Erwin's StarOffice Tango

Could you imagine filling out your tax forms in Latin?
This morning I was wondering if people can actually get citizenship of the State of the Vatican City. I found out, you really can. What astonished me even more was the fact that one of the official languages is Latin. Not according to Wikipedia, but to another book, Italian is also an official language.

I had to think of my Latin lessons back in high school. Except for religious songs and phrases in my church and historic documents, Latin appeared like a "dead" language to me. Now I found out that it is even an official language of an independent state, even though a very small one. Could you imagine filling out your tax forms in Latin?
( Apr 10 2005, 04:23:28 PM CEST ) Permalink Kommentare [5]

Kommentare:

Curiously I think the death of Latin is to be lamented, as a root of so many languages it should be studied to gain a proper understanding of how languages are formed. But then again thats just my opinion. Unfortunately I never had the opportunity to study it myself, although I've been looking into it again recently. I've discussed this with my Dad a few times, he studied both Latin and Greek in school, and studied science in college - he still maintains that it gave him a huge advantage in his degree as he understood exactly what terms meant without having to memorise them.

Gesendet von fintanr am April 10, 2005 at 04:47 PM CEST #

I have been taking Latin for 3 years. Never do this. Learn a modern language.

Gesendet von Shii am April 11, 2005 at 03:37 PM CEST #

Well, don't keep us in suspense ... what's the procedure to get Vatican citizenship? "Semper ubi sub ubi"

Gesendet von yoyomama am April 11, 2005 at 06:50 PM CEST #

How cool is that! There's an international club of people keeping spoken Latin alive; I attended their summer "Latin holiday" one year and participated as much as possible, but it was tough: after a couple of days of all that effort, my head hurt.

Gesendet von RC am August 19, 2005 at 09:23 AM CEST #

http://latinum.mypodcast.com On this site, you can download lessons in Conversational Latin. When in Rome, do like the Romans did.

Gesendet von evan am Juni 18, 2007 at 12:43 AM CEST #