Latein ist tot, es lebe Latein. By WILFRIED STROH. Berlin: List Press,
2007. Pp. 415. Cloth, €18.00. ISBN 978–3–471–78829–5.
A book of some 400 pages on a dead language! Who would ever expect that?
Yet the present volume gives an enormous amount of information, presented
with the zeal and enthusiasm of an advocate for a good, and by no means yet
lost, cause.
Stroh (hereafter S.) is emeritus professor of Klassische Philologie at the
University of Munich. He is the author of the entry “Lebendiges Latein” in
Der Neue Pauly, 15/1 (2001) 92–9, and one of the most renowned advocates of
living Latin in Germany, indeed in all Europe, backed by an enormous Wissen
of the history of the language covering close to 3000 years. This learning
is underscored by a delightful, flowing style and a constantly recurring
sense of humor. Not every book written in German is easy to read, even for
a native, but this one carries the reader along. No chapter is excessively
long, and each is broken into sub-sections, so that the reader is never
fatigued by a particular subject or argument. But I must add one caveat;
much that S. says will mean little (or nothing) to a reader who does not
know modern Germany well, indeed the Germany of the last several centuries.
For more than a century, certainly from the period of Friedrich August Wolf
around the beginning of the 19th century until the advent of
Nationalsocialism, Germany was at the forefront of classical studies. The
reader must have some background in this period to fully appreciate many of
S.’s comments.
For ancient times S. focuses above all on Cicero and Vergil. It was
Cicero’s greatest achievement to show that all Greek philosophical thought
could be expressed in Latin, enabling the latter to become a world
language. Indeed, after Cicero Latin essentially did not change for
centuries. In this sense it died, but it never faded away. The Roman empire
kept it alive, even though by no means all its inhabitants spoke the
language; the emperor Septimius Severus’ sister, for example, spoke Punic.
In the almost two millennia that followed, the roster of great men and
women who kept Latin alive, who continued to show that it was the language
of international importance, is long and illustrious: Lactantius,
Augustine, Hieronymus, Charlemagne and Alcuin, Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim
and Hildegard of Bingen, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Celtis and Hutten, Luther and
Melanchthon, Comenius, Herder and Goethe, von Humboldt and Mommsen. These
are only a select few.
Occasionally the reader may disagree, factually or emotionally, with what
S. says. On p. 123, he states that Carthage was the third largest city in
the empire after Rome and Antioch. Yet Alexandria is usually ranked second
behind Rome. On p. 285, he ranks Richard Heinze as the greatest German
Latinist of the 20th century. Eduard Norden would certainly get
considerable support. And, in a few places, one detects a certain animus
towards those on this side of the Atlantic. On p. 244, S. writes: “Wir
sollten das Überhandnehmen der Wissenschaftssprache Englisch nicht kampflos
hinnehmen, sondern zumindest auf eine Pluralität der Sprachen drängen. Dass
nach Französisch nun gerade Englisch an die Stelle des alten Latein gerückt
ist, war jedenfalls ein echter Rückschritt.” [n. 1] Why? English comes much
closer to rivaling Latin in its worldwide impact than French ever did. On
p. 280, we read “So lernt man in Amerika heute Latein in der Regel erst auf
der Universität, dort zum Teil aber mit vorzüglichen Ergebnissen.” [n. 2]
This ignores the many flourishing secondary schools, where often problems
arise not from lack of students, but from lack of teachers.
But these are minor points, which by no means detract from the great value
and enthusiasm of this book. Latin may by many standards be dead, but it
proves to be a lively corpse, and has so proven throughout the centuries.
“Denn es gehört auch heute noch zu den grössten geistigen Freuden, in der
Sprache der Römer zu kommunizieren, zu sprechen, zu schreiben—und immer
wieder auch zu singen” (p. 292). [n. 3] This from one of the founders of
the LVDI LATINI in Bavaria. “Latein ist seit zweitausend Jahren ‘tot’ und
wurde dennoch zu allen Zeiten wie eine lebendige Sprache gepflegt…. Ich bin
überzeugt, dass einmal auch die Stunde kommen wird, wo man Latein nicht
mehr als eine ‘tote’ Sprache, sondern wieder als die Königen der
Fremdsprachen unterrichten wird” (pp. 306–7). [n. 4]
In recent years S. has continued the good fight. Two fresh articles deserve
mention: “Latein als Weltsprache—das Erbe der Grösse,” in E.
Stein-Hölkeskamp and K.-J. Hölkeskamp, eds., Erinnerungsorte der Antike.
Die römische Welt (Munich, 2006) 185–201, and “Lateinstadt München,” his
farewell address on the occasion of his retirement, in Gymnasium 113 (2006)
117–50. In the latter, he remarks that Munich was twice the leading Latin
city in the world, Rome of course excepted: in 1559, when Herzog Albrecht
invited the Jesuits to the city, and in 1900, when the first fascicle of
the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae appeared.
But we must conclude with the volume under discussion. “Lector” inquam
“plaude, sententiae nobiles doctaeque tibi cordi sint.” Tolle, lege!
HERBERT W. BENARIO
Emory University
[n. 1] We should not accept the advance of the scientific language English
without resistance, but at the least should push for a number of languages.
That now after French precisely English has moved into the place of old
Latin was certainly a real step backwards. [n. 2] Now in America Latin is
usually first learned in the university, but there in part with remarkable
results. [n. 3] Even today it is one of the greatest intellectual joys to
communicate in the language of the Romans, to speak, to write—and again and
again even to sing. [n. 4] Latin has been “dead” for two thousand years and
nonetheless was at all times cultivated as a living language…. I am
convinced that some day the hour will also come, in which Latin will no
longer be taught as a “dead” language, but again as the queen of foreign
languages.
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