Re: Natural Language Praised


Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> leuwarden@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> >
> >

> DNA? No. You are a distinct entity from your father.

..... but aren't the ingredients the same? just as Latin and e.g.
Spanish would be made of similar ingredients? but of course, living
beings cannot be defined by their ingredients

> But there is no
> point in the entire history of, say, Spanish at which you could say
> "This is no longer Latin; this is Spanish" or "This is no longer
> Indo-European; this is Italic." We all still speak Indo-European! (But
> it's changed a whole lot because our communities got real big and
> separated.)

Okay, I see your point.
>
> > > Those enthusiasts in Rome and Helsinki continue to invent vocabulary for
> > > modern notions.
> >
> > I do not understand the reference to Rome and Helsinki
>
> From time to time there are magazine stories about some gentlemen in
> Rome who teach spoken Latin; and Finnish radio has regular broadcasts in
> Latin.

and would that show that Latin is alive?
>
> > > > I have a little edition of Morgenstern's poetry with Latin translations
> > > > that were made for fun and could be quoted to show that Latin *can*
> > > > (your word) also be used for avantgarde poetic production
> > >
> > > Translated from what, Yiddish?
> >
> > from German. I'd think he and Heine are Germany's most widely read
> > poets, I mean people who are really read, not just analyzed in some
> > university publication.
>
> Not Goethe? Schiller?

Most would admit that Goethe is a poet of the rank of Shakespeare, but
very, very few would read him. What is the problem? It is hard to say.
He is classical, that is, not sentimental, and so not for a very broad
audience, maybe too distant? simply too much above the maddening crowd?
I cannot take his later poetry either, nor his novels, nor his
authobiography, nor Faust II.

maybe too many people cannot tell *** from shinahoe (??? what is the
word?) and so do not get to know the young Goethe

> Rilke?

He wrote poetry of extreme beauty. And it is sentimental. There is a
wide audience, but it is silent. Was he an aesthete? There is a
certain neo-classical kind of beauty that rubs the Germans now the
wrong way

> Brecht?

The great plays. By accident I happened to see parts of his communist
background, and there were some rather shocking maximes about who
should be the master and who deserves to be the slave or similar. I did
not look more closely.

There is a name missing in your list: Hofmannsthal. Like Rilke, he was
out for beauty and, maybe like Rilke, there may have been some opium
etc: ethically suspect?


> What are his name and dates?

Wait. I'll look and get an access to some of his poems translated into
English.

however, do not be disappointed. let's say he would be closer to Bob
Dylan than to what is normally meant by "poetry"
>
> > > That's not exactly "poetic production,"
> >
> > no, it is not.
> >
> > > but there's no reason poets couldn't write in Latin today. Just as
> > > generations of English schoolboys had to compose Greek and Latin verse.
> >
> > ???
> > you know, poetry that is not spontaneous in its origin is nothing.
> > Rhyme and white space around it are really not what matters.
>
> There's _still_ no reason why poets couldn't write in Latin today.

yes, that is the reason. Latin by now lacks the echo of the spoken word
plus the echo of life (the echo of the mass media, of people at home,
of other poets... you seem to think that a poem is a verbal artifice,
something like a cross word puzzle. it is not!
>
> > The fact that one had for ages been paraded by scholars and the other
> > survived by the skin of its teeth would show in many ways; I was
> > questioning your meaning of "identical".
>
> Sorry, but I'm not able to tell which language you are assigning which
> characteristic, since both have been "paraded by scholars"

!!!!
Latin! Latin has been on parade all over! until recently even the
lawyers used its formula.
> and neither

> "survived by the skin of its teeth."

???

!!!






> > > Antisemitism is indeed one of the reasons for the thriving of Hebrew
> > > literacy for some 1500 years when it was no one's native language.
> >
> > Of course.
_____________________

I'll cut this off here to continue later and to go and look where the
bilingual Morgenstern might be.

.