Are the Humanities Doomed?

[namazu]

On the other hand, I have a classicist friend who is very into the "active Latin" or "living Latin" approach to language teaching and learning.  There are organizations dedicated to this, not only in the Catholic Church.  And they do indeed have podcasts and Twitter and Facebook accounts.  I suspect that they would disagree that "it does not help the students to actually learn to read real Latin", though I don't know the relevant research myself.  It sounded like my friend had some fun conversations with students about their feles who kept Zoom-bombing class this past semester, though! 

To come back to the original topic of the thread, it sounds like a potentially useful tool for student engagement.  Their classes seem to be quite popular.

[Hibush]

1) I tried to do some of this some years back when I had to teach a Latin class to 5th/6th grade kids.... I do not think kids that young belong in Latin class

They were a few years too old. As the nature receptivity to additional languages declines with age, the greater difficulty in learning also makes it sticking too it much harder. Especially when learning other things is getting easier.

I get that  this approach is probably more marketable to their target audience, but it does not help the students to actually learn to read real Latin, really, it just doesn't.

If speaking the language keeps college-aged learners engaged, they will spend time on the deeper understanding. It can be acknowledged that they are not speaking in a way that would have been understood in ancient Rome, but some modern invention. Do you think that is a fair tradeoff for having more students learning serious classics?

[mamselle]

As to speaking Latin, it was required on university campuses (including those in the New World) until some time in the 18th c.

John Dunster's trial for heterodoxy was held in spoken Latin, both by the prosecution and the defense (he defended his Anapaedobaptist beliefs himself).

And the course on Hildegaard's sermons, held on the same campus 350 years later, included twenty individuals fluently reading aloud as required to clear up a vexed transcription.

So it's not a useless skill to have, nor completely out of date....

M.

[apl68]

On the other hand, I have a classicist friend who is very into the "active Latin" or "living Latin" approach to language teaching and learning.  There are organizations dedicated to this, not only in the Catholic Church.  And they do indeed have podcasts and Twitter and Facebook accounts.  I suspect that they would disagree that "it does not help the students to actually learn to read real Latin", though I don't know the relevant research myself.  It sounded like my friend had some fun conversations with students about their feles who kept Zoom-bombing class this past semester, though! 

To come back to the original topic of the thread, it sounds like a potentially useful tool for student engagement.  Their classes seem to be quite popular.

At the university library media center where I used to work I recall receiving a video entitled Latin Laughs.  It was a modern production, in Latin, of a play by Plautus.  Student engagement in a threatened subject is good.

[Ruralguy]

In all honesty, I feel horrible about what is happening with Classics even if it is sort of inevitable with any small field, at least during times when even academia seems focused on the hyper practical (understood some risk going under. If they don't). My brothers and I took Latin from 7th to 12th grade. One of my brothers took a few classes in college even though he knew he was going to be pre med (and yes, actually became a doc). We liked our teachers. I think we learned quite a lot about language, culture and history. I think my high school is still teaching Latin! Not sure what to do though. If someone is retiring or quitting and enrollments are down or in some cases non existent, how do we justify continuing if we have limited resources?

[Hibush]

As to speaking Latin, it was required on university campuses (including those in the New World) until some time in the 18th c.

John Dunster's trial for heterodoxy was held in spoken Latin, both by the prosecution and the defense (he defended his Anapaedobaptist beliefs himself).

And the course on Hildegaard's sermons, held on the same campus 350 years later, included twenty individuals fluently reading aloud as required to clear up a vexed transcription.

So it's not a useless skill to have, nor completely out of date....

M.

Species descriptions in (biological) taxonomy were published in Latin until quite recently. Organism names are still in Latin, and a lot of the words to describe things are nominally English, but really mostly Latin (e.g. spatulate, cuneate, falcate, peltate, hastate are a few of the English words used to describe leaf shape. Good luck with those if you don't know Botanical Latin!)

Biological Latin continue to be taught so to some extent. Latin names of organisms are pronounced in the local dialect. That is, Italians, Australians, Canadians and Texans all pronounce the Latin words in legitimately distinctive ways. There are various mutually exclusive conventions of pronunciation that are all considered valid. (Is your Forsythia blooming? One convention has you pronouncing that Forsythe-EE-ah because Forsythe isn't Latin.)

The latest International Code of Zoological Nomenclature notes that "Another major underlying policy issue currently being questioned is the adherence to Latin grammar which the Code requires in a number of its Articles; few zoologists today, or in the future, can be expected to have any understanding of that language and many find the requirements burdensome."  Why are not classics professors roaming the halls of the biology building telling professors and advisors that they do not have to give in the this deterioration of their science?

[downer]

What is happening to classics departments internationally? What about medieval studies? Near Eastern Studies?

The scholarly study of these topics will still go on even if a lot of universities get rid of these departments. And students will be able to still do some study of these topics, even if it is in other departments. Students seem to love studying past cultures and that will draw some interest into past languages.

While those areas may not be thriving, it would he helpful to be clear on what is being lost as they decline.

In all honesty, I feel horrible about what is happening with Classics even if it is sort of inevitable with any small field, at least during times when even academia seems focused on the hyper practical (understood some risk going under. If they don't). My brothers and I took Latin from 7th to 12th grade. One of my brothers took a few classes in college even though he knew he was going to be pre med (and yes, actually became a doc). We liked our teachers. I think we learned quite a lot about language, culture and history. I think my high school is still teaching Latin! Not sure what to do though. If someone is retiring or quitting and enrollments are down or in some cases non existent, how do we justify continuing if we have limited resources?

[Ruralguy]

I'm well aware of what is being lost, but if you lose a faculty member, don't replace them, and then consolidate the departments, then something *is* lost regarding the study of the subject. I also said I was clear that this is not as big of a thing amongst elite or flagship state schools (and probably some others).
I get that if a subject just doesn't have foot traffic, it will shrink in terms of the discipline as a whole. I know people won't stop studying (Ancient) Greek and Latin, but it will end its life as a pillar of many smaller schools.

[Erictho]

It is also perhaps also a dirty little secret that most classicists, like it or not, are not really qualified to teach classical langs conversationally. 

Classicist here. This is absolutely true. But it is changing. Latin, and ancient Greek are being taught, successfully, as active languages, and the active Latin approach is becoming popular in grade school and also in post secondary, in particular at the University of Kentucky (home to a very successful undergrad and grad program taught in Latin, and home of a Conventiculum --- week-long immersion event in spoken Latin, and now also a Synoidos, which is their week-long immersion event in ancient Greek) and at U Mass Boston, and Oxford (to name just a few); the Pope's former Latinist now teaches active Latin at Cornell. There are lots more places where one can learn both an active command of the languages and how to use active language in the classroom.

I get that  this approach is probably more marketable to their target audience, but it does not help the students to actually learn to read real Latin, really, it just doesn't.

I respectfully disagree here. Learning a language, any language, as a *language* does help one to learn to read and understand the language in real time, rather than only after it's been decoded into English (or whatever your first language is). Training the brain to understand the language in real time means you can read and understand the original Latin authors. Active fluency in a language is something we should aim for, including Latin and ancient Greek.

[mamselle]

Which is why, in addition to having my Firefox and Adobe language preferences set to "French," for day-to-day use, I've been thinking of getting my dual-page copy of the Vetus and the Vulgate down for morning prayers. (I already read Compline in French....)

M.

[Caracal]

I respectfully disagree here. Learning a language, any language, as a *language* does help one to learn to read and understand the language in real time, rather than only after it's been decoded into English (or whatever your first language is). Training the brain to understand the language in real time means you can read and understand the original Latin authors. Active fluency in a language is something we should aim for, including Latin and ancient Greek.

Is it possible this approach might work better for some students and worse for others?

My admittedly limited experience with this is that I struggled  with languages in high school and college. I took four years of Spanish and never acquired even rudimentary fluency. In college I took an old English class that was a lot of translation and while it wasn't easy, I had a much easier time studying a language that I was just trying to learn how to read, not converse in.

That said, Old English is only sort of a foreign language, which is why I continue to find it kind of fascinating, but maybe that part made it a lot easier than learning Latin would be.

[Erictho]

I respectfully disagree here. Learning a language, any language, as a *language* does help one to learn to read and understand the language in real time, rather than only after it's been decoded into English (or whatever your first language is). Training the brain to understand the language in real time means you can read and understand the original Latin authors. Active fluency in a language is something we should aim for, including Latin and ancient Greek.

Is it possible this approach might work better for some students and worse for others?

Oh yes, absolutely. No one approach, whether it the living / active language approach or the traditional "G'n'T" (Grammar and Translation) approach works best for everyone.

[Hegemony]

Old English is not just "only sort of a foreign language"; it is entirely a foreign language, with a few words recognizable to modern English speakers, just as is the case in modern German. " Hafast þu gefered þæt ðe feor ond neah ealne wideferhþ weras ehtigað, efne swa side swa sæ bebugeð, windgeard, weallas" — that's not just "only sort of a foreign language" so that your average person on the street can tell you what it means — nor do undergrads pick it up without a lot of work.

[mamselle]

It's especially fun at Kalamazoo when a whole group of early linguists get together and read a play or take turns reading a treatise of some kind in one of the after-dinner gatherings.*

The conference I just participated in a week ago, in its in-person incarnation, two years before, included a table full of Chaucer scholars going around and taking turns reading from the original of "The Wife of Bath."

Arguments over questionable pronunciations and interpretations got quite interesting.

M.

*Oh, and if you attend one of the monastic groups' sessions, they practically do start arguing in Latin--the length of the quotes they've memorized, from Aristotle to Augustine to Aquinas and on, become ripostes with hidden jests and responsive meanings as well. Heady stuff.  - M.

[spork]

[. . .]

nor do undergrads pick it up without a lot of work.

The standard U.S. gen ed requirement of two semesters of a language other than modern English is not driving hordes of people into classics or other humanities graduate programs. Nor is it making bachelor's degrees in humanities fields more popular. Interest and proficiency in languages other than English is another example of K-12 failure. Trying to gin up interest in multilingualism and willingness to make the necessary effort is a fruitless exercise for the majority of U.S. undergraduates, especially when language courses are presented in curricula as a meaningless one-and-done requirement.