Can An Italian Understand Ecclesiastical Latin?

Is being a native Italian speaker enough to understand spoken Ecclesiastical Latin? Let's find out!
Links to the videos and creators including the one and only Luke Ranieri at Polymathy
• Vatican Priest Speaks ...
• Pope Francis speaks in...
Ecclesiastical Latin, also called Church Latin or Liturgical Latin, is a form of Latin developed to discuss Christian thought in Late Antiquity and used in Christian liturgy, theology, and church administration down to the present day, especially in the Catholic Church. It includes words from Vulgar Latin and Classical Latin (as well as Greek and Hebrew) re-purposed with Christian meaning.[3] It is less stylized and rigid in form than Classical Latin, sharing vocabulary, forms, and syntax, while at the same time incorporating informal elements which had always been with the language but which were excluded by the literary authors of Classical Latin.[4]
Its pronunciation was partly standardized in the late 8th century during the Carolingian Renaissance as part of Charlemagne's educational reforms, and this new letter-by-letter pronunciation, used in France and England, was adopted in Iberia and Italy a couple of centuries afterwards.[5] As time passed, pronunciation diverged depending on the local vernacular language, giving rise to even highly divergent forms such as the traditional English pronunciation of Latin, which has now been largely abandoned for reading Latin texts. Within the Catholic Church and in certain Protestant churches, such as the Anglican Church, a pronunciation based on modern Italian phonology, known as Italianate Latin, has become common since the late 19th century.
Ecclesiastical Latin was the language of liturgical rites in the Latin Church, as well as the Anglican Church, Lutheran Church, Methodist Church, and in the Western Rite of the Eastern Orthodox Church.[2] Today, ecclesiastical Latin is primarily used in official documents of the Catholic Church, in the Tridentine Mass, and it is still learned by clergy.[3][1]
The Ecclesiastical Latin that is used in theological works, liturgical rites and dogmatic proclamations varies in style: syntactically simple in the Vulgate Bible, hieratic (very restrained) in the Roman Canon of the Mass, terse and technical in Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica, and Ciceronian (syntactically complex) in Pope John Paul II's encyclical letter Fides et Ratio.
Usage
See also: Liturgical use of Latin
Late antique usage
The use of Latin in the Church started in the late fourth century[6] with the split of the Roman Empire after Emperor Theodosius in 395. Before this split, Greek was the primary language of the Church as well as the language of the eastern half of the Roman Empire. Following the split, early theologians like Jerome translated Greek and Hebrew texts into Latin, the dominant language of the Western Roman Empire. The loss of Greek in the Western half of the Roman Empire, and the loss of Latin in the Eastern half of the Roman Empire were not immediate, but changed the culture of language as well as the development of the Church.[7] What especially differentiates Ecclesiastical Latin from Classical Latin is the consequences of its use as a language for translating, since it has borrowed and assimilated constructions and vocabulary from the koine Greek, while adapting the meanings of some Latin words to those of the koine Greek originals, which are sometimes themselves translations of Hebrew originals.[6]
Medieval usage
At first there was no distinction between Latin and the actual Romance vernacular, the former being just the traditional written form of the latter. For instance, in ninth-century Spain ⟨saeculum⟩ was simply the correct way to spell [sjeɡlo], meaning 'century'. The writer would not have actually read it aloud as /sɛkulum/ any more than an English speaker today would pronounce ⟨knight⟩ as */knɪxt/.[8]
The spoken version of Ecclesiastical Latin was created later during the Carolingian Renaissance. The English scholar Alcuin, tasked by Charlemagne with improving the standards of Latin writing in France, prescribed a pronunciation based on a fairly literal interpretation of Latin spelling. For example, in a radical break from the traditional system, a word such as ⟨viridiarium⟩ 'orchard' now had to be read aloud precisely as it was spelled rather than */verdʒjær/ (later spelled as Old French vergier). The Carolingian reforms soon brought the new Church Latin from France to other lands where Romance was spoken.
#church #latin #italian

[@vladodobleja748]

I'm Romanian and I'm fluent in French,Italian,Spanish and I'm currently learning Portuguese. Greetings Latin brothers!

[@fixer1140]

This bro is collecting the infinity stones of romance languages 😂

[@allanbrado794]

Abraços do Brasil, meu caro romeno!

[@Eyes_On_America]

>Is Romanian a romance language? >Da :3

[@vladodobleja748]

@@fixer1140 You're so based,I really do :))))

[@vladodobleja748]

@@allanbrado794 Obrigado irmao latino,saudacoes da Romenia!

[@alpacamale2909]

I love Luke's video where he asks for directions in Latin while in Italy. As for Latin, still more intelligible than Chilean Spanish 🤣 Saludos desde Canarias.

[@RonaldBradycptgmpy]

I completely agree with this sentiment most of the time. I feel like when it comes to naturally spoken Chilean in Spanish, specifically, like I am playing a roulette wheel.

[@kekeke8988]

That's like trying to ask for directions in England in Anglo-Saxon.

[@RonaldBradycptgmpy]

@@kekeke8988 that’s exactly what it was like, and I have to admit it was pretty funny! I was actually surprised at how upset some people got

[@zope6362]

How dare you? It’s you and the Andalusians’ fault that Chileans speak the way they do.

[@tayebizem3749]

Still waiting for Sardinian Both compared with Italian and Latin

[@unarealtaragionevole]

I will confess, I am biased. I prefer the sound of the Italian/Ecclesiastical pronunciation for Latin. For me, the most exciting time in European history is between 500 to 1500 CE. And the Latin that's unifying them and telling the story just wasn't the Latin of Caesar or Cicero.

[@vagnerdenzer9870]

Neither the ecclesiastical, as the pronunciation and other things have been created with the italian pronunciation and don't represent the language per se

[@unarealtaragionevole]

@@vagnerdenzer9870 I am not certain I understand. If you're saying that the Italian pronunciation doesn't represent the Latin language, that is debatable. The sound changes that were happening with the people of Italy were happening regardless the language. We know this because the same changes were happening in all of non-Latin and non-Italian languages of Italy such as sicilianu, napulitano, sardu, even umbrian went through the same changes. So even if they continued to speak Latin, those same sound changes would most likely have happened. We can't say that if Italy had continued speaking Latin, it would not be same as it is today.

[@ironinquisitor3656]

@@unarealtaragionevole Latin never stopped being spoken. Romance is living Latin. Written Latin was just the written representation of Romance it until the Carolingian Renaissance and a bit after for other regions when they went back to reading Latin letter for letter as it was exactly written down. In Charlemagne's kingdom before the Carolingian Renaissance a sentence in Medieval Latin such as "Populus in illis montibus" was simply the correct way of writing down and spelling the everyday primitive old french "Pobles en les montz."

[@unarealtaragionevole]

@@ironinquisitor3656 The problem is that if we listen to Raff, he is always saying things like, "If you're going to learn a language, learn a language that is going to be practical, useful, and geared to your needs." Right? So, if we look at the majority of the written record for the Latin language, and we can agree that for the most part Latin has always been a fairly phonetic language and its written language closely matched its phonetics; then from 500 BCE to 2023 CE (1523 years) the classical pronunciation which only had about 300 years of use would only represent 20% of the spoken language's history. That means that 80% of all spoken Latin did not use something similar to the classical reconstruction. In fact, from 300 CE to today 85% of all spoken Latin was more similar to the Italian pronunciation, or a pronunciation system of the modern European languages, which would be similar to Italian/Ecclesiastical Latin. Now as I said, I'm biased as I was brought learning the Italian pronunciation. But as a career Medievalist who specializes in the early Middle Ages, a period of time when one might think that they should have been speaking a Latin more similar to classical than the modern systems.....they were not. Raff, is always trying to bring truth in the face of what we want to believe, so I am trying follow his example by pointing out that the love and admiration we have for the classical pronunciation, is more the result of the modern romanticism and glorification we have for this period and the people in it during this point in Roman history. So when I see people saying that the classical reconstruction "sounds better," or "should be the pronunciation to represent Latin," I always have to challenge why? Yes. It's a subjective choice, and it's OK to prefer the sound of it if you do. However, should it be the pronunciation that "represents" Latin? Shouldn't we push a system which is more similar to the 85% of the phonetics that were actually in usage for the language, or as it sounded by the people who wrote it? We think it's crazy to use the Italian pronunciation for Cicero's time, but why isn't it more crazy to use the reconstruction for Charlemagne's time?

[@ironinquisitor3656]

@@unarealtaragionevole You're reasoning is pretty sound.

[@oleksandrbyelyenko435]

I remembered an anecdote from my Uni time. I've studied History of Art in Málaga and one day some Italian professor has come to do a lecture. I had to go to, but I obviously haven't studied Italian. And it was such a strange experience. I understand the words separately, but what the phrases, the spoken sentences mean were passed over me.

[@luisangelhernandez8547]

As a native Spanish speaker with zero training in Latin, I did not find much difficulties in getting the general idea of what they were saying, but only because of the audio quality and the fact they were speaking slowly. The hardest part for me is the absence of articles. To my ears, it sounds like a succession of (mostly) recognizable words that you need to put in order to deduct the idea.

[@kekeke8988]

That's the thing is that the order doesn't matter because it has declension.

[@tylere.8436]

The reason there are no definite articles in Classical Latin is because the declensions as well as word order were sufficient enough to provide that in context. The article use came about after the declension system eroded with time in lower registers during the early Middle Ages and word order became more fixed (maybe look up Egeria's Itinerary for definite article usage in Latin). With that said, the indefinite article came about rather early, already attested in the time of Cicero, but this wasn't widespread yet.

[@Miggy19779]

As an italian, same, the lack of articles makes it non trivial, I get most of the various words but then there's an extra step in our heads to put them in the right order, that makes understanding tricky. The declension system is just foreign to most romance speakers and variable word order in Latin is hard to decipher without formal training, except for the most basic of phrases.

[@Miggy19779]

@@tylere.8436 Yes we know :) We're talking about understanding based on our romance mother tongues which do have articles,

[@brunnogurgel3076]

You are probably not understanding a thing. Latin sounds and looks like a lot of romance words but it's waaaay hard to guess the relationship between them without training, this lenguage has so many declasions that make it so famously beautiful and difficult to understand.

[@christopherellis2663]

I learnt Ecclesiastical Latin from the Latin Mass, with the bilingual text missal, plus one year of Latin in school. Even now, sixty years later, most Latin texts and inscriptions are readily understood. The Rosetta Method is always a good way to get a grasp of a language. Having footnotes and some grammar and other information really helps

[@RonaldBradycptgmpy]

I am a native speaker of English, and second language speaker of Spanish. And when it came to how much I was able to understand of spoken ecclesiastical, Latin, it was about the same as you actually. One of the things that I don’t think people take into account is that also certain the word roots have changed definition through the ages, so sometimes I have ended up getting the completely wrong meaning even though I recognized, almost everything in a given paragraph or whatever. Just because of the slate historical shifts that happen over the course of history into the modern age. Also, like a lot of people who grew up Catholic I am used to the sound of ecclesiastical leaden over the sound of classical Latin but I’ve come to a point where I don’t really have a preference. When it comes to reading Latin, I can probably understand a little over half at most, in the best of circumstances. But this varies widely depending on the content, and the complexity of the language used

[@Alina-sw9qq]

As a native Romanian speaker, who is fluent in French and Spanish, I did not have much difficulty understanding. I can also understand italian when spoken slower than the typical native speaker ( for example on discovery channel if the narrator speaks Italian- I understand about 80-90%). If written, I understand more than spoken language.

[@aris1956]

Yes, a written language is always understood more than a spoken language. I have noticed it on various occasions and with various languages. For example, I as an Italian do not speak English, but if I read something written in English, I understand many things. If on the other hand an Englishman says something (even worse if it is an American), I understand almost nothing. Then of course it also depends on the person, the way they speak, the way they pronounce words, clear and slow or fast. If they use an accent from some area or speak the real standard language. There are various factors.

[@cheeveka3]

There has been videos people talking to a, Romanian in Latin is very similar to Romanian and because it retains a lot of those old forms that don’t exist in other languages.😅

[@its_dey_mate]

​​@@cheeveka3A lot of direct Latin influences were injected straight from Latin into Romanian around the 19th century and then again in the 1930s to clean it from Bulgarian or Slavic Cyrillic influence.

[@nagyzoli]

That is because the science of speaking to an audience is a.. science itself. Oratorica in Romanian, I do not know the english term.. Meaning paying attention to the pronunciation, how to optimally form the words in your mouth based on how loud you want to speak. I have friend that graduated Cluj Conservatory and sing at operas and medieval/church events. They studied this extensively. Also how much pause to get between words, how to sing the notes without distoring. Singers in general do. Just shouting the words is not enough. That is why an untrained, regular speaker is hard to be understood for someone not on the same level of given language.

[@cheeveka3]

@@its_dey_mate I could tell because I’ve seen some words that very similar to modern Romance language. I heard Moldovan has more Slavic words 👀

[@arslan1277]

Can you give it a try to Arbëresh language, it is derived from albanian and is spoken in Southern Italy, in regions of Calabria, Molise, Apuilla, Basilicata, Campania, Abruzzi and Sicily.

[@nazarnovitsky9868]

Thank You for the new video !!! 😊

[@michaellanzaro1403]

Awesome video! You should do one on the Sardinian or Corsican languages

[@tarvos_trigaranvs]

That would be awesome! 😊

[@Kinotaurus]

Sardinian - yes. Corsican is basically a dialect of Italian.

[@KertPerteson]

Love this series

[@thegreekchad5066]

Nice in my opinion classical Latin sounds better but that's probably because I'm not a native Italian speaker btw 5th time asking for Occitan it would be aaaamaaazzing if you did a video on it thank youuu keep up the great work

[@JAZ_2002]

Let’s gooooooo. I was just about to comment about how you ought to make more videos on Latin ^^

[@VABJMJ]

He actually did it! Great video!!

[@johnberry3824]

In addition to the subjects you cover, I appreciate the way you cover them: the way you think about them and explicate them. Bravo!

[@rosacuore15]

Luke Ranieri’s videos helped me to improve American English pronunciation, diction and language structure. You help me to improve British English dialect 🙂 Thanks so much 🙏 both of you! I understand the context of a text in Latin language, because my native language is Romanian. I can speak Latin a little bit since I began to practice more.

[@Jacob-og8js]

Fascinating video, Mr. Metatron. Thank you.

[@davidyess1]

I am currently studying classical Latin, reading the Vulgata, and I read modern Greek fluently. Living in Houston, I have picked up Spanish and speak it fairly well. I was able to understand about half of the spoken ecclesiastical Latin, but I hope to improve. Megatron, you are a good role model.

[@kaloarepo288]

I remember when members of my family used to have fun by adding the Latin suffixes -BUS and ORUM when jokingly speaking Latino-Italian.

[@arrunzo]

I certainly know that Italian speakers like to add the letter "S" to every word to speak "fake Spanish". It's interesting to see how certain characteristics of other languages stick out to other speakers in a way that they have their own way of speaking a fake version of that language.

[@kaloarepo288]

or by putting a lot of th into their sentences -Anglos do this also when speaking fake Spanish@@arrunzo

[@rameybutler-hm7nx]

Latin is a complicated language but it is able to pick up by listening not fluently mind you, but you can learn it if you try. Great channel.

[@Skollscatha]

I’d love to see you make one of these on Corsican

[@cajflod]

This series is fantastic, for me the easiest one is still Catalan. For the next videos try Sardinian or Occitan/Provenzal

[@elisabettamacghille4623]

As an Italian who studied Latin, I agree word for word with the contents of this Metatron video!

[@scarecrow2097]

I just love the consistent "send help..." face in every thumbnail 😂

[@brawndothethirstmutilator9848]

It was interesting to hear the occasional aspiration of the letter S in the Pope’s Latin. Not surprisingly, same as his habits in Spanish.

[@iberius9937]

I myself was going to point that out. Very Argentinian of him, lol.

[@finite1731]

Maybe you should do a rating of the languages you've experienced, and rate them like on a teir list or a numerical ranking for both listening and reading comprehension?

[@faithlesshound5621]

In many societies, religion is conducted to some extent in a classical language, so ordinary people who don't have to study it at school still become familiar with and understand a little of the vocabulary and some phrases and even whole sentences. This applies to Latin in the Catholic (and also medical and legal) world, Arabic in Muslim countries, Hebrew and Sanskrit. It follows that it's not enough just to know the official language. An educated person who wishes to participate fully in British life has required some knowledge of French and Latin for at least a thousand years. The British preserved for a long time their own unique way of speaking Latin which was barely comprehensible to Europeans. The story is told of a Hanoverian envoy to the Holy Roman Empire who gave a long speech in Latin during which the emperor burst out laughing, followed by the rest of the court.

[@dustinduncan2444]

That certainly makes sense. I find if I am reading Latin relating to say liturgy or theology I can generally understand say 40-60% at the first go, but perhaps only 10% if I'm reading say general history. I mark that up to a combination of contextualization (e.g. what logically would fit in the specific topic) and there are specific terms and phrases that are consistently used so I am generally translating groups of phrases and stitching them together rather than actually reading syntactically. That means I might read 'dominus' as master or Lord, but struggle with recognizing a different declension like say 'dominorum' by itself (the light bulb would go on with something like "Rex regum et Dominus dominorum" only because I see the nominative form next to the genitive). Outside of things related to religion I would say most of my understanding of Latin goes back to the number of English words with Latin roots. So when the priest was speaking in the first segment I picked out him talking about how Latin is heard and understood following the second Vatican Council, but not necessarily spoken because of things like audio rooted in 'audi' and eloquence relationship to 'loquier' (though I suspect eloquence comes through a French or Norman detour)

[@giovannisantostasi9615]

I want to study Latin so badly, I did 5 years of it in Liceo in Italy but languages were my weaker subject. Now that I'm fluent in English I want to go back and be fluent in Latin, it is such a wonderful language.

[@flyingarts6765]

Good work, thanks. Here in Miami I really enjoy watching the older Comisario Montalbano episodes with English subtitles of course, as a Spanish speaker I can get maybe 50% , sometimes whole sentences but other times zero. My question to you as a Sicilian does Montalbano flip back and forth depending who he's talking to and what's your opinion. Hope you're staying cool with that heat wave !

[@MAVENdeNYC]

Metatron, have you seen the movie "Blast from the Past?" I just recently saw it again since many years ago. There is a scene where young Adam Webber has a brief Latin dialogue with his father. I would enjoy a video of you discussing the Latin, giving your critique, and telling us whether it is classical or ecclesiastical.

[@MAVENdeNYC]

After watching it again last night after commenting, (I have it on DVD), I thought I may be mistaken. It sounded strange when I heard it before and suspected an other language but I brushed it off. So when I played it a few times last night (the speech was fast and I can’t slow it down) I think it may have begun with Latin, went to French, then to a Germanic tongue. I also remember in the movie when Adam was grown and looking for a girlfriend he met someone and had a conversation in French with her. I just assumed it was Latin because the French (if it is) was spoken by Christopher Walken, without the “French” accent. But then young Adam replied in what clearly wasn’t French, and I just assumed that the Latin was from a person who may be of Germanic descent, or Latin with a German influence. However, looking back, it seems the other way around, German influenced by Latin, since Rome influenced the “known world” of its time, or just simply German or a relative language.

[@giovannisantostasi9615]

I understood most of what was said in Latin. I think it helps to be exposed to many different languages every day. I live in the US and I hear Spanish, English and Italian (mostly by watching videos on youtube) and I feel I can understand languages better, the brain is somehow more flexible when you are forced to switch between languages.

[@prowler986]

I am glad I am not the only one who finds it difficult to switch between various pronounciations of latin.

[@zondar3086]

Salutem plurimam, carissimi sodales! What his holiness the Pope is reading is also a syntactial more complex text that what the priest was telling on the radio, anyway: definitely two different registers. When you read Plautus and then Sallustius, or even a Cicero's speech and then one of his letters you also notice the varieties are quite different.

[@thefantasticworldofchris9951]

Sardinian. Still waiting

[@GigaDavy91]

As an Italian I had similar difficulties to you, I would add that in it's written form the words that I recognize sometimes differ from what I would understand from a speech, probably due to the still different phonetics between italian and ecclesiastical latin

[@johnberry3824]

As an English-speaker who studied classical Latin (never ecclesiastical Latin) and then learned some Italian, I couldn't pick up anywhere near as much as you could. But I probably did pick up some words or constructions that you didn't. I found the papal announcer's Latin very hard to follow. The Pope's Latin seemed very Spanish, yet I know that Argentinian Spanish owes a lot to Italian, so the influences get quite complicated. Thanks for doing this! (Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem.)

[@xotan]

Sed Romani nunc italiani sunt.

[@St1cKnGoJuGgAlO]

As latin student I do wish you would do more latin videos sir.

[@Brandon55638]

Do a video on Late Latin. More often than not I use a fairly conservative variety of Late Latin pronunciation where phonemic vowel length is still preserved, c and g are palatal before front vowels and intervocalic b, d, g and v are close to being fricatives.

[@pkoden19]

I study Latin regularly at least once a week. I used to do it five days a week when I was working on longer works. I can understand most of the written language now and I still do a lot of dictionary work to make sure that I have the "best understanding" of the text. However, I could not understand much of the spoken Ecclesiastical Latin in this video. However, I can obviously understand the sung Ecclesiastical Latin in musical works familiar to me such as the "Recordare" section of Mozart's "Requiem" since I know that text well. I also have problems in understanding spoken Italian in many KZbin videos.

[@joebloggs5318]

This is such a great idea. You should get regular Italians and speak Latin to them to gauge their understanding.

[@aris1956]

We Italians understand Latin much more if we read something written in Latin. But this happens with other languages as well. I, for example, do not speak English and understand almost nothing if an Englishman says something (even worse if he is an American), but if I read something written in English, I understand many things.

[@marcoc6105]

I'm Italian and I studied Latin at school (but I had bad grade, I wasn't a great student). I can understand latin if spoken slowly - probably it would be simpler for me in written form

[@doomood]

I'd be curious for you to try Canadian French (from Québec)

[@user-vr1mp2ef7d]

As always, very interesting. There is an Italian book on this subject: Beccaria, Gian Luigi, "Sicuterat. Il latino di chi non lo sa: Bibbia e liturgia nell'italiano e nei dialetti" [Lat.: Sicut erat. The Latin of those (Italian speakers) who do not know it. The Bible and (Roman Catholic) liturgy in Italian and the dialects (of Italy)], published by Garzanti in 2017. There is also an interesting word: santificetur (Lat. Sanctificetur) in an ironic tone. or as a joke as noun (masch., rarely feminine) to indicate a bigoted person, who flaunts devotion and religious piety, and of course pretends to know more Latin than they actually do.

[@oleksandrbyelyenko435]

Oh yeah... I am subscribed to Luke, so I've seen that video

[@An2oine]

OK, here's one. What is the air resistance at sea level of a bullet going 2950 FPS with a 1/12 twist and a coefficient of .375 at 23 percent humidity?

[@AL_YZ]

Metatron, how about a series on Catholic prayers in ecclesiastical Latin. Of specialist interest only of course. The prayer to archangel Michael for instance is a beautiful prayer. Another series might be the complete set of Rosary prayers in Latin. I've heard some truly atrocious ecclesiastical Latin pronunciation by American English speakers and Spanish speakers and even heavily Italian sounding Latin, each of them making Latin sound exactly their native language. The Rosary is of course of historical importance as well because of its deep connection to the Battle of Lepanto on Oct. 7, 1571 which as you know was a decisive battle that saved Europe from Islamic conquest. Ever since then, October has been designated the month of the Rosary in the Catholic church. Oct. 7 became designated as feast day of "Our Lady of Victory", later changed to "Our Lady of the Rosary."

[@teresamerkel7161]

facinating

[@pawel198812]

I think the priest speaking in the Vatican Radio was Polish. He definitely used ɛ and ɔ exclusively, rather than a mixture of open and closed E and Osounds I would expect from an Italian accent. Also his soft C and G were pronounced much further back in the mouth than regular Italian soft C and G

[@veritasardens6547]

I am an Indian who speaks Latin, before the priest talks about speaking Latin not being in practice since the second Vatican council, he is saying that there are very few priests in the Vatican currently who can speak about all things and even normal things in Latin here - 5:02 , at 5:58 the priest goes on to say "Nearly every priest and church people could speak Latin and later there were changes in the curricula in seminaries where more importance was given to reading and understanding than to speaking Latin" . As for the pope's Latin, given his pronunciation, it was a bit harder to understand as Metatron put it correctly.

[@ironiccookies2320]

Metatron and Polymathy should really do a collab one day. And if person if that's possible.

[@oleksandrbyelyenko435]

Well, maybe 30 present? I understand what the theme is but that's it. When I try to separate speech to each word I get lost. But if I have to describe in broad strokes what I've heard I can do that

[@deinix]

Can you do Romansh language from Switzerland?

[@oleksandrbyelyenko435]

Might be very easy. I have never studied any kind of Latin and I somewhat understand Latin. Well, let's hear the audio to be sure how much I understand

[@arrunzo]

I think to summarize with Classical Latin, speakers of Romance languages with some training and preparation can understand more than they initially think, but they're still not going to understand Classical Latin as much as each other's Romance languages. However, like Luke Ranieri has said, I think it goes to show that with some effort, Classical Latin is actually not as hard as some make it out to be.

[@johndeoliveira8646]

I think every public school in countries that speaks a romance language should teach latin. It would help to preserve our heritage and also to pave the way to learn other languages.

[@fintonmainz7845]

How widespread is the teaching of Latin in schools nowadays? (secondary schools or high schools)

[@antoinedoyen7452]

As a frenchman (who learnt latin at school) i can understand what they are talking about.

[@SebaLeft]

I dont know anything of classical latin, but i know a lot or eclesiastical latin from latin masses.

[@PAWfessionalTennis]

Yeah ok, but the real question is: can you, as an Italian, understand the weird Oxford Latin pronunciation that they used at the coronation when they pronounced it in a way that made people think they were singing 'shave your v*g*na Camilla' 😅

[@martinsenoner8186]

avendo studiato teologia lo capisco bene, sono nativo tedesco (Alto Adige) ma fluente in italiano

[@giuseppeesposito7094]

As an Italian who studied Latin in classical liceum and for an university exam I can understand concepts and context and recognize quite few words, but for me to actually understand properly I would need a little time to elaborate the sentence in my mind and maybe listen to it more then once, on top of that having always relied on the dictionary and having always translated written sources from classical and medieval periodo I think I don't have a vast enough lexicon to understand it if used to talk about every day topics. I surely confirm that is much easier to understand an Italian speaker speaking Latin than an anglophone or an hispanophone, for real I understand almost nothing from Papa Francesco, also because his voice is low and mumbling, difficult to understand even when he speaks italian

[@56932982]

The Sardinian and Corsican languages would be interesting. Especially Sardinian, as it is said to be the closest of the romance language to Latin and as Sardinia is part of Italy.

[@FinestFantasyVI]

In light of your recent Metatron video (the worst hate comments one), I feel compelled to give you a positive one, as usually I am just a watcher, BUT NO MORE So with my love of languages I wish to share Croatian (Split/Spalato dialect) Since you're doing the series of how well you can understand languages based on just average italian. I wanted to share my own findings. As a croat who studied italian and what was that process for me. Ok, so since the Venetian Republic controlled Dalmatia for roughly 377 years give or take (I dont remember). There have been a bunch of italian words that have entered the croatian language down south. So I thought I'd share the words that sort of made italian easier for me to learn Barka/ Barca(Italian and croatian is pronounced the same) Fontana/Fontana (literally the same word) Pjat/ Piatto (pronounced like italian minus the O) Rubinet/ Rubinetto (again, we dropped the O, also croats dont do double letters much, more on that later) Škatula/Scatola (Š is pronounced like Sh. I understood the italian word, Im sure an italian would understand the croatian variant) Šporko/ Sporco (again, pronounced the same, just with a Sh) Šugoman/ Asciugamano (We dropped the A at the start, put a Sh, and dropped the O at end) Ošpedale/ Ospedale (s is a sh. This is more of an archaic word for a hospital, we young generation dont use this. Maybe some elderly would say it if they spoke with the dialect. This is something I more learned later) Botun/ Bottone Policija/ Polizia (same pronounciation) Ćao/ Ciao (same pronounciation) Reading croatian, idk. I really doubt you'd understand as we're a slavic language, unlike romanian who's a romance language with slavic influence. And lastly the doppia lettera thing. Yeah, as a croat, that tripped me out, because when saying the word, I couldnt hear it, because croatian rarely does it (maybe 1 or 2 words has that, of top of my head "the strongest" and "waterproof" in croatian has the dopplia lettera) . Even in mamma. Because in croatian its mama, and same pronounciation. I still cant spell appartamento, and some words as I flip flop between spellings. Hope you had a nice read metatron and random yt reader. Have a nice day Love from Croatia

[@mrcmusic1]

I rely what you do.

[@aris1956]

Sull’immagine di copertina del video sembri come una specie di santone. 😊 Ma toglimi una curiosità. Tu vivi in Sicilia o vivi in America ?

[@RebeccaOre]

Sounded very Spanish to me and somewhat easier for me to understand as a partial Spanish speaker than the other examples.

[@lugo_9969]

Hi Metatron. Please Tell me the town with the Italian closest to 'standard italian' ? Grosseto - south Tuscany ? Viterbo - North Lazio ? Other ?

[@animeXcaso]

Walk into any dubbing studio

[@Hikaeme-od3zq]

The standard italian spoken in Italy doesn't belong to any city nor place, it's a made up language used to standardise the pronunciation for radio broadcasts, tv broadcasts and media in general. Technically the closest dialect (or language) is the Florentine variety, but even then, it's not standard italian, they have their own florentine accent and ways of speaking.

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

Honestly? The small touristic areas in the central east coast. They may not specifically fit the canons of official standard Italian, but they're the epitome of perceifed-as-neutral Italian. They don't seem to base their speech on native varieties at all,, instead adapting to an average of what they hear from their tourist clients.

[@30secondsflat]

Bahodor Alast did a video where a Sicilian speaker spoke with someone speaking Lebanese Arabic. Would you be open to commenting on that video?

[@metatronacademy]

Sure!

[@30secondsflat]

@@metatronacademy wonderful ! Would love to hear your perspective on the similarities of the two languages 😀

[@montyyy08]

In the 6th century at what point would one be able to distinguish between “Late Latin” and “Old Italian”?

[@tylere.8436]

When the final s was lost.

[@ironinquisitor3656]

Late Latin and italo romance were still the same language in the 6th century. Late Latin was just archaic correct way of spelling the former and would have been pronounced as italo romance when read out loud. Late Latin stopped being the correct way of spelling old italian when the Carolingian pronunciation reforms spread to Italy in the 10th century.

[@BamBamBigelow.]

As a raised Catholic from Ohio, USA, ecclesiastical Latin holds a special place in my Heart❤ 'Gloria in exelsis Deo'

[@unarealtaragionevole]

I died when I read this....when I was in secondary school, this was in a Christmas carol we sang each year.

[@brittybee6615]

@@unarealtaragionevoleI never sang it in school but I would have thought that most people be familiar with that song…

[@nagyzoli]

As somebody who had 1 year latin in highschool and that's it, and it was classical (I THINK) latin (namely cicero, and other ancient roman speakers, Bello Galico from Caesar etc).. what is the difference compared to church latin? I am a programmer, but because I like history and the teacher actually tried to explain the language features logically not just this is the grammar, this is the words, go... I liked latin. Of course I remember almost nothing 25 years have passed.

[@thorthewolf8801]

While I like this series, I wish you hadnt included languages that you already know, like this one. The series went from can an italian (maybe a little above average in terms of language ability), to you, Metatron in particular understand x language.

[@dantemeriere5890]

I've been studying Latin for a few years. I'm not fluent yet but I can get by. I don't think the two romance languages I know help me, when I listen to or read Latin I'm always under the impression I wouldn't understand anything without training. I can understand Luke a lot of the time, but not always. I have a much easier time understanding written Latin. Wikipedia entries are pretty easy, to the point I barely consider them "real" Latin. Wikipedia is written in a very "romance-like" way, it feels like romance with declensions to me. It's similar to the Vulgata(Bible), but I find the Vulgata a bit more difficult than Wikipedia. The classics however are WELL beyond me. That's what I use to measure my fluency. Having an everyday conversation in Latin or communicating simple ideas is relatively easy, but reading the classics is extremely difficult.

[@aris1956]

In general you understand a lot more by reading a language than by listening to a person speaking that language. I, for example, as an Italian and also an Italian teacher, do not speak English, but if I read something written in English, I understand many things. On the other hand, if an English speaker says something, I understand almost nothing, even worse if an American speaks.

[@oleksandrbyelyenko435]

Putas? My ear hears Spanish 😂

[@tylere.8436]

oculum 😂 that's the ancestor of ojo

[@TheUnstableNutcase]

Putare in Latin means "to think". Similar meaning as "creo" in Spanish So, puto = I think, putas = you think, etc.

[@Miggy19779]

@@TheUnstableNutcase We have the root putare in computer (to think together)...

[@zaqwsx23]

A typical Italian expression is "puta caso" which basically means "let's say (that)..."

[@TheUnstableNutcase]

@@Miggy19779 Computer comes from computare

[@szeleddie]

This going to weird what i suggest here but Pope Francis would be hell of a ASMR performer! The way he speaks its calming you like a strong sedative!!!

[@PC_Simo]

I get, where the people are coming from, with the whole ”Is that really Latin?” -argument; because, a lot of time, people mistakenly think of Latin, as a dead language, in the sense that it’s completely extinct, unspoken, and stopped evolving. But, objectively, it’s basically the same, as saying: ”Old English didn’t have these words: ”Radio”, ”TV”, etc. So, using these words, in our day and age, is that really English?”.

[@guillermorivas7819]

Classical Latin pronunciation is the best. It's forceful yet melodious.

[@tylere.8436]

And actually organic, Ecclesiatical was a result of a botched reconstruction of the pronunciation during Charlemagne's time. Can't blame them, during his time the "Latin" during that time in Francia was already a different language; Italy and Spain and even Romanian still had rather conservative pronunciations to be associated with Latin.

[@arrunzo]

@@tylere.8436 Fascinating! So if that's correct, then that means the Ecclesiastical pronunciation is actually LESS natural than the determined Classical Latin pronunciation. One would think with some of the more Romance phonemes that the Ecclesiastical pronunciation would be more accurate to some degree compared to the Classical pronunciation, but I guess not. Interesting stuff!

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

@@arrunzo it should be obvious. Ecclesiastical is a natural product of centuries, the reconstruction is a thought out reconstruction.

[@malarobo]

​@@tylere.8436it's the opposite: the ecclesiastical latin is the late latin natural evolution. The classical latin is a reconstruction. Scientifical, but a recostruction

[@PICTVS]

@@malarobo The natural evolution of Latin are the romance languages not church Latin or mediaeval latin. Noone throughout the middle ages or renaissance spoke Latin natively. However the classical reconstruction is an attempt to approximate the language of a time when a large number of Latin speakers were monolingual and therefore represents a much more natural form of the language

[@user-eu8ub9cm5t]

Just Discovered your website and cannot believe your claim Latin is still taught in schools in Italy since at 67 years of age I have never yet met an Italian who knows any Latin Since it is 60 years now Vatican II 1962 TO 1965 Does Anyone know if Debates were Recorded ? since they were held in Latin even though majority of Bishops could not understand it and had to rely on translation especially Non European Bishops/Today conversations entirely in Latin would be completely Impossible

[@DrSAM69]

Now you have to try Corsican ;)

[@harrybracey2232]

Imagine how Latin was spoken by different peoples in the Roman Empire. The Britons or the Moesans.

[@tomislavhoman4338]

ok, I think now it's time for proto-romance, old Italian, old French, old Spanish and old Romanian :D

[@stlouisramsfan03]

Metatron, can you understand my constructed language AKA Romance conlang? 😂 I challenge you! 😇

[@omardarwish958]

Is vulgar latin more comprehensible than classical and ecclesiastical latin to modern Romance languages speaker

[@brittybee6615]

10:24 sounds like he’s talking about Santa Clause 😂

[@Eyes_On_America]

And the priest was actually from Poland😜

[@ninavale.]

Yeah, priests are not exactly required to be able to speak Latin bc post 2nd Vatican Council masses have been conducted in official/national lanuage of each country instead of Latin. and the priests now stand facing the congregation, while before they stood with their back to the people and front to the tabernaculum. Also the priest speaking in that first video is a Polish priest and it seems like Ecclesiastical Latin is a sort of...passion/personal interest of his.

[@oleksijm]

The priest was actually Polish, not Italian. His Polish accent was obvious, especially the "hard" pronunciation of the "Ch" sound.

[@callumbush1]

Can you understand Romansch?

[@Kinotaurus]

The priest in the Luke Ranieri video is Polish, not Italian.

[@zachchen9564]

Can Italian understand Romance-language-based conlang? I made a Romance language based conlang before but now anymore. Here is an example sentence “Yn mei opinjon, yi yenwas rmanse syn bou ye nyn žvićil źi štdźjai.

[@dantemeriere5890]

"In my opinion, if you want/think(?) "rmanse" without good or not ??????"

[@unarealtaragionevole]

Good luck with this one. I have been trying to get Raff to do a Esperanto video for years. One of my favorite Latin "conlangs" was Brithenig. I came across this language in my youth during my "all things Celtic" phase. It's not really a 'Latin' conlang more of what would a Celtic language sound like if they were influenced by Latin. I found the whole thought experiment very chic at the time. And this introduced me to Welsh (one of the most beautiful languages in the world if they could only get rid of that ugly "ch" sound ;o), Cornish, and Breton which are beautiful languages. At the time, I was really into Irish and Scottish and I fell in love with the music and then the cultures in general.

[@zachchen9564]

⁠​⁠@@dantemeriere5890 in my opinion, the Romance languages are beautiful and not difficult to study Yi means the, from earlier lyi, cognates with Spanish la Yenwas means language, from lyenwas, from Latin lengua Rmanse means Romance Syn /sɯn/ means are, present indicative third person plural of śi (to be) Bou means beautiful Ye means and, from Latin et Nyn /nɯn/ means not Žvićil /ʐvi:t͡ɕɪ’l/ means difficult, from earlier džvićil Štdźjai /ʂtd͡ʑaɪ/ means to study

[@cahallo5964]

As a Spanish speaker, no clue what you are saying.

[@ROMANTIKILLER2]

Extremely difficult, pretty much unintelligible after the first comma, mostly because I cannot know what to expect in terms of spelling and pronunciation and thus where to look for clues. This coming from a native Italian and northern gallo-romance dialect speaker, who studied Latin at high school. Interestingly, the fact that I also know basic Czech threw me off guard as when I saw the words "žvićil źi štdźjai": the letters ž and š and the dź that can be found in Polish tricked my mind to try looking for similar Slavic words, even though I was told the sentence was based Romance language (although after reading aloud "štdźjai", it sounds very similar to my dialect)

[@Leftyotism]

I like how German pronunciation seems closer to the "original" Latin than the Ecclesiastical one. You are probably tired of me mention this every chance I get by now.

[@annafirnen4815]

Funny you said that the priest in the interview gave you "Italian feel" to Latin since he's actually a Polish guy XD

[@metatronacademy]

Interesting. He must have lived in Italy for a long time, my guess is in the north.

[@annafirnen4815]

@@metatronacademy I read that he's giving Latin lectures at the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome so I guess he must spend a lot of time in Italy.

[@veracyning5572]

My Latin teacher in high school told us that Latin is a dead language and nobody knows how it was pronounced. She was also southern Baptist so she would absolutely not accept anything from the Catholic church. So she spoke Latin with an Alabama accent, pronouncing it like American English 😂 She was also wrong about many meanings. I grew up Catholic hearing it in church so I would get in trouble for "pretending". At the end of 3 years I was better in Latin than she was. (I think it's because she was an English lit teacher who got roped into teaching Latin, like a football coach who suddenly has to teach math. Happens all the time in American schools).

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

As much or more transparent vocabulary as with Spanish, but impenetrable grammar unlike Spanish. That's how it felt to me

[@MrAllmightyCornholioz]

Try Esperanto. Basically easier version of Latin invented by a Polack.

[@EVPaddy]

Has little to do with latin except for parts of the vocabulary. And I don’t like it very much. But I have another request: Rumansh, 4th official language of Switzerland.

[@rolandasb7502]

Invented by Litvak Jew, actualy

[@valerioluizfelipe]

Esperanto gets its vocabulary from many languages, just occasionally from Latin. A lot of words are pure German, like hundo for dog or flughaveno for airport.

[@kamilgregurek9314]

Papa Francisco speaks latin with Argentinian accent. Huge. :D

[@GehtEuchNixan82]

Roman seems to be a dominating language, at least 2000 years ago. Since then, another elite was taking over. So i dont wonder, that it differs so much from the "now" spoken language of italian people.. but my meaning is, that the italian language is closer to the original then the "church dominated latin" version.😉..please dont correct me that latin is not an actual language..

[@kekeke8988]

There were many other languages spoken in Italy besides Latin even in its hey day. Faliscan, Umbran, Oscan, Etruscan, Greek, etc.

[@tylere.8436]

​@@kekeke8988Greek indeed, it was even considered more prestiguous and sophisticated than Latin! The others though faded away rather quick, unfortunately.

[@danfsteeple]

Greek next