Cynthia

I was active in a symphony chorus for about 15 years. During that time, we performed works in Latin by a variety of composers, including Berlioz (French), Orff (German), and an English composer whose name unfortunately escapes me. Plus the usual Bach and Beethoven and other great choral works! Each composer's Latin pronunciation, according to our chorus director, needed to be tailored to the way the composer would have expected to hear the Latin. This meant that, as choral singers, we ended up being responsible for knowing how to sing several styles of "Latin" pronunciation. I've selected a term that appears in most sacred texts: --Italian, or what Americans think of as Church Latin (example: caelis "heaven" = chay-lees) --German (caelis "heaven" = tsö-lees) --French (caelis "heaven" = say-lee) --English (caelis "heaven" = kigh-liss) Of course, when we performed the Carmina Burana (Orff), we had Medieval Latin and Middle High German both!

Somewhere on the 'net is a comparison of the Lord's Prayer in Latin [church/Vulgate version?] with the Sardanian Italian dialect, the similarities were pretty dramatic I thought. Assuming the comparisons were in valid forms. Is it the one found here? Substituting a Q for the K shown in the second Sardinian dialect (Logudorese) will ease the visual disparity between it and Latin. "Latin" probably varied throughout the Roman Empire due to local influences, even at the height of Roman power and influence. The ruling Roman class, of course, would speak a more consistent version of Latin (as they were from the City itself or at least nearby), but provincial people and their officials would be much more likely to use a pidgin (mixed) form of Latin with the local language(s). The Western Christian Church continued to use Classical (or nearly Classical) Latin in official documents and as a liturgical language until Vatican II in the 1960s, but the Romance languages each developed from Latin and local influences in their own regions, from Portuguese in the west to Romanian in the east. On a different point: once one learns that "case" and "inflection" help group words together, word order suddenly is less critical than it was before. This can be very helpful when dealing in languages *not* one's own. My native language is American English. When I was 10, we were transferred to a Spanish-speaking country, so...Spanish. Then, in college, I started Russian, followed by German, and discovered inflections, case, and the rest of it. I LOVED IT. Later, when I needed to add French, it seemed a little...flat. Back to plain old SVO, pretty much. Throw in a school year's worth of Saturday morning "business Japanese" classes in 1991--word order was, again, the Way of the Day. (Just don't ask me to read any kanji, please.) Then, at last, I was free to take the UC Berkeley Latin Intensive one summer (10 weeks, 9:00 to 4:00 every day including July 4), fulfilling a dream I'd had since high school of studying Latin. Modern English is very "slippery" because of its almost total dependence on word order. Someone new to the language can completely lose an entire sentence's meaning by missing (or mis-hearing) only one or two short words, often prepositions--simply because they *are* so short. There are very few redundancies/insurance factors built into Modern English to help hearers / learners reassure themselves that they're understanding the message that's being sent. That is what we've lost, IMHO, by speaking a non-inflected language. According to brain studies (fMRI), Modern English is one of the two most difficult languages to learn as a non-native (foreign) language. The other? ==> Mandarin Chinese. Ave, omnes! et gratias vobis.

...the interesting question Onasander would than be, how come couple of thousand years later we still, know, rember and discuss the battle, if it did nothing at all? The defeat at Thermopylae took enough time for the information to reach Athens. Initially, the Greek allies had hoped to both block the pass at Thermopylae vs. the Persian army *and* block the Straits of Artemisium vs. the Persian navy; thus a coordinated action. However, as we know from history, a traitorous local told the Persians about the back way up the mountain, and the 300 Spartans died to a man. The length of time (7 days altogether) involved in the *entire* battle, which includes the three-day heroic last stand, was long enough for Athens itself to be evacuated. Thus, when the victorious Persian army came on through, there weren't any Athenians to capture / torture / kill. Poor Persians.... Meanwhile, the Persian Army *did* overrun Boeotia, and Themistocles' previous decision (made after learning about the result of Thermopylae) to have the navy fall back to Salamis went forward. I think we can all remember what happened at Salamis. Therefore, to say that Thermopylae as "not that big a victory" or "just a morale booster" is, to my mind, quite an understatement. The delay created by the Spartans' last stand allowed communication to reach Athens. That communication allowed for a critical change of plan, which in turn led to an amazing naval victory for the Greeks. Many military historians believe that Salamis was key in keeping Greece independent and non-Asian in its government. I therefore find it difficult to minimize either encounter. Gratias.