Spoken Latin: A modern remedy for the nation’s age-old reading problems?

[Connor Hart]

Here, the opening paragraphs to a recent Washington Post article followed by a link to the full article:

There are some basic things to figure out before you agree to join a group of people who all speak a foreign language. Like how to say hello and how to tell them what your name is. A little online research reveals any number of e-phrasebooks to help you navigate those niceties in languages from Arabic to Zapotec.

So, iPhone in hand, you open a door and introduce yourself. “Salve,” you whisper to the first person you see. Emboldened, you speak up: “Nomen mihi est Francisca.” But then, before you can conjugate a deponent verb, a man sitting at a table begins discussing the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78. In Latin.

Fluent (that’s from fluere, “to flow”) Latin.

Mellifluous Latin, even. Latin that flows like honey, mel.

“Stupefacta sum,” you mumble.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/spoken-latin-a-mod...