Was Latin ever a spoken language?

So, what do you think, is it possible that Latin was ever the spoken language as the mainstream history claims? I think that its grammar is too hard for a human being to learn. Besides, its grammar also seems not to allow making statements that you would expect a truly natural language to allow, like "Heroes are never forgotten." What are your thoughts on this? I am not an expert in anything related to the field.

So, what do you think, is it possible that Latin was ever the spoken language as the mainstream history claims? I think that its grammar is too hard for a human being to learn. Besides, its grammar also seems not to allow making statements that you would expect a truly natural language to allow, like "Heroes are never forgotten." What are your thoughts on this? I am not an expert in anything related to the field.

First: There are living languages far more complicated than Latin.

Second: The spoken Latin was of course different from the literary one.

This has got to be one of the stupidest questions ever raised. German is harder, as is Russian. Navajo is even more of a mess.

This has got to be one of the stupidest questions ever raised. German is harder, as is Russian. Navajo is even more of a mess.

No idea about Navajo. But as someone who's first language is Norwegian, German isn't hard at all. And Russian is not a problem either.

It's all subjective. I find Japanese hard, but I'm sure I wouldn't if I was born Korean.

Well, SYMPTOM, I shall credit you. You actually said a thing with which I agree. Navajo now. It has no Gender even for people. But it DOES have over 30,000 tenses for its verbs. Yes, you read the number right. 30,000. I have a doctor friend who works for the US Public Health Service. He has worked on Navajoland, the largest Indian reservation in the United States. He speaks basic Navajo. Says the language is a bitch. And this is a guy who is fluent in Hebrew as well.

"Heroes are never forgotten."

Heroa numquam obliti sunt. Or, avoiding the Greek loanword: Viri fortes numquam obliti sunt.

EDIT: Heroes, not Heroa

Navajo now. It has no Gender even for people. But it DOES have over 30,000 tenses for its verbs. Yes, you read the number right. 30,000. I have a doctor friend who works for the US Public Health Service. He has worked on Navajoland, the largest Indian reservation in the United States. He speaks basic Navajo. Says the language is a bitch. And this is a guy who is fluent in Hebrew as well.

If you would say verb forms instead of tenses  I could let that pass as a clumsy reference to the highly agglutinative nature of this language. It would still be misleading. In Navajo words have the tendency to grow into sentences. But still, you do not have to memorize 30 000 verb forms.

Heroa numquam obliti sunt. Or, avoiding the Greek loanword: Viri fortes numquam obliti sunt.

But "obliviscor" is a deponent verb. That means "Heroes never forgot." Besides, I think that the right form of participle in the first sentence is "oblita".

Quote

Heroa numquam obliti sunt. Or, avoiding the Greek loanword: Viri fortes numquam obliti sunt.

But "obliviscor" is a deponent verb. That means "Heroes never forgot." Besides, I think that the right form of participle in the first sentence is "oblita".

obliviscor is a deponens, but nevertheless oblitus can mean both, forgotten (passive) and having forgotten (active). The latter usage, although the "correct" one, seems to be rather rare. In case of ambiguity, a nice paraphrase would be heroes numquam oblivione delebuntur. But that's already high´level language. More colloquial sounds heroes numquam ex memoria sunt.

The participle always follows the natural genus, so it is heroes obliti.

I just remember the good doctor saying that it had 30,000 tenses. I will gladly check with him again however, whenever he gets back from whatever Native population he is currently serving.

The pl of heros is heroes, not heroa. My mistake.

One could easily argue that Welsh is too stupid to even be a proper language, yet I can confirm that people speak it.

When I talked about it IRL, someone tried to convince me that Croatian is about as hard, and that I am just not aware of it. I claimed otherwise. Croatian has 3 declensions, while Latin has 5. In addition to that, Latin has 4 conjugations, but Croatian, again, has only 3. Then we were arguing about which grammar is slightly more regular. Then she asked me: "Hey, wait, and if Latin language can't be learnt, how come are there so many literary works written on it?" I admitted I had never thought about it. As for "Heroes are never forgotten.", she told me she had to do some more research, and she sent me her solution via email: "Heroes oblivioni numquam dantur."

It's worth saying that not every language values being succinct. Perhaps conveying the notion of heroes being forgotten, or not, was conveyed more metaphorically.

People speak it today. Its the official language of the Holy See. Its even on ATMs.

People speak it today. Its the official language of the Holy See. Its even on ATMs.

She also used that argument, but I claimed that was all a part of a conspiracy!

Finnish has got to be one of the toughest languages to learn - with declensions and conjugations which have no English equivalents - yet even small children in Helsinki can speak it.   So it seems that Latin must have been a spoken language.  I am hard put to recall (or imagine) a language - for an entire nation - that exists only for writing but not for speaking.

When I talked about it IRL, someone tried to convince me that Croatian is about as hard, and that I am just not aware of it. I claimed otherwise. Croatian has 3 declensions, while Latin has 5. In addition to that, Latin has 4 conjugations, but Croatian, again, has only 3. Then we were arguing about which grammar is slightly more regular. Then she asked me: "Hey, wait, and if Latin language can't be learnt, how come are there so many literary works written on it?" I admitted I had never thought about it. As for "Heroes are never forgotten.", she told me she had to do some more research, and she sent me her solution via email: "Heroes oblivioni numquam dantur."

Heroes oblivioni numquam dantur is good.

Someone had to use Latin as a spoken language for it to survive the middle ages and evolve into modern Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian, Catalan, Portuguese, etc.

So, what do you think, is it possible that Latin was ever the spoken language as the mainstream history claims? I think that its grammar is too hard for a human being to learn. Besides, its grammar also seems not to allow making statements that you would expect a truly natural language to allow, like "Heroes are never forgotten." What are your thoughts on this? I am not an expert in anything related to the field.

Being familiar with Latin grammar, I can tell you that it's real fuckin easy.

Anyway, as an epilogue, here is a thread about how you say "Heroes are never forgotten." on Latin Language StackExchange: https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/14884/how-do-you-say-heroes-are-never-forgotten-in-latin

It seems that it is actually a good question.

I wonder what happened to FalseProphet.

I wonder what happened to FalseProphet.

Me too. But almost everybody who was active back then has left the forum, not only FalseProphet. FlatEarthDenial is also no longer active, neither is Yaakov ben Avraham... Gone are the good old days, right?

Everyone who joined our community will eventually leave, be it many years later. But they may join us again after a while when they feel bored.

Everyone who joined our community will eventually leave, be it many years later. But they may join us again after a while when they feel bored.

I agree.

Quote from: Flatearthreign on February 08, 2022, 10:52:28 AM

Everyone who joined our community will eventually leave, be it many years later. But they may join us again after a while when they feel bored.

I agree.

So I guess you just got bored again to come back for this?

Quote from: FlatAssembler on February 09, 2022, 01:38:46 AM

Quote from: Flatearthreign on February 08, 2022, 10:52:28 AM

Everyone who joined our community will eventually leave, be it many years later. But they may join us again after a while when they feel bored.

I agree.

So I guess you just got bored again to come back for this?

Well, yes.