Hi, everyone and welcome back to Happy Hour. 歡迎回來酒館

Hi 安瀾

Hi, Lulu. Hi, everyone.

Can I propose a topic today?

Yes.

You know It's gonna be something that you really, really, really love talking about, in fact, you can't shut up about it.

That makes a nice change.

Are you intrigued?

I'm intrigued, but also I'm slightly nervous every time you propose a topic.

All right. So jokes aside, we talked about all these loan words into English from German, from Italian and such... from Japanese. We never really go deep into some of the roots. You know I'm sure everyone who learned English or who's learning English to at the advanced level knows that you need to learn all these Latin roots, Greek roots.

So I thought, 安瀾, you studied Latin.

I did.

By the way, how's that being useful in your everyday life?

It sounds like it's useful for this episode.

Good Good, so I thought get our semi expert to talk about the Latin influence in English and some of the things that we still use in English that came from Latin.

Yes, that sounds brilliant.

See, I told you you would love this topic. All right. So first of all, 安瀾, I know this sounds like a loaded question, but isn't Latin a dead language? Why would you learn it and why would anyone learn it?

Okay. First of all, it's not a dead language. It's not a language spoken as a native language anymore, but it's not dead. It's still used in science, it's used in law. And technically it is the official language of the Vatican city. So at least one country has Latin as its official language.

就是梵蒂岡城里面, so the pope uses it.

The pope even sends tweet in Latin.

Okay, are you joking?

I'm not joking. I'm not joking. If you go online, if you go into social media, you will find some tweets in Latin.

Actually there was a film you recommended to me. I forgot the name, it's about the pope, the changing of the pope.

Conclave.

Conclave, yes, in that they were all speaking Latin.

Oh yeah, That's the thing. Even though that not many people speak it. I for example, I learned Latin, but I learned how to read it and to a certain extent write it. But that's because Latin has been used for thousands of years.

It's definitely an academic language. I mean for work reasons I've been dealing with a lot of legal English or medical English, they're filled with Latin.

Well, funny you should say that because lots of my classmates have actually gone into the law profession.

Oh, so you study Latin and then you just move on to law.

Well, that's one direction.

I see,I see . So how long is the history of Latin as a language?

Latin as a language has been around for about 2,000, 3,000 years? So the Roman Empire spread it across Europe, North Africa, and Middle East. It was mostly in Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance that Latin was the language of education, science, and also diplomacy.

I see. So everyone was learning Latin. It's kind of like everyone's learning English right now, that kind of...

Yeah, exactly. And the reason for that is that many modern languages come from Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, all come from Latin.

Can I ask, I mean you speak a little bit of Italian as well? How different is modern day Italian language compared with Latin?

I wouldn't say I speak Italian a lot, but it's quite recognizable with some of the words.

So for example, if you put in front of me an Italian text, I probably just be able to understand its basic meaning.

So you'll be able to read Italian to some extent.

To some extent.

Maybe not the modern slang,

No, but if you put in front of me a text in maybe French or Spanish, I can probably just about understand what the text is about, but I wouldn't be able to speak it.

You were just talking about how many modern languages come from Latin originally, how many Latin words are there in English? This is gonna be thousands.

Over 60% of words in English have Latin origins. Wow. So even though that English is a Germanic language, it's borrowed lots of words and structures from Latin, especially in academic and formal writing.

So do English kids, I mean English... native speakers of English growing up, do you guys have to learn a little bit of Latin.

In the past, yes. So probably 100 years ago, Latin was very, very, very common. So this is one of the stereotypes that if you go to a public school, for example, you would study Latin and Greek. They still offer Latin at schools, but it's not as popular as it once was.

I supposed things do change and you move on to other things.

Yeah. And the thing about Latin that I really like about it is a very logical language because people don't speak it, so it doesn't develop in that sort of natural way that languages develop. It's very logical and it's almost like doing puzzles.

So when you're translating from Latin into English, it's like trying to work out a puzzle.

So that is truly a language that you don't have to speak. You just have to remember the grammar rules and study it.

Well yeah.

Really?

One thing about Latin is its vocabulary is relatively small compared with other languages. So lots of meaning come through from grammar. So Latin grammar can be very complicated, but it's also quite logical. You just have to learn the rules.

I guess that's really good for very introverted people who find it difficult to speak a language when they learn it.

Well yeah. But It's also good for people who are interested in medicine and science because the names of plants, animals, diseases often come from Latin.

Yeah. If you want to study law or medicine, you have to learn a bit of Latin.

Yes. But Latin also has some little quirks. It's a little bit like Chinese. There's no proper one word for yes or no.

We do have proper word for yes or no, we say是，不是。

Well, for example, 我去，你去嗎？我去，我不去。

So basically you're saying that we put right in front of the verb. Isn't that the same in English?

Same in Latin. Latin doesn't have a Yes or No. So speakers have to use a full sentence or just repeat the verb.

I go, I don't go,

Yeah, I go or I don't go.

I see, I see. Okay So that's a little bit of background about Latin. I thought because this is a two-part episode. I thought we can cover some of the expressions that people are still using very frequently in English that originally come from Latin.

Absolutely.

First of all, Is that one Latin that's gonna be Latin like when you're trying to give examples, you say I see many animals, lions, tigers, etc.

Etcetera, yeah, etc .

But it's not pronounced etc.

No, but it's written as etc. Etcetera means ”and so on”.

“And so on”所以下回大家知道讀 etcetera /et?set?r?/

It just means “and others”.

I like many fruits, apples, bananas, etcetera.

Exactly. You also have, for example,verbatim.

Verbatim v-e-r-b-a-t-i-m ? yeah. That has got something to do with verbal words.

Yeah, so it means “word for word”. So we use that when we’re repeating what someone said. But if we want to emphasize it’s exactly what they said. We'll say “Lulu said that verbatim”.

就是逐字.

Yeah,

一個字、一個字的，就是一字不差的 word for word.

Yes, so this is what she said Verbatim, yeah. I think I've seen this in translation or something, it’s like verbatim translation.

Yeah , it's just as a way of saying this is exactly what was said.

What about that one, is “ego” a word from Latin ?

Yeah, ego or well, in Latin to be pronounced [?e?.go] means I or self. So for example alter ego.

Oh alter ego is kind of like your second personality.

Yeah, so It just means another self, so a second personality or you could also use it to describe a close friend .

Oh really ?

Yeah. For example, lulu you're like my alter ego. We're very close.

I am really not, but okay.

Never mind.

But when you're trying to describe your alter ego, it usually means that is a different for example, if you are very very extrovert and then you have another hidden personality that is very introvert, you can just say my alter ego is actually very quiet sits in a corner. Exactly.

And one thing that has been talked to death. I thought it was Italian, but this is actually Latin, it’s Carpe diem.

Seize the day.

Seize the day.

So many people got that as a tattoo now.

Yeah, I think it's because one of those movies, what was it? Dead Poets Society popularized it. 好像是《死亡詩社》把這個帶火了.

Carpet diem它是拉丁文, 英文是seize the day, 也就是live in the moment, 活在當下.

Enjoy the present moment,

及時行樂. I've seen that written on the walls of so many pubs.

Yeah.

I suppose when people drink, they do stupid things, they try to convince themselves by saying Carpe diem.

Well, you go to very cultured pubs. Your pubs are obviously a lot more better educated than my pubs.

Your pubs don't have Latin?

They don't have Latin written in the toilets, no. But yeah, that quote is actually from a poem that's from a roman poet Horace（全名：Quintus Horatius Flaccus）.

Just one quick question. So Latin back in Roman days, to them, it's just the language, right? It was a living language that they uses. It's like the Italian... that Italians use today.

Yes.

I see.

So this is one of the strange things about Latin is that we only learn sort of like the pure Latin. This is the Latin that the educated people thought was like the purest form of the language.

The academic, the formal, proper, Latin. You don't get any slangs?.

No. So for example, the reason why in many romance languages like Italian, Spanish, French, the word for “head” is something like testa or tête, so in French head means tête , in Latin It's caput.

Oh, like capital ?

Yes. So the reason why it's tête it’s because it comes from the Latin word testa, which means pot, so that was a slang term for someone's head.

Okay, I see. So some European languages borrowed the original Latin.

Well, they borrowed the slang.

No, I mean some European languages borrowed the original Latin, but some others borrowed the slang in Latin.

所以其實歐洲語言, 比如說如果你看到有一個詞, 幾個歐洲語言非常不一樣, 比如說羅曼語族和日耳曼語族完全不一樣的, 很有可能是因為一邊受到的影響是正統拉丁, 也就是學術派拉丁書面化拉丁的正規的影響, 而另外一部分語言是受到的是街頭拉丁 street Latin.

Exactly. And do you know where we learn street Latin from, how we know how Latin was spoken?

Isn't it the graffiti?

Exactly.

就是墻上涂鴉. I've seen that I've even bought books about that, if you're interested. Check out ancient roman graffiti, it’s hilarious.

And most of it is very very very very dirty.

I have a book about that, maybe in the future we can talk about that.

Well, that's not one for the children.

Yeah exactly. All right.