The Latin Language

Latin Language and Latin Culture

The Latin language is popularly imagined in a number of specific ways: as a masculine language, an imperial language, a classical language, a dead language. This book considers the sources of these metaphors and analyses their effect on how Latin literature is read. It argues that these metaphors have become idées fixes not only in the popular imagination but in the formation of Latin studies as a professional discipline. By reading with and more commonly against these metaphors, the book offers a different view of Latin as a language and as a vehicle for cultural practice. The argument ranges over a variety of texts in Latin and texts about Latin produced by many different sorts of writers from antiquity to the twentieth century.

The Latin Language

This excellent study traces the relation of Latin to other Indo-European languages and guides the reader lucidly through Latin phonology, morphology, and syntax. It should prove fascinating not only to Latinists but also to linguists generally and, expecially, to students of Romance languages. Over the years, readers have found that Palmer’s treatment of this so-called dead language reveals Latin’s continuing vitality and "soul."

On the Latin Language