Just a footnote to George's note on Beeson's little book: it had been
recently reprinted (by Catholic Univ. of America Press, I believe) in an
attractive and reasonably priced edition. I would second George's
recommendation of it for a jump-start in medieval Latin: the orthography
is somewhat regularized, so if you've learned the rudiments of grammar
and vocab. from a classical grammar, it's not like trying to leap across
the Grand Canyon to make the switch to medieval when you do it with
Beeson. This, in my experience, is the toughest part for many students.
Another good thing about Beeson is the variety of materials he offers,
all divided up into bite-sized chunks. You will defimitely need to
supplement Beeson with a decent dictionary (a classical one will do,
necessarily, since there ain't no such critter as a real medieval Latin
dictionary). You may also wish to have a simple reference grammar handy
as well, like Bennett (recently reprinted by--I think--Bolchazy-Carducci
in a pb edition).
I paged through Sidwell's _Reading Medieval Latin_ but have not yet used
it with a class; it's another contender and was recently reviewed on
BMCR, which is available on the WWW.
Mark Williams Internet: [log in to unmask]
Classics Department Voice: (616) 957-6293
Calvin College Fax: (616) 957-8551
Grand Rapids, MI
USA 49546
"Ideo nobis non subrepat superbia, quasi pro nostris meritis
aliquid acceperimus, dum filii irae fuimus." -Alcuin
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|