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A Natural History of Latin (Hardcover)

by Tore Janson (Author), Nigel Vincent (Translator), Merethe Damsgaard Sørensen (Translator) "Many Latin words are easy to understand ..." (more)
2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
RRP: £16.99
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 316 pages
  • Publisher: OUP Oxford (28 Oct 2004)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0199263094
  • ISBN-13: 978-0199263097
  • Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 14.5 x 2.5 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 568,026 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

The Scotsman, November 27, 2004

This always readable book is full of interest.


Review

Natural History of Latin is an authoritative introduction to arguably the most influential language of all time. (Chicago Tribune )

This always readable book is full of interest. (The Scotsman )

It is hard to imagine how this book could be improved. (Linguist )

From now on, if anyone who has never studied Latin askes me to recommend a short, readable book in which they can find out about the history of Latin and get a feel for the grammar, I will be able to answer unhesitatingly. (Linguist )
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Many Latin words are easy to understand. Read the first page
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Superficial, 16 Oct 2007
By C. Dixon "Uomo universale" (Devon, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)      
This review is from: A Natural History of Latin (Paperback)
This is far, far too superficial to be a genuine history of the Latin language. Everything is dealt with too briefly, if at all. Most of the discussion of the language per se is in the final third of the book, which contains a potted Latin grammar (if I wanted this I would read a Latin grammar). The first two sections, entitled "Latin and the Romans" and "Latin and Europe" respectively, focus too much on overviews of history and literary figures and precious little on the language itself apart from the odd few lines from Virgil, Ovid etc. I would have expected a work calling itself a "history" of Latin to deal with, to take a couple of examples, the relationship between Latin and Proto-Indo-European and its other descendant languages, and the development of the Latin alphabet via Old Italic/Etruscan alphabets going back through to Greek and Semitic alphabets. Not even a sausage on such matters.

The language used seems to be very much at a school textbook sort of level, and an indicator that such may be the real target audience is the couple of pages devoted to the use of pseudo-Latin (i.e. not even real Latin) in the Harry Potter books. Get down with the kids!

Perhaps fine as a companion work to schoolkids beginning GCSE Latin, otherwise forget it.

(Update 13/09/08: I have just purchased Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin, which whilst I have not yet read it, from my perusal looks a lot better than this book.)
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1 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Good attempt.===== Language of Latium - ancient Lazio, 22 Sep 2007
By Mr. G. J. Coldham - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: A Natural History of Latin (Paperback)
Many philologists eg Cruttwell, Mommsen, Ramat, Pharies, have covered the domain of Latin & its morphology.
The Bronze age roots of proto Latin and Etruscan, as languages, are obscure.
Presumably Celt, Phoenician, Lemnian and Chaldaean. The Latin alphabet was derived from the Dorian-Greek alphabet of Cumae. By the time of the Laws of the Twelve Tables (451, 450 B.C.) classical Latin was emerging.
If only Claudius's 20 volume History of the Etruscans had survived, we would be much the wiser. The ancient citizens of the Kingdom of Latium eclipsed and outgrew their linguistic ancestors, the Etruscans, in every sense. Far from preserving non-Roman cultures, the armies of Latium colonised and eradicated them over the centuries. There was space for only one monolithic culture and language. Of the competing languages and cultures of ancient Italy, the victor was Latin, the language of the most militarised. Rivals were subsumed. Even so, the "Sermo" of "street Latin" Latinus Vulgaris; was a melting pot of influences.
Through monasticism, Latin was, later, one of the "planks" of the Medieval Renaissance.
As with all apects of nature: "Dei Rerum Natura", Latin itself arose from Darwinian selection.
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