April 23, 2007

Lingua Latina


My Master in blogging, HPY, has two latin phrases on top of her front page: "Nil novi sub sole" (Nothing new under the sun) and "Nulla dies sine linea" (Not one day without a line). She is perfectly following the second sentance, but she must explain what she meant with the first sentence; she has always something new to tell.
This brings me to what I learnt when I about a week ago visited my old school in Gothenburg, Hvitfeldtska, some 350 years old. It used to be called something like the Latin Gymnasium and when I visited the school, we still had some six or seven hours of latin every week. I guess it was supposed to be the basis for studies of several other languages. Today, the school is not anymore teaching latin!
Somehow, I can understand it. When I attended, I often thought that it would have been more useful to spend the six or seven hours (not mentioning the homework) on something more practically useful. However...

6 comments:

hpy said...

Well, I studied latin for one or two hours (not in a week, but in all) and sometimes I regret that I didn't continue.

Peter said...

... and the answer to my question?

hpy said...

Nothing new to tell, sometimes a new (?) way to tell old things. Life is repetition.

Peter said...

OK. Bis repitita placent.

Zhang Chunhong said...

I began to learn latin several months ago and I'm glad to discover this language.It can help us to understand other languages we speak today. So I think it's always useful to learn it.

lyliane six said...

J'ai aussi appris un peu de latin et de grec,mais je connais surtout les offices religieux en latin, car au pensionnat nous devions participer à tous.