[Sca-cooks] Latin (was variously globetrotting and languages)

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

>Of course, as someone else pointed out, there's seldom someone to speak
>with. There aren't any native speakers of Latin...

I would guess that the Vatican is as close as one could get. Of
course, most of them have pretty strong Italian accents, but so did
Italian speakers of Latin in the Renaissance. There's the story of
Giordano Bruno going to England in 1580- or 90-something for a debate
at Oxford (i think) which was conducted in Latin. Rather than listen
to his content, he was laughed out of the room for his "ridiculous"
accent by the English.

Not quite the same as having someone to talk to, but there is (or at
least was) a news program on the radio in Latin, in Finland, IIRC,
and a guy in Scandinavia somewhere who recorded Elvis in Latin.

And there's a really nice album (i'm not joking) by an Estonian
Medieval Music group that is a "tribute" to Black Sabbath - done on
Medieval instruments, mostly in Medieval style (there's one 16th c.
style song), and IN LATIN. My consort ordered it after i sent him the
URL that someone else had sent me. It's surprisingly good. I enjoy
it, and i was never a fan of Black Sabbath.

When i was a kid, some English source (might have been the BBC)
published a monthly magazine that my dad subscribed to that had an
ongoing story about an Englishman visiting Pompeii who somehow got
sent back in time, and the story, an on-going serial, was written all
in Latin... My father was the sort who threw EVERYTHING away, so i
have no idea where these came from, but it sure was interesting...

Then there's a company that makes computer language learning programs
and includes tapes and cds of speakers... I ordered the Latin
series... For Latin they have various professors of Latin reading
Latin texts... so frustrating listening to their horrible accents -
the Americans read, well, you can guess... I was hoping for a better
accent... my mistake...

Anahita