

I love languages
It's always fun to learn the origins of words.
My first language is French, and directly related to Latin, too

 

[SAIYAN48]

French is part Latin, part Frankish (Germanic) and part Gaulish (Celtic).

 

[Nikokaro]

@XAIXER buddy, you started this group but you don't get in touch. How come? If you don't have some initiative to propose, I'll start doing something.
I'll publish every now and then a Latin aphorism followed by a short explanation of my own, which will make it modern and more appreciable by contemporaries.

1) "Senatores boni viri, senatus mala bestia."(senators are good men, the senate is an evil beast).

Phrase attributed to Cicero but without firm evidence. It means that men taken individually can be good people, but in the midst of an aggressive crowd, they are dragged by it and conform to the general negative attitude:
-because of the comfort that comes from being together and accepted by their peers;
-because he is free from personal responsibility and hide behind the common one;
-because the primitive (unconscious) man emerges within him, no longer held back by reason, and acts without brakes and inhibitions.



2) "Summum ius, summa ingiuria"
(The maximum right equals the maximum injustice)

This phrase is quoted by Cicero in the "de officiis" as a proverb already widespread in his time.
It means that the legislative norm should never be applied literally, but interpreted case by case, according to the circumstances. Also because a law is general and abstract, and never goes into the specifics of every possible case.

 

[SAIYAN48]

Like I said: I love learning the language of my crazy Roman ancestors. They were nuts, all right!

 

[Nikokaro]

Like I said: I love learning the language of my crazy Roman ancestors. They were nuts, all right!

Don't be mad at what I'm going to write...

If they were crazy, they wouldn't have been able to conquer half of Europe!
Far from it; they were a rational, practical, concrete people, especially in the royal and republican period.
In the period of the late empire, moment of corruption and barbarization, instead there were some crazy and bizarre emperors, but they were an exception, and in them there was very little of roman...

Your conception I think is the result of your fantasy, derived I don't know if from Asterix comics or certain cartoons ...

 

[SAIYAN48]

I'm well aware of how powerful the empire was. The ancestors of my own family were the crazy ones.

 

[Nikokaro]

3) "Ab uno disce omnes" (from one you know them all) Virgilius

It is a phrase of the poet Virgil, taken from the epic poem Aeneid, where he meant that it is enough to know one Greek to know them all.
I would say that it is at the origin of all the prejudices, catchphrases and arbitrary generalizations that have haunted mankind. It is astonishing that a mild, bucolic, good and peaceful poet should have uttered it; but an artist is allowed everything, since it is the voice of the whole human race.

It is also used in formal logic to indicate an erroneous and superficial reasoning that draws a universal consequence from a specific case.

 

[VinsCool]

Quod erat demonstrandum

 

[Nikokaro]

4) "In dubio pro reo" (in doubt, in favor of 'presumed' culprit)

Principle contained in the Digesta, work of collection of laws of jurists of Roman antiquity, designed and organized by the emperor Justinian.
It means that, if there is no certain evidence nor clues against him, the judge must favor the presumed culprit.
In other words, he must take the risk of releasing a possible criminal rather than unjustly condemning an innocent person.
Principle used by the Italian penal code, and certainly by most democratic nations.

 

[Nikokaro]

5) "Nemo propheta in patria" (no one is a prophet in his home country)

Phrase contained in the Latin version (Vulgate) of the gospel of Luke, and uttered by Jesus in reference to his teaching.
He meant to say that one's value and merits are not recognized in one's own land of origin (where you often find envy and contempt) but only abroad, and by people who are more different and foreign to us.

 

[Nikokaro]

6) "Ubi major minor cessat" (where the greater is, the lesser ceases)

A principle already used by the ancient Roman jurists and transmitted orally until our days in the legal field.

It means that a norm or an inferior authority lose value and cancel themselves in front of a law or authority of superior level.

 

[Nikokaro]

7) "Audentes fortuna iuvat" (Fortune helps the braves)

Quote of a passage from Virgil's Aeneid, which means that only those who have the courage to commit, act and give themselves in the work are helped by fate (luck, destiny, etc.) and led to success and the achievement of their goal.

 

[Hidori]

It helps that I'm half Italian and probably descended from Romans.

Yeah that's not how it works. not even Romans from Rome are descendants of ancient romans. The opposite also applies, but millennia have passed, so it like that meme where people discover they are like 0.00000001% Italian and act like they came out of the darkest Napoli's provincial town.

Regardless, I love the language where mine stems from. And for all it's faults, we still have to thank the Vatican for keeping Latin alive to this day, otherwise it would've been lost to time like the Sumerian.

Anyways, some highschools in Italy still teach part of Latin, as soon as I find the book, I can try to share them here.