Sophia Latinam linguam discit.

 


        I'm learning Latin. I use the word learning very loosely as I'm using the free version of an app. It's fun, but as someone who took four years of German in high school and three years in college, it's more a game to play than actual foreign language study. I'm learning a few words and sentences, but nothing really usable at least so far. None of the lessons cover Latin sentence structure. That bothers me because I like knowing the rules for sentence structure. When I get a sentence to translate, I feel like I'm guessing.

        I've always wanted to learn Latin. I had even signed up to take it in college, but I got accepted into pharmacy school and wasn't able to. The Romance languages such as Spanish, Italian, French and Galician descend from Latin. Some of terms used in pharmacy are Latin like BID (twice daily) and TID (three times daily) and PO (by mouth)

        I was reminded of my interest in the language when I watched the movie Conclave a few years ago. While Italian is the working language in the Vatican, the formal rites were in Latin. Papal documents are also written in Latin as well as in other languages. I remember watching the cardinals sing Veni Creator Spiritus, a Latin hymn, as they entered the conclave. 

        A friend of mine is using this app to learn Spanish and recommended it to me. I checked to see if Latin was among languages offered on the app. After thinking about it for a couple weeks I decided to download it. I had been thinking about learning Latin for the past several months. This was a way to at least start doing something about it.

        One of the things that I'm discovering is that I already know a lot of Latin based words. For instance, the word for brother is Frater. I was amused by the fact that Greek student organizations call themselves a "fraternity" which is a Latin word. (I'm amused by strange things.) I know that the Italian word for "sister" is sorella which made it easy to know that the Latin word soror means sister. I  already knew that a newly elected pope gives a blessing called "Urbi et orbi" (to the city and world) That means that 'urbe' means city, 'et' means and. 

        I'm looking forward to learning even more Latin words and phrases that I can actually use. (I may have to get a copy of Latin for Dummies.......)

   

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