[MR] RE: Vatican Offers Volumes of Help to Latin Lovers

[Sharon Henderson]

Milord: 

Could you cite the titles of some of Ong's works?  That sounds like a fascinating branch of study!

Thanks in advance,
Meli


 --- On Mon 05/19, you wrote:
Thank you!<br><br>I was thinking recently that a popular modern phrase would render handily<br>into even classical Latin:<br><br>"I don't recall at this time, Senator."<br><br>Have any of you read Walter Ong's works on orality and literacy?  I was<br>fascinated by his observation that history's greatest achievements in<br>abstract logic were composed in "dead" languages--classical Latin, classical<br>Sanskrit, classical Arabic, classical Hebrew, etc.  Chirographically<br>controlled languages, which are actively written and read, but are nobody's<br>mother tongue, let people think in different ways than they normally can.  <br><br>One of the most difficult things about thinking medievally is this layer of<br>distance and abstraction.  Everything of consequence was written and read in<br>a language that was rarely spoken.  It's said that Martin Luther would<br>debate his opponents in ancient Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, whichever he<br>thought was their weakest.  None of those were
  actively spoken in Europe at<br>the time.  How alien that is to the way we think now!<br><br>-Charles Fleming<br>"Miror Otium Negotium Multum Requirere"<br><br><br>========================================================================<br>                   The Merry Rose Tavern at Cheapside<br>    List Info: http://merryrose.atlantia.sca.org/<br>  Submissions: Atlantia at atlantia.sca.org<br>Subscriptions: http://seahorse.atlantia.sca.org/mailman/listinfo/atlantia<br>

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