On Fri, 21 Jun 1996, Frederik Pedersen wrote:
> Dear Medieval Religioneers
>
> I have been intrigued to see the reaction to Sol's posting of a fake
> Latin quote, particularly the fact that there seems to be a
> consensus that medievalists do not need to be Latinists and that a
> certain level of Latin is enough to produce reliable research.
>
> The great question for me is "what is enough Latin knowledge?"
> George and Carolyn will know that this was a question I asked often
> (usually in the hope of finding some way to not meet their
> ludicrously high requirements) when we studied together in Toronto,
> and Kurt Villads Jensen, being one of the many who tried to teach me
> before Toronto, will also know how I hated the language.
>
> We are currently planning to introduce a Latin component for all
> post-graduates studying the period 1000-1600 which I have been asked
> to teach together with a colleague. Toronto is known for its Latin
> and the problem we are facing as a history department at a UK
> university where we must expect our students to have no foreign
> languages (I lay the blame for this one squarely at Margaret
> Thatcher's feet, although I know that the falling level of Latin is
> a Pan-European phenomenon: being accused of one more sin is not
> going to hurt her) is one of "how much Latin can we expect to teach
> in 50 hours and will it actually do any good for the students?"
>
>
> What do you all think? What is "enough Latin"?
>
>
> Frederik Pedersen
> Frederik Pedersen
> Department of History and Economic History
> University of Aberdeen
> King's College
> Old Aberdeen
> AB9 2UB
> Scotland, UK
>
Latin language studies here in the American Midwest remain stronger than
ever. As Director of Placement in Foreign Languages at Purdue, I have
seen a yearly upsurge in Latin for the past four years. It is apparently
a national phenomenon, as there was a major syndicated newspaper piece on
it a short while ago. And of course in the South it has always been
strong, as it has been at the better universities. Certainly for anyone who
wishes to do serious scholarship in medieval anything it is clearly very
important. How much is enough? Enough to be able to read what you need
to be able to read in Latin. Who would undertake to write on the Spanish
Armada without being able to read ships' logs from the period? Dr.
David A. Flory, Purdue U.
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