Re: Caizu
Posted: Wed May 22, 2024 12:27 pm
No, I started to learn English at 10. Which is probably not that much later than when medieval Europeans with better-than-usual-for-their-time-and-place education started to learn Latin.
No, I started to learn English at 10. Which is probably not that much later than when medieval Europeans with better-than-usual-for-their-time-and-place education started to learn Latin.
I also started learning English at 10 - and like you, I am thus not a native speaker.Raphael wrote: ↑Wed May 22, 2024 12:37 pmNo, I started to learn English at 10. Which is probably not that much later than when medieval Europeans with better-than-usual-for-their-time-and-place education started to learn Latin.
My point was an attempt at a reductio ad absurdum of the idea that Europe, during the centuries when Latin was a widely used language of liturgy and scholarship, had native Latin speakers. Or that modern Copts are native Coptic speakers.WeepingElf wrote: ↑Wed May 22, 2024 3:24 pm
I also started learning English at 10 - and like you, I am thus not a native speaker.
I understand.Raphael wrote: ↑Wed May 22, 2024 4:14 pmMy point was an attempt at a reductio ad absurdum of the idea that Europe, during the centuries when Latin was a widely used language of liturgy and scholarship, had native Latin speakers. Or that modern Copts are native Coptic speakers.WeepingElf wrote: ↑Wed May 22, 2024 3:24 pm
I also started learning English at 10 - and like you, I am thus not a native speaker.
that was my explanation of why I had thought that. also, we hear in the news and in books, about the plight of the Coptic language and its speakers...but we don't hear about the plight of other liturgical languages* - ergo, my brain thought "ah, that must mean its not purely liturgical." (and yes, we also heard that and read that about Hebrew...which further reinforced the impression upon me)keenir wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2024 7:38 amah, okay; I had been thinking liturgical languages had native speakers, in the sense of their own population(s) of people growing up hearing and learning and speaking it. (as opposed to modern people speaking Akkadian)
also, I'd never been clear on if Coptic was purely liturgical or not - and comparisons to Latin just reinforced that, as I knew it was a liturgical language,
the bit in that last line about Latin in medieval Europe, was simply a reply to the "exactly as Latin was" and to nothing else in the post.but I also knew that, in most books that were written in Europe had at the very least their titles in Latin.
From this distance, i think i was just trying to point out exactly that: that languages with writing systems, have to be learned with reading them - no more, no less than that.