Latin: An interesting and fun language
During a recent visit to St Peter’s basilica, my wife and I observed a Latin inscription near a large courtyard, with the words Tv non lavas pedes meas, which is translated “You’re not going to wash my feet” (St Peter’s words to Christ) and my wife...
During a recent visit to St Peter’s basilica, my wife and I observed a Latin inscription near a large courtyard, with the words Tv non lavas pedes meas, which is translated “You’re not going to wash my feet” (St Peter’s words to Christ) and my wife promptly added “on television!”. That is “You’re not going to wash my feet on TV!”
Latin can be interesting, and with some imagination even fun. The Malta Classical Society is reviving interest in this erstwhile language of knowledge and culture. May it enjoy every success.
In Malta we dumped Latin following Vatican Council II around 1963, when the vernacular Maltese was introduced for Masses, Benediction and all prayers in our churches.
This guillotine approach was, in my opinion, ill-advised. Latin has been retained in Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Poland, and is still taught in their lyceums or gymnasium. It is a disciplined and structured language, historical, archaeological, and the source of western European culture.
Dumping it has left a yawning gap in our Maltese culture, since we are overwhelmingly a Latin people speaking a Semitic-Latin family language.