The Latin Speaker - Frank Sewall

[kev67]

I was looking for a Latin phrase book. Not the 'cogito ergo sum' type of phrase, but more like the 'Wo is die am nachste Bushaltestelle?' type phrase book. Eventually I ordered 'The Latin Speaker' by Frank Sewall. From the introduction it looks like Frank Sewall was a 19th Century, American academic, who thought students would learn Latin better, if they had naturalistic dialogues they could repeat. I have started reading it, but it is not really a 'Je voudrais une chambre avec douche,' type phrase book. The first dialogues are all extracts from the Bible. There are some dialogues in part 2. I will still work through it. It is not very difficult, but it is not what I was expecting.

 

[cinefactus]

I have seen some from the Renaissance, but I can't remember their names.

 

[Pacifica]

I have seen some from the Renaissance, but I can't remember their names.

This may be one of them: Colloquies - Wikipedia

I haven't read it myself, but heard of it.

 

[Pacifica]

It doesn't seem to be quite the "chambre avec douche" type, either, though.

 

[Avunculus H]

Suuum cuique, of course, but where would you use that knowledge? Normal text books at least prepare you for reading existing Latin texts.
BTW, it's 'Wo ist die nächste Bushaltestelle?', without am.

 

[Iacobinus]

This may be one of them: Colloquies - Wikipedia

I haven't read it myself, but heard of it.

The Belles Lettres, a quite serious French academic publishing house, famous for its Latin and Greek bilingual editions, recently published them.

Les Colloques - Érasme

Voici un livre d'un genre littéraire non identifié, fruit du hasard et de l'occasion, entamé par le jeune Érasme pour ses élèves et regroupant dans...

www.lesbelleslettres.com

 

[cinefactus]

It doesn't seem to be quite the "chambre avec douche" type, either, though.

The one I saw was much simpler.

 

[kev67]

I am still reading this book. It is rather strange. The first part is prayers and verses from the Bible. The second part contains dialogues, mostly between school pupils. The dialogues are a bit stilted, but I noticed they sneak in some grammar. The third part contains much longer dialogues, which seem rather like monologues to me. Yet another part contains extracts of Latin verse.

 

[Iáson]

That sounds not massively different from most of the late medieval and early modern Latin colloquia that I've come across.

 

[Devenius Dulenius]

If you can work with German, there's Sprechen Sie Lateinisch?, free download from Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/capellanvs-georg-sprechen-sie-lateinisch/mode/2up. This is more of the format you seem to be looking for. (Published in 1890)

 

[Devenius Dulenius]

I should also mention, as we have ancient Greek students here as well, the companion volume Sprechen Sie Attisch? which is a German-Greek phrase book based on Attic Greek. Both the book and recordings of the book (done by bedwere, a moderator at Textkit Greek and Latin Forum) are available on Archive.org here:

https://archive.org/search?query=Sprechen+Sie+Attisch

I have dipped into the book ( I have a couple of pdfs), but did not know until a moment ago that bedwere had recorded any of it. I shall have to listen to his tracks. He is quite good. He also does material in Latin; he currently is recording the entire Latin Vulgate Old Testament. You can also find that work on Archive.org.

 

[Devenius Dulenius]

Edit: I forgot that the above is the older edition of Sprechen Sie Attisch? that uses the older Fraktur or blackletter font for the German (similar to Old English font used on diplomas and degrees). This is a bit difficult to read even if you know German.

Luckily, our friend bedewere has improved on it with an all-Greek edition that includes Greek glosses and pictures for the vocabulary in the margins. Also at archive.org, it is entitled ἆρα Ἀττικιστὶ λέγεις; . Here's the link: https://archive.org/details/attic_201811/page/n5/mode/2up. Great stuff. He also has produced a visual dictionary of ancient Greek which is very useful (available on archive.org as well). Euge, amice bedewere! Ευγε, φιλε Βεδυερε!

 

[kev67]

I am still working through The Latin Speaker by Frank Sewall. I came across the poem which had the line, 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.' It was in a poem called 'Ad Pubem Romanam'. They made them tough back then.