Culture of Latin Speakers

Why learn to speak Latin? Why learn to sing, dance, paint, climb mountains etc? Why learn anything? Because it's fun.

Learning Latin was actually a family requirement for me and my sister. We were never told why, but we were taught it from a young age. My family would all speak it around strangers or guest when they didnt want to bother them or make situations akward. Me and my sister always had fun with it though, and we would speak it in school when we just wanted private conversations. Love the language though, and I think it needs more credit. Est pars mundi historiam, et in gloria eius

Why learn Latin? Because... I like, isn't enough? You're fascinating

Hebrew was technically considered 'extinct' 100 years ago, or "exclusively liturgical" if you like, just as Latin was. It was the subject of a revivalist movement. So if enough speakers begin to use it Latin may be similarly revived, although the resulting language, like any language, would then become its own lexical universe that would surely mystify ancient Romans as much as ancient Hebrews would be dumbfounded to hear people today complain about the traffic in Tel Aviv. ;) Within a few hundred years it may end up as just the most recent Latin offshoot, once again becoming distant from the original Latin. :) Ironically when things are 'dead' or 'dormant', they tend to fossilize more, whereas when they are alive they begin to morph. Certainly it is a very worthy endeavour to keep our understanding of Latin alive, in any case. I'm glad to see people being passionate about it. :)

I lived in South America for a few years and became fluent in Spanish. (Born in America and native language is English). The thing that fascinated me about Spanish once I became more fluent is that the Latin structure enables you to say more with less language. English is a very specificity-based language with thousands of different words to describe very small nuances. When you read or write a novel in English, the author can convey to the reader exactly what they want them to see. And don't get me wrong, specificity isn't a bad thing. But in Spanish (ergo the Latin structure) the language opens up more to the imagination of the listener. I can simply say, "Mi amor por ti, profundisimo es," and on the surface it means "My love for you is very deep." But when given to the imagination, the word "por" also means "because", and thus the phrase can also mean, "My love, because of you, is incredibly deep." And because the word "profundisimo" means very deep, but doesn't specify the degree of how deep it is, it can be substituted with any similar word. Thus the phrase can mean, "My love for you is vastly deep", "My love for you is incredibly deep", "My love for you, like the ocean, is unfathomably deep." Anyway, point being, learning another language has greatly benefitted my life AND has helped me improve my native tongue. I came across one of your other channels on YouTube, and it brought back that spark of learning to convey thoughts and ideas in ways outside one's own convention. Language opens pathways in the mind. Anyone who tells you it's pointless to learn a new one "that you'll never use" doesn't understand the benefit of teaching the mind new ways to think and understand.

I did not think I needed more inspiration to learn Latin but damn this was inspiring!

You know, I am an Asian who has so much passion for learning Latin because I majored in Italian when I was at university. That's the reason why I'm eager to trace back the origin of some Italian words through Latin. I love your video because it's so inspiring.

A bald man speaking Latin is, I must say, weirdly attractive.

Lol when you said "friendships" at the end of the video I legit heard "French hips" and I was like "hold on what?!" You're so right about when something is untranslatable it truly is part of the language. Nowhere can you see that more than with humor. I'm Romanian, and I've lived in Norway for a number of years now. I have two Norwegian flatmates. What I miss most about Romania is the humor. There are certain expressions in Romanian that just come into my mind when I experience situations here in Norway, and I start to tell my Norwegian flatmates, but halfway through I figure out that I can't really translate that, and certainly not in a way that will make it click for my flatmates in the same way it would for another Romanian person. It makes me feel frustrated, but at the same time a little smug. This joke is "mine", you'd have to be Romanian to get it. "Why are you laughing?" "Mh, just... Romanian things".

My mother taught Latin in the 1930s using the "direct method"--conversation, like you, presumably taught to do so at Columbia Teachers College. I saw the book when I was a boy

I live in the Philippines and I started liking Latin when I visited my uncle in our province and the elders pray in Latin for a 40-day ritual of my relative's death... they sounded heavenly and as if I understand them though I can't... im still learning the basics of latin though! Thnx for our dedication polymathy :)

Dude, why do you seem to be seducing me through the entire video to learn Latin? Haha, now I'm genuinely curious about it.

I'm currently trying to convince my friends and family to learn Latin, and as one of them said he only wants to learn a language he can use to connect with people, this will be an excellent argument. Thank you! P.S. You have a wonderful voice

I just came across this Latin speaking movement and I am delighted! Now I'm digging out my old school Latin and I got the Duolingo course, for now... I wanna be part of the thing :)

It’s all about the people!! The Latin-speaking community sounds amazing and something I’d like to be a part of! Now I have even more motivation to keep learning. Thanks for giving us a glimpse into this world!

Reading through the comments it was so cool to notice how you keep responding to new ones, even after 2 years. I just got to know both of your channels and you're so inspiring. I started taking latin in college (majoring in french) and I just fell in love with it.

It makes me so incredibly happy to know all of that exists! When I first thought about learning to speak Latin (because I love the language), I really didn't expect that.

Latin is compulsory for the 8th grade (the last grade of middle school) here in Romania. After that, I went to a philology high school, and studied four more years. It's sad to say, but I couldn't fully appreciate the language and culture at the time. It was partly because of the curriculum and partly because the class setting (more than 20 people, who had varying degrees of interest in the subject starting as low as 0%) didn't allow me to explore what I wanted or ask about what interested me, because it would have taken time from the class. After I finished university, I started reading increasingly more ancient roman cultural history, and now I'm interested in every facet of ancient Rome.

Me singing classical sacred pieces with my choir 'Ave Verum', 'Ave Maria', 'Adeste Fideles', Laudate Dominum' and so on.

I wonder whether Luke has ever used this as a way to impress girls lol (or guys).