There is a proposal in Vermont to adopt the Latin motto, Stella quarta decima fulgeat. I wish this were a joke, but some of the citizens of the state had a remarkable reaction.
There’s more in that vein. This is the core of the Republican party.
Along those lines, one of the commenters thought this was a wicked trap by some Democratic trickster:
Cleverly constructed trap my friends. Whoever wrote this post is looking at a bright future as a PR rep for the DNC.
How dare someone catch them out in their ignorance! Only a stinkin’ elitist Democrat would know about this obscure Latin language.
They are using Latin letters and Arabic numerals to complain. And a foreign language, English.
Looks like they successfully avoided learning anything about the history of a couple of foreign continents anyway.
I think they have every right to be worried about immigrants who speak Latin – generally Roman migration was preceded by Roman invasion and tended to be fairly brutal on the local population, although they haven’t been doing it much in the last 1600 years. Alternately, the group who used Latin widely most recently are probably Catholic priests, so yeah, I’d be worried about an increase in their numbers in my area as well!
Clearly, James Button is passionate about the proper use of language.
Latin is a dead language,
Dead as dead can be
First it killed the Romans
And now it’s killing me!
Latin may be dead, but it’s still the foundation of a lot of nomenclature. It’s too bad the term “Latin” was used as a substitute for “Catholic” when describing one and a half continents, as though the culture is the homogeneous the whole way from the Rio Grande to Antarctica.
I saw this earlier and i’m still half in denial about it….i’m seriously struggling to accept that this can even be at all…How….how the fuck is it possible for people (plural, for fuck’s sake) in a developed country to be this ridiculously ignorant? I…..fuck…
The motto should be changed to “Sois mas tontos que ni hechos por encargo”…i mean, they wouldn’t even notice the difference…
The funny thing is that some of them even have italian surnames, and they should at least have a vague idea of what latin is. One wonders what would their reaction be if they’d ever find out that they’re writing with the latin alphabet…..
P.S. Ninja’d !
Clearly, none of these people know any Marines or have taken a close look at their paper money…
O tempora, O mores! Senatus haec intellegit…
@5 JustaTech
I don’t think “catholic” is an apropriate subsituted for what “latin” is intended to mean in that context….It’s about a lot more than just catholicism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abenaki_language
Sic transit gloria mundi.
Substitute* Me speak so good.
I thought it’s because Spanish and Portuguese are Romance languages, descended from Latin?
Hic tamen vivit. Vivit?!
So, I may have guiltily enjoyed Marco Polo (a netflix original), and this made me think of that. It tells the story of a young Marco Polo staying as a hostage in the court of Kublai Khan, and everyone calls him “Latin” or “the Latin”.
How’s about a compromise?
Aymay ethay ourteenthfay arstay ineshay ightbray.
Sad reflection of ignorance, insecurity about identity, anti-intellectualism and insularity.
Oh, irony, wherefore art thou? This page highlights a comment which takes it to new heights:
<blockquote>Gary Seymour Hell No! This is America, not Latin America. When in Rome do as the Romans do.
Except when it was Abnaki-Penobscot.
Well, you guys have the bomb. You have the power to stop all of this, for everyone, forever; the slow decline, I think, is the much worse option and, apparently, we’ve already taken it.
For real though, this is real? This puts Rick Mercer’s Talking to Americans to shame and that was real too. Think about that! It’s actually worse. That was 15 years ago. No one is even trying to get these people to say something so horribly stupid it casts doubt on the existence of sapience and yet this happened. This is real.
By the way, I’m collecting money to repair the Peter Mans Bridge. Ask for where you can send your donation.
Thomathy
I’ll send you money if you use some of it to stop the seal-hunt in Saskatchewan.
I’m in total agreement with those comments. Obviously, the motto for Vermont should be written in Vermontish.
Latin is for fureners. E pluribus unum.
chigau, I promise! Saskatchewan has no business hunting seals!
Daz, #4
At least he has his American numerals to comfort him.
In America, ignorantia habet potestatem.
Daz @17 quoting Gary Seymour,
Nooooo, this one has to be a joke. Right? Right?
Thomathy @20: It’s beyond repair. Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
How can it not hurt to be that stupid?
Oh my fucking god. I just can’t with these people. If ever there was an exhibit of why we need to invest more in public education, this is it.
blf @ 1
They don’t speak “English,” they speak “AMERICAN!!!!!!!!” (yes, all caps and no fewer than six exclamation points) which just so happens to sound like English.
People called Romans, they go to the house.
Holy shit, this is beyond embarrassing. This is the sort of thing that makes me want to never, ever admit I’m an American.
I didn’t join the Marines so all you commie liberals could just let anyone in speaking their foreign talk! Next we’ll swarmed by Mexicans speaking Latin! Semper Fi !
Why not a quote from a Vermonter as state motto in Plain American English?
Take it away, Ethan Allen:
“In those parts of the world where learning and science has prevailed, miracles have ceased; but in those parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue.”
Or:
“That Jesus Christ was not God is evident from his own words, where, speaking of the day of judgment, he says, “Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no not the angels which are in Heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” This is giving up all pretention to divinity, acknowledging in the most explicit manner, that he did not know all things, but compares his understanding to that of man and angels; “of that day and hour knoweth no man, no not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son.” Thus he ranks himself with finite beings, and with them acknowledges, that he did not know the day and hour of judgment, and at the same time ascribes a superiority of knowledge to the father, for that he knew the day and hour of judgment.”
Or even:
“While we are under the tyranny of Priests, it will ever be their interest, to invalidate the law of nature and reason, in order to establish systems incompatible therewith.”
Searching for these, I found some great quotes about Allen, too.
Ezra Stiles, president of Yale said in his diary, “General Ethan Allen of Vermont died and went to Hell this day.”
Rev. Nathan Perkins wrote in a travel narrative “Passed by Ethan Allyn’s grave. An awful Infidel, one of ye wickedest men ye ever walked this guilty globe. I stopped & looked at his grave with a pious horror.”
I’m pretty sure this sort of post is supposed to be classist or something *eyeroll*
“How can it not hurt to be that stupid?”
It does hurt, eventually and indirectly. It’ll show up in credit card interest they don’t think they’re paying because “I always make that minimum payment” or the raise they’re refusing because “I’ll just end up in a higher tax bracket”.
Ignorance on this level does come around.
patens exemplum morbi Dunningi et Krugeri.
“Latin America” is also a bit of a misnomer. It would have been better with “Iberian America” or something along that line. It is really a convention invented by the French, who, in their feeling of grandeur, included French-speaking Guiana in that sphere. Never mind English-speaking Guyana or Dutch-speaking Surinam…. :-/
Nah, Iberian America doesn’t work either, too much italian influence in Argentina, as well as the examples you cited.
The closest thing would probably be Mediterranean Europe America (Portugal may not be territorially mediterranean but it absolutely is culturally), but that doesn’t roll off the tongue…plus it’s not fully accurate…
If you made it European America then you wouldn’t be able to separate it from northamerica…
The funny thing about this is that Vermont has the smallest Latino population of any state, and the third smallest percentage of Latinos (linky link).
Fun fact: The US of A do not have an official language. Because back when people cobbled that whole thing together they had greatr worries and frankly didn’t even think about such issues.
It’s also estimated that the US of A are now host of one of the biggest communities of hispanohablantes on planet earth*, though for a given value of “Spanish speakers” for second and third generation immigrants.
*I’ve heard that furrin stars and galaxies also have names in Latin and Greek and stuff
Putting aside the linguistic ignorance, am surprised about all those “learn english” comments.
Duh, someone should learn Navajo.
Panta rei, dudes. Even the dominant language.
Get over it. (Yeah. Greek.)
I mentioned this on Ed’s blog yesterday:
When I was teaching Latin every year without fail I would encounter one or two new students who were upset because they thought that they were signing up for Latin American studies.
Tomathy @24 Well, then where am I going to get my Genuine Saskatchewan Seal Skin items from?
Veni, vidi, edi nachos.
When asked to point out Central America on a map, the same commentors pointed to Kansas.
Gilliel
It is worse than that, many of them have Arabic names.
“The funny thing about this is that Vermont has the smallest Latino population of any state…”
That’s why it’s so clueless. In places like Southern California, anti-Latinx animus is much more focused.
And, you know, there really isn’t much that’s “funny” about knowing that me and my people are hated even by people who don’t know us.
I mean, I’d rather be aware of this stuff so I know how to strike back, but this sort of hatred of the Spanish language and Latinx people in general is why my grandpa changed his name and taught his kids only English. That shit hurts. The final stage of colonialism is when they make you forget who you are and take even your culture from you.
Sic semper Tyranosaurus!
Giliell:
I get the sinking feeling that I’d rather not ask J. Random American what the names of the planets mean, where they come from, and what language they happen to be.
Loreo @ 49:
Yes, it hurts. Previous generations of immigrants to ‘merica even took that erasure upon themselves – one of my great-grandmothers spoke many languages, and steadfastly refused to teach any of them to her children, ’cause hey, you’re American now! I tried and tried to get her to teach me just one of the languages she spoke (I aimed for Russian), and she flat out refused. The most I got was a few folk songs in various languages.
Well, it will once some sufficiently forward-looking fracker realizes that combining brine disposal with an inland Sea World/Shootin’ Safari attraction is natural synergy at its finest!
And one of theym named sheffelde, a mercer, cam in-to an hows and exed for mete; and specyally he axyd after eggys; And the goode wyf answerde, that she coude speke no frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry, for he also coude speke no frenshe, but wolde haue hadde egges and she vnderstode hym not — Wm Caxton, 1490
Don’t tell ’em “America” is named after some Italian guy.
Vermonto delenda est.
Not as funny as the one Daz quoted at #17, but a close second I think:
And no one has posted the obligatory Latin Lesson video yet. I’m very disappointed in you all.
witless@35:
But the best Ethan Allen quote was the one on his deathbed:
His physician tried to comfort him by saying “General Allen, the angels are waiting for you.”
He replied: “Waiting, are they? Waiting, are they? Well, God damn ‘em, let ‘em wait!”
Well just goes to show that four years of studying a dead language in high school haven’t been completely lost, I could read that! Not a bad motto either IMHO. It’s too bad the Vermont twitterverse is looking decidedly in need of some polishing.
Guessing the don’t watch any MGM movies either, since their motto uses that horrible language too and show up at the start of every movie:
“Ars gratia artis “
Giliell @ 42,
You’re right about the US as a whole not having an official language, but several states do. As for the population of hispanohablantes, I don’t have the source at hand but I saw recently that the US has the fourth largest population of native Spanish speakers in the world (after, if memory serves, Mexico, Argentina, and Spain; Colombia might be ahead of the US as well). And it’s always worth bearing in mind that a significant part of that population is living in areas that were Spanish speaking long before they were part of the US.
loreo, my apologies; “funny” was a poor choice of words. Perhaps “ironic”? As I see it, the intent of my job is to try to support the rights of linguistic minorities and promote multilingualism in the US, and I didn’t intend to minimize the effect of centuries of colonialism here. But intent, magic, etc….
“…one of my great-grandmothers spoke many languages, and steadfastly refused to teach any of them to her children, ’cause hey, you’re American now…”
Somehow in our culture, knowing fewer languages and being able to communicate with fewer people is superior. The joys of imperialism.
What a Maroon – thanks for that. Honestly, I did know what you meant, ironic funny not ha-ha funny, but I was struck in the moment by the idea that since these commenters don’t even understand the difference between Latin and Spanish, somebody is telling them to hate us, and it’s somebody (not an individual, but an institution) with a big microphone.
I know that’s how racism works, but it stings to see a fresh example.
Thanks again for clarifying, it’s a little thing but it makes me feel I’m being heard.
Caine
loreo
And this is the kind thing that leads to conversations like the one I had with a coworker the other night. I mentioned that I’d need to brush up on my Spanish if I got the job at the Mexican restaurant, as that’s what the rest of the kitchen staff speak. He recounted how when he’d been in high school Spanish, the math teacher came in and struck up a conversation with the Spanish teacher in French. And here he is, sitting in class totally gobsmacked at the idea that a person could speak three languages.
Marcus @54
Or possibly a Welshman
More on topic, I’m in no way fluent in Latin, but I do like to think that I could recognize if a phrase is Latin, as opposed to Spanish, Italian or another Romance language.
weatherwax @57: bojac6 @32 covered it for the cognoscenti.
What a Maroon
Yes, but the amount of primary speaker of Spanish in the USA, defined as people who have been living in those parts of the USA before they became majority English speaking parts of the USA is negligible.
+++
I’m wondering, are those people also visiting the Flowered One and The Vales and Saint Anthony?
Nice reminder, Owlmirror @ 53 that ‘axed’ – now despised – was correct English long before ‘asked” came along.
I feel the urge to mount an expedition to Vermont to see how many of them can read Chaucer in the original. It could be a test for citizenship.
Owlmirror:
Funny. The reason she couldn’t understand him was probably that she spoke a dialect that had eyren for the plural. (The same archaic plural formation that we retain in “children” and “bretheren”.)
Caine
My grandma speaks fluent Russian since she’s Russian German, but she did not dare to teach her children a word of it cause in the middle of the cold war she was under constant suspicion already
Part of me is hoping a lot of the comments that appeared, at least after the ball got rolling, were by people trying to be funny. I want that to be true, but I know even if some were intended as jokes, many others were not.
Daz #17
Sigh, this is one of those examples that I really want to be a joke, I know some people would make that up and laugh. But really it does not matter, the sad part is that it is that while I can see the humour in making such a statement, it is utterly indistinguishable from a clueless comment.
magistramarla #44: That comment just piles on the disheartening nature of this. I just don’t get it, I don’t come from a highly educated family and had no formal latin classes, but I encountered latin early in life, long before I had a chance to sign up for specific courses in any sort of educational setting.
Maureen Brian
Battle of Maldon?
Much more fun…
futurechemist @64:
OK, which language is this*?
*Trick question, courtesy of Mario Pei. Or maybe he was full of shit.
Pig Latin?
Early Italian?
It seems to have lost some inflections though the characteristic changes of Spanish have not occured.
Maureen Brian @67:
English was messier than that. The reconstructed Proto-Germanic is *aiskojan. Old English had ascian and acsian, and Middle English had asken and axen. Still;
Gilell @ 71,
Tried hard with the Battle of Maldon on an OU course. Did not get very far! I love my copy of Beowulf, though, with Seamus Heaney version and the original on the opposite page. With the modern one for use in emergency, I’m doing better with that.
The poem is supposed to be both Italian and Latin (no idea myself if it succeeds in this); as one is directly descended from the other, it will be possible to find forms of certain lexemes that have either not changed or where the derived form has reverted to the ancestral form in its history. In theory, it might be possible to do the same with any set of cognate languages; German and a Scandinavian language, or Hebrew and Arabic, for instance.
Esperanto? Peano’s “latina sine flexiones” (in which he published the Peano Postulates and his work on set theory!), that became (I think) Interlingua?
# 72 is correct Italian or its ancestral Latin, both, I think.
Damnation. I have never studied Latin, but I could make out that motto to be Latin, and got “star”, “four”, and “ten” (or related words) out of it, and knew I had once known the meaning of “fulgent”. I did indeed recall it once I went to read the linked article.
How can people not know other languages at least a little? When I walked into a store earlier today, there was a sign in two languages – I took the chance to learn a bit. When my family was visiting a big city where we heard lots of languages, we always agreed on our guesses as to what language the folks were speaking, even if none of us knew a word of it.
My thought was what will happen if they realize that Semper Fi derives from a Latin phrase
#32 bojac6
People called Romanes, they go, the house (Romanes eunt domus instead of Romani ite domum)
FIFY ;-)
I remember this because we adopted “currae ite domum” when stuck in traffic. Until somebody tells me I got that wrong … ?
I don’t remember any more than that …. :-(
ETA oops, the clip is right there
They could embrace the motto of the Republican Party: “Habeo mea. Pedicabo Populi” ;)
markbarker @82
What’s this about everyone getting their own pedicab?
CJO@68: Yes, that anecdote concludes with: Loo what sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte. egges or eyren
@72
Actually it’s written in both italian and latin, with the same precise meaning (it’s a prayer to the Virgin).
@83 Futurechemist
Pedicabo literally means “I will f**k your arse”.
Unfortunately most people from “Latin America” don’t speak Latin at all. I know virtually no Spanish and when I last attempted to converse with Spanish-speaking people I inevitably started babbling in Latin and I can attest that hardly anyone understands it. But hey – English was good enough for Jesus so it’s got to be good enough for the rest of the world.
I figured out what the sentence meant from Google Translate. I was just making a joke between the false friends “pedicabo” and “pedicab”
My dad’s siblings could speak something I think they called goose english or goose latin as kids. It was unintelligible to me even when they tried to explain it a bit.
From Urban Dictionary.
“Like Pig Latin, Goose Latin is a generically juvenile code language that nobody can figure out. Here’s how to speak it.
For example, you take the word: CITY. Separate the syllables.
CI-TY. Add these new syllables: LA-FI, or LI-FA, whatever sounds better, in between CI-TY, In that order. Thus, CILAFITY. (Pronounced: Sill-Uh-Fit-ee)
Thelafa calafat crolafossed thelefa streelafeet, andlafand thelen clilafimbed alafa treelafee. (The cat crossed the street, and then climbed a tree.)”
Reading it is much easier than understanding it when spoken at full speed.
Y’know…I’ll just bet that the native peoples would be glad to have their land back, after you leave.
Those that remain, that is.
–
loreo @49,
It makes me so sad to see what you wrote about your grandfather teaching his children only English and allowing your family to lose part of your culture. My son married a beautiful young woman from Mexico, who also has Spanish and Italian heritage.
I’m delighted that she is teaching my grandson Spanish as well as English. He’s less than two years old, but he knows the difference between the names of his two grandmothers. He calls me “Gamma” and his other grandmother “Aba-aba”.
He is already beginning to go effortlessly between the two languages.
His life will be richer for being aware of ALL the cultures that have contributed to his life.
Great. I thought I moved away from this attitude when I moved from Arizona to Vermont! Goes to show you that assholes exist everywhere (also, even though Vermont is a pretty progressive state, it’s also home to a lot of conservative gun and hunting fetishists).
OT, but I just wanted to congratulate Canadian Prime Minister Tim Horton on his first double-double.
What a Maroon @60
I am reminded of the day that I was driving behind a hummer in the small town in which we lived in California.
The hummer sported a bumper sticker that said “Why in hell should I have to push 1 for English?”
I was chuckling to myself because we were on a street named aguajito, in a town named Monterey, in a state which was settled by Spanish speakers long before English speakers arrived. I thought to myself that he really should be pushing 2 for English.
Giliell @ 66,
There’s still a substantial Tejano population that speaks Spanish as their native language, but the point is more what magistramarla @ 93 illustrated: Spanish in the US is no more a foreign language than English.
Of course they both are colonial impositions and were used in different ways to drive out or replace all the languages that were already here. Though the history of Spanish in the Americas and its relationship with the local languages is far more complicated and interesting than English.
I loved the poem @72. I was able to read it fairly easily. It shows the transformation of the language from Latin to Italian very well. I’m preparing for a trip to Italy next month, and I’m finding that reading Italian is fairly easy for me. Following a conversation with a native speaker may be more difficult!
My hubby and I both learned Latin and ancient Greek in college. When we traveled in Greece a few years ago, we were surprised that we could read signs fairly easily. People there laughed at us, because we spoke like ancient Greeks, but we were able to get our points across.
I love learning how languages change over time and influence other languages.
magistramarla 93
When I last worked in a call center, I received a call from a very irate woman who wanted me to connect her to the president of the company so she could tell him directly that he better stop having any Spanish support or Press 1 for English, because she was a member of a really powerful group called the Tea Party, maybe I’ve heard of them? She refused utterly to believe that I couldn’t, in fact, connect her to the president of the cell phone company, not least because I was employed by a totally different company that they subcontract customer service to, and was quite personally abusive when I explained that we had got over 12 million Spanish speaking customers, and I didn’t think that the company was ready to lose that income stream anytime soon.
Reminds me of the time I was living in another country, not really understanding the language, and buying “voucher” cards for my prepay cellphone. I got good at guessing my way through the menu of putting them into my phone account, and actually picked up a few more words of the language in the painful process. (I was phoning home on weekends, and it took like four vouchers per call.) After quite a time, I realized that one of the earlier strings of gibberish translated into “For English, push 2.”
If countries on the far side of the world can offer an English option, we can damn well offer other languages for the people that we import to do our dirty work. Anybody who can’t push 1 is indeed lazy – I have to do that for my debit-card balance, and it never occurred to me to complain, or even notice. If anything, I felt privileged that it came up first.
It’s always sad when bright young people learn firsthand how stupid adults are. It’s also not good that my reaction when reading about this for the first time was relief that at least it wasn’t state legislators pushing the “Latin ain’t Murcan” argument.
Hah! I remember my mum coming back from a visit to Coober Pedy in the early 70s. A lot, most, of the miners were from various countries having been post WW2 refugees. Because they’d all spent time in refugee camps in Europe before coming here, they’d picked up a smattering of several languages. However, everyone was most fluent in their own language. The simple solution for rapid conversation was for everyone to speak in their own language knowing that everyone else understood all the languages spoken.
It worked for them around a table in the pub, but my parents found it hilarious to watch. (They couldn’t speak or understand any of what was being said – all they could do was to recognise individual words in Polish, German, Czech, whatever. So it took a while for it to sink in what was happening. And then they laughed and laughed when someone finally explained in heavily accented English what they were doing.)
Hey—100 comments into this thread, and nobody has pointed out that the name “Vermont” is French?
I.e., (1) it’s not English, and indeed (2) it’s in a language directly descended from Latin?
My dad mentions a similar phenomenon when he goes to conferences in Europe: a bunch of people will be sitting around a table speaking German, then someone will say something they can best express in French, and everyone starts speaking French, until someone cracks wise in Spanish, and the conversation moves into Spanish. Then an American sits down, and everyone speaks English until they leave.
@ 101. Ow!
Yeah, I met a European kid who could speak a bunch of languages. (He couldn’t translate for squat, and he said that he hated it when he started thinking in German.) I later met a German guy whose job was translating between two languages, neither of them his native.
To be honest it does seem a bit sill when any old state/institution uses Latin in their motto. It seems to just be an attempt to give it a veneer of sophistication and tradition which isn’t there. Like buying jeans with the knees already faded or torn to make it look like you’ve been really active and adventurous.
If it is a phrase originally from that language then it seems fair enough (and I don’t know if this is, though the specificity of the 14th star makes it seem that it was made intentionally for the purpose).
I do wonder why Latin is always the go to language (I know the culture has had a significant influence on the west, but not in any way related to the motto). How many states have French/Spanish/Portugese mottos? Have people of those languages never said anything wise? I must admit I’m kinda holding out for a state to adopt an Arabic motto.
“What do you call someone who can speak two languages?”
“Bilingual.”
“What do you call someone who can speak three languages?”
“Trilingual.”
“What do you call someone who can only speak one language?”
“American.”
=========
In my country’s defense, for much of the last century, for most of the people, there was absolutely no exposure to any other language, and no need for education in any other. There was institutional discrimination, and a cultural bad attitude which still exists, but for a little kid in Kansas, there was no reason to learn any other language, or even to be aware that such a thing existed.
Having given it a bit more thought, I realised that a good reason for a Latin motto, even if it is artificially imposed is neutrality. If they’d used English, Spanish or any other minority language, it can give the impression of the state favouring that group, in the same way a religious motto might. By using a dead language like Latin, they can avoid all that by making it foreign to everyone. I have no idea if that was part of their thinking, but it seems like a good justification.
Memyambal
I’m afraid that only highlights the bigotry and parochialism of the community you grew up in. There is no time in living memory that Kansas has not been home to a considerable Spanish-speaking population, principally employed (in dreadful conditions for low wages) in various seasonal agricultural and food processing jobs. Additionally, Kansas remains home to the Kickapoo, Baxoje, Bodéwadmi, Sauk and Meskwaki nations, all of whom retain their own languages. And that’s just people born within the same state as you.
Why do people want to be more ignorant?
More words, more concepts, more ways of expressing, should make you smarter.
How is this bad?
Ah, this brings back some memories…
The Joke Menyambal mentiones in #104 I heard for the first time during my first working visit to US. It was told to me by an American coleague during a conversation about american assholes. We were working in a hotel, where much of the work was done by students from different european countries, all of whom spoke two languages at least. The conversation leading to the telling of this joke started by someone mentioning that they overheard some american bozo complaining that these students are “soo stoopid they cannot talk proper english”. Well, of course our english was not (and my definitively never will be) grammaticaly perfect and with the “correct” local accent if it is not the language you grew up with. I still remember the hurt and simlutaneous amusement at being looked upon with disdain for my intelectual inferiority from someone who by all objective accounts had less education and knowledge about almost anything – sometimes including US culture and written English (one American coleague had asked once his European coleague how you spell the word “mushrooms” and the irony was lost on him). That was my first first-hand encounter with what I later learned is called “American exceptionalism”.
When I traveled with my friend via Greyhound across the US from NY to Idaho, we conversed in Czech. We did not get any trouble besides occasional polite question “Where are you guys from?”. Later that year (I do not remember if in LA or in San Francisco) we were walking along the street, talking, and suddenly a man passing us shouted “You are in Amerika, you should speak English!” with such a venom in his voice, that we were momentarily taken aback. Luckily he went on without stopping.
American exceptionalism is, at least to my mind, at the root of many bad things around the world. When dumb people think they are better than everyone else by virtue of being born to particular nationality, nothing good ever comes from it.
What a Maroon
Eh, yes?
I’m not quite sure on what you’re trying to school me. My point that the part of the Spanish speaking population who’ve been living in the USA since before it was the USA are only a very small fracture of the huge amount of hispanohablantes still stands (I would have to dig up my lecture notes to look for the numbers) and my jokes about the Flowered One should have made it clear that I’m fully aware of the history of Spanish in the USA. Actually, knowing about that Tejano Spanish in the first place should have given that away.
Menyambal
Apart, of course, from the measurable benefit on intellectual capacities to know more than one language and the benefits of personal growth through exposure to other languages because it forces you to de-centralise yourself and your perspective. Though in “defense” of Americans: You’re not the only ones among Inner Circle speakers who think that English is the bestest language of all and therefore others should learn and use it.
*Thankfully even magical kingdoms which can traditionally be accessed via Kansas speak English.
If English was good enough for our Lord. ..
America is a Latin word! (Don’t tell them it is latinized FEMININE)
Shall we move on now to history and the fact that Kansas is slap bang in the middle of the Louisiana Purchase? Safe to assume, then, that a goodly number spoke French?
@95 Magistramarla
Depending on where are you going and on who you’ll be talking to it may be fairly easy (Florence or Milan), harder (Rome) or nigh to a nightmare (Naples). Good luck ;-)
Same for me, having learned ancient Greek at high school I always forget the modern language has a very different pronunciation.
Paolo, there is a remnant population in northern Turkey that uses a dialect of Greek that is fairly close to the ancient Oikumene version. They are muslims and regarded as “proper” Turks, so they were not subjected to the ethnic cleansing that followed the Greek-Turkey war of the 1920s.
Other Greek speakers -“pontians”- around the Black Sea often speak versions closer to the modern offical version.
— — — —
Southern Louisiana was bilingual until fairly recently -media is erasing this aspect of local culture.
In west Sweden, there is still a tiny group of French-speaking “valloons” brought here from what is today Belgium because of their ironworking skills. And a lot of people in Lapland who identify as ethnic Swedes are descended from Sami who made the transition to farming during the last 400 years.
At Ed Brayton’s blog, the commenter caseloweraz notes
“The VPO has another column on the subject, which tells us that “Stella Quarta Decima” was the motto on Vermont’s coinage when it was a republic.”
So latin has been around in Vermont since forever.
When is someone going to point out to them that the person who instilled anti-intellectualism into them did it for all the reasons they fear intellectuals for.
Recursive stupidity – there is no cure.
“…just like if we go there they want us to speak theirs”
Oh, BULLSHIT. These fuckers have NO IDEA how the non-Anglophone world bends over backwards to learn English. Of course that’s to be expected when you don’t have a passport.
@114 Birgerjohansson
Even in Apulia and Calabria they still speak a dialectal version of ancient greek called griko.
Since you asked, one state (MN) has a French motto, and one state (MT) has Spanish. Other outliers include Italian (MD), Hawaiian (HI), Greek (CA), and Chinook (WA). American Samoa’s motto is in Samoan.
When people from non-English-speaking countries find out that I’m able to speak and understand five to six languages, they always assume that I mustn’t have been born in a place that spoke English. Me, I can’t understand not wanting to be multilingual. Too much in the world to know to wait for it all to be in English. :)
For a moment, I felt bad. I thought I was being an elitist in making the face and the sad noise that I made, but then I realised that I have no fancy-pants dead language edumacatives either… I’m just fucking curious.
#5 JustaTech
Please don’t. I’d hate to be associated with those old guys in funny clothes from the Vatican just because I accidentally live in one of those continents.
#6 azhael
What about Ignorantia imperat?
#7 Paolo
It doesn’t surprise me a bit. I live surrounded by people with Italian surnames and that doesn’t mean they have any idea what Italy is.
#39 petrander
There is the term Ibero-America, if you don’t mind excluding Haiti.
#103 Sids
There’s no power associated with Portuguese, so you won’t find many people going out of their way to learn it. You can find the occasional French or Spanish quote, though. Mainly, French.
Quite possible; but there is no escape from Poe’s Law.
No surprise there. The fear of the strange is always strongest among people who don’t know any strangers and are left to fearing their own imagination. Guess why was much stronger in Dresden than elsewhere.
Thank you for making me laugh out loud.
Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) @ 36
I had similar thoughts on seeing this. Latin’s not a language a lot of laypeople understand. Law, science, and medicine all use it extensively, however. On the one hand, this keeps multilingual professions easy to understand across linguistic barriers. On the other hand, this also serves to prevent the uneducated from successfully entering any of these fields and mucking the place up. While that may protect our professions, it also makes what we do almost unintelligible to everyone else. Telling people that a prohibited activity threatens Ursus Maritimus is probably going to get a lot of clueless looks, but they’ll get the gist immediately if you phrased it as polar bear. That barrier to accessing our writing can become counterproductive in cases where we want people to access our materials, such as public presentations, or legal opinions. Someone wrongly imprisoned, for instance, may need years to decode the legal jargon before they can successfully appeal. Res ipsa loquitur may make perfect sense to a foreign attorney trying to read a legal opinion, but it’ll confound someone trying to write their own appeal from behind bars.
Using Latin phrasing in things we expect people to interact with every day is very much a classist move and probably counterproductive to how we would like our society to run. E Pluribus Unum sounds great in Latin, “from many, one”, sounds great to those of us who know enough Latin to get the phrasing. From many different people and ideas, you get one nation. But for people who do not understand any of it, it becomes a useful vehicle for the very anti-democratic, anti-freethinking forces that motto was trying to oppose. One of the bible thumpers is going to interpret that as one god, (theirs), ruling over the entirety of the populace. A supply side economist is going to say that he owns a lot of dollars and this is just one of them, to him it’s a motto encouraging his greed. Look at how many crazy people think the “A New Order for the Ages” on the back of the dollar means we declared a New World Order with the Freemasons in charge. If you’re using a motto as an inspiration to people so they strive to live up to a certain standard, maybe Latin’s not the way to go. You’re only reaching the people who can afford to learn enough Latin to understand it.
We’re making another completely classist move by making fun of these people. Sure, they’re racist and uneducated, but we’re making ourselves look like a bunch of elitist pricks by spending hours and hours of our comments patting ourselves on the back for knowing Latin when they don’t.
Let’s not get too worked up just because of a little bit of racism.
If the lesson someone learned from this was “I’m great because I know Latin,” then they’ve missed the point. But I don’t think many did. The hell, I don’t think most people commenting here know Latin. Count me as one of them.
The problem here is that we’re seeing an angry knee-jerk reaction against anything that looks Spanish or foreign, and exactly because those Vermonters believe they belong to a culture and linguistic community that is superior to whatever exists in Latin America. I’d call that elitism, if I may.
Now, I’m all for making things more accessible, but if you want to purge the statutes from Latinisms so more people can understand them, you’d making an argument much distinct from what those people were making.
As a former public school teacher, rather than focus on the idea of Latin contributing to elitism, I say educate more young people in Latin. I taught in a huge (3000+ students) high school. I had many students who came from poor families.
I told them quite honestly that I also had grown up poor, but I didn’t let that stop me.
I tried to instill a love of learning and an understanding of how languages and cultures are related into those students – including the ones who thought that they had signed up for Latin American studies.
Many of my students were Spanish speakers, and they quickly learned that Spanish and Latin were related and soon felt proud that they had an advantage in learning a new language.
I was very proud when I took several of my students to a museum exhibit about Pompeii and watched other people around us being impressed as my kids easily read and translated the Latin inscriptions in the exhibit. Another one of my students traveled with his Dad on business to London. He told me that he was mistaken for a tour guide near the statue of Boudica when he was explaining her story to his father.
This incident in Vermont tells me that we need to fight to improve education for all.
Brian Radovich #125:
Firstly please don’t use gendered slurs.
I took Latin, and am working class through-and-through—you might want to check your assumptions. The point is not that they don’t know Latin. It’s that they don’t, apparently know of Latin.
I also disagree that mocking the prideful ignorance of these people constitutes elitism. Stupidity of this caliber deserves to be mocked. If they were ignorant of something like quantum physics it would be a different story, but there is simply no excuse to not know that the majority of european languages have latin components and are written with a latin invention known as the alphabet. Knowing what those latin word parts mean is basic knowledge that I was taught in middle school english class. Have these people never used a dictionary? Looked at a dollar bill? Planted geraniums* or petunias? I find it hard to believe that not one of those people is aware that the traditional Catholic mass is conducted in latin. *to be fair, the plant most people call geraniums are actually pelergoniums
Brian Radovich,
How is it inappropriate to ridicule those who are acting in a ridiculous manner.
Brian Radovich,
Are we mocking them for not knowing Latin or for being racist and xenophobic?
Also, I don’t know Latin. But I know of Latin. And even if I didn’t, my reaction to a motto in Latin shouldn’t be to ask for the deportation of Mexican immigrants.
In short, we’re mocking their bigotry. The stupidity is just a bonus.
Knowing that people in Latin America don’t speak Spanish is hardly Ivy league level knowledge. It doesn’t have anything to do with knowing Latin as such. It’s on the level of knowing that Africa is not a country.
Tethys @ 129:
I don’t think it would be different at all, if they were responding with such inanity. Things like I think also deserve to be mocked. It’s not ignorance itself, nor the topic of which they are ignorant, but the arrogant pridefulness that their lack of knowledge is somehow a good thing, and that their deeply ignorant opinions should drive policy.
Knowing that in the United States there has been in fact a very long and proud tradition of having mottos in Latin, dating all the way back at least to the Founding Fathers and their admiration of Roman culture (and indeed even further back than that) is hardly elitist. It’s the kind of thing you’d think patriotic Americans would be taught in grade school, would insist on being taught in grade school, and if not, would teach their children themselves.
@Amphiox #134:
Indeed. Just be careful when you tell them about the fasces in the Oval Office!
@Charly #108:
I can think of someone a bit like that here in England. Unfortunately he’s the leader of a political party.
I think you mean “don’t speak Latin” (as the natural or native language, that is).
Pedant time: In addition to the obvious Spanish, there is a rather noticeable group of Portuguese speakers, plus clusters of French, Dutch, and English speakers (for a suitably broad definition of “Latin America”). Plus numerous indigenous languages, and I assume there are some creoles and maybe some pidgins spoken.
None of which is to distract from your point.
Yes, I meant Latin.
Sorry, I was typing on the tablet while trying to get the kids ready for bed.
I have been loving this thread, which has taught me two things: 1) Latin Americans don’t speak Latin and 2) Africa is not a country.
And for the record, I would also like to say that people from Latvia also don’t speak Latin, nor are we from the Balkans (two less-known but oft-made confusions).
rq
Are you going to tell me that Latvia is not a form of lettuce?
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- #42:
Bit late, but I just noticed this:
Worse yet…
(And for the sake of gawd, don’t tell ’em about ilm al-jabr wa’l-muqābala.)
Giliell
No, but there is Roman lettuce…
#137 blf
I think this category is usually called “Latin America and Caribbean.” A more cynical term would be “Poor America.”
“Latin? To god-damned hell with latin! We have no latin. In fact, we don’t need latin. I don’t have to show you any stinking latin, you god-damned cabrón and chinga tu madre!” (with apologies to B. Traven)
I thought Latvia was a kind of pastry.
Like a Berlinner.
I understood a little of that poem (#85), and am left wondering how long a turbine funestro takes to go zero to sixty.
Was. From the 2nd Vatican Council till just a few years ago, it was outright outlawed; then Benedict XVI allowed it again, but it’s very rare – the vast majority of parishes never hold such a mass, and indeed many churches aren’t built for it.
chigau
More of a meat dish, like a hamburger.
David
There’s a few parishes in Canada and Australia that would like to argue on behalf of the Latin mass not being outright outlawed. No need for a special church, they just do everything in Latin. Even the singing, which is the fun part.
Oh, I forgot this:
Pelargonium. :-)
The trick is that the Tridentine Mass has the priest facing away from the congregation for large parts of the service, and many churches built in the last 50 years can’t really accommodate that. And I did say it’s not forbidden anymore.
David
It has not been forbidden for more than just the past few years. I know a church in Toronto that has always done the Latin mass. Since, like, before the ’80s. Or maybe they were just not following church law or something, I don’t know, but I do know that they were around doing the tridentine in the ’90s.
Whether the tridentine mass is even a thing in newer congregations, I don’t know. I think the one I know of in Australia is also an older church.
David @ 147:
You miss the point. Vast amounts of people grew up with Latin Mass, many people had heard of them, etc. (I grew up with Latin Mass – every single Sunday, for years on end, at St. Anne’s in SoCal, a very ordinary church.)
Of course not! Latvians speak Balkan and are from Latin.
And in fact the acronym for “University of Vermont” is “UVM”, indicating that some Vermonters recognize that “Vermont” is (in effect) an elision of “Vert Mont”.
I suppose that other Vermonters just think it’s reasonable to form an acronym on a syllable-by-syllable basis. (And don’t get me started on my rant about “University of Colorado” turning into “CU”.)
David
Nope, this is America, where the faithful pick and choose which Papal edicts they will honor. The High Mass has certainly become less common since the sixties, but it is still offered weekly at some traditionalist churches, and an abbreviated version is quite commonly used for special occasions like weddings or Palm Sunday. I agree that the singing and Gregorian chant in a Cathedral part is a wondrous fair experience, but the endless Latin prayers are rather tedious and the incense gives me a headache. I’ve attended church with catholic friends and family many times. We used to amuse ourselves circa 1985 by inventing misheard liturgy and trying to make our friends laugh out loud in church. We cruise with the Lord. (resp) Lord let us cruise
leerudolph
According to wiki the acronym has always been based on the evil foreign latin, not french.
I’m pretty sure most Vermonters are aware of the green mountains, and that Vermont is bowdlerized French.. ( I mean c’mon, how can you not notice mountains?) French Canadian is a very common heritage in all of the places that adjoin the Great Lakes.
…That makes sense of a couple of things, I suppose.
That’s a single green mountain; a university of several green mountains would be “universitas viridium montium”. (…The word order with the adjective before its noun would still be weird, though not quite as weird as in French.)