# Do you know a dead language? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 24, 2008, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-a-dead-language/450487 "2008-05-24T18:31:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2008, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-a-dead-language/450487/1 "2008-05-24T18:31:57Z")
Question in the thread title. For bonus points, talk about some of the works you’ve read in any dead language. I expect most of the responses will involve Latin, with classical Greek a distant second, but I’m hoping for a little bit of diversity. I studied Latin and Greek back in high school. The Latin has stuck, while the Greek has not (possibly because of the difference in teaching methods, possibly because I studied the former first). I don’t know that I’d really say that I know Latin, but I can contribute to some of the discussions around here. I think the only work we read in Latin class was Caesar’s Commentary on the Gallic Wars. In Greek, we read a lot of things: some Homer, some Plato, some plays, and the Gospel of Mark. ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2008, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-a-dead-language/450487/2 "2008-05-24T19:44:12Z")
My story’s much the same as yours. Studied Classical Latin for 3-4 years in school, some of which has stuck; mostly it has helped me be able to read in Spanish and spell in French. The material included Caesar’s Gallic Wars, Cicero’s Orations against Cataline and a bit of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. One of the downsides of studying a dead language is that I never attained fluency in Latin; that is, the knack of thinking in Latin rather than parsing it grammatically and analytically. After less than 2 years of French I was thinking in French. I know it’s possible to become fluent in Latin, Ancient Greek or what have you, but for me it just never clicked that way. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2008, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-a-dead-language/450487/3 "2008-05-24T20:32:55Z")
I know BASIC. That’s pretty dead these days. ---
**Author:** ![DaphneBlack](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daphneblack/32/5389_2.png) [@DaphneBlack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaphneBlack)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2008, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-a-dead-language/450487/4 "2008-05-24T20:42:02Z")
Well, I’ll bite. I’m currently working on a PhD in Ancient History, so, yeah, I know Latin and Greek. I also know Classical Syriac (a Christian dialect of Aramaic). ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2008, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-a-dead-language/450487/5 "2008-05-24T20:45:03Z")
Old Irish and Middle Welsh, with passing familiarity with a lot of their Indo-European relations, near and far. ---
**Author:** ![Ronald\_C.Semone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cc9497/32.png) [@Ronald\_C.Semone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ronald_C.Semone)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2008, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-a-dead-language/450487/6 "2008-05-24T20:52:49Z")
Does correct Standard American English count? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2008, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-a-dead-language/450487/7 "2008-05-24T21:50:12Z")
[QUOTE=DaphneBlack] I also know Classical Syriac… [/QUOTE] Hey, you don’t happen to know the word for “duck” (the bird) in Cl. Syriac, do you? I’m trying to figure out if Arabic borrowed from Persian or vice-versa, and since I don’t speak either language Aramaic would be a useful data point. ---
**Author:** ![DaphneBlack](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daphneblack/32/5389_2.png) [@DaphneBlack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaphneBlack)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2008, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-a-dead-language/450487/8 "2008-05-24T22:04:21Z")
Duck is ‘bato’ (root: bet tet aleph). ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2008, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-a-dead-language/450487/9 "2008-05-24T22:19:45Z")
I’ve studied Latin and Anglo-Saxon, although both are pretty rusty at this point. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2008, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-a-dead-language/450487/10 "2008-05-24T22:35:35Z")
I studied a little classical Chinese but wouldn’t say I “know” it. ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2008, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-a-dead-language/450487/11 "2008-05-24T22:40:19Z")
I’ve dealt with a lot of Middle Dutch and Middle German. Mostly devotional Christian texts and pilgrimage accounts. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2008, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-a-dead-language/450487/12 "2008-05-24T22:43:47Z")
[QUOTE=RealityChuck] I know BASIC. That’s pretty dead these days. [/QUOTE] Not according to Microsoft, who claim well over a million active developers (not that I believe everything Microsoft tells me!). ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2008, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-a-dead-language/450487/13 "2008-05-24T22:48:19Z")
Some Latin, Some Greek. ---
**Author:** ![FourPaws](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e0b2c6/32.png) [@FourPaws](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FourPaws)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2008, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-a-dead-language/450487/14 "2008-05-24T22:59:18Z")
No, but I see dead people, does that count? ---
**Author:** ![ASAKMOTSD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/919ad9/32.png) [@ASAKMOTSD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASAKMOTSD)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2008, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-a-dead-language/450487/15 "2008-05-24T23:19:20Z")
6502 Assembler ---
**Author:** ![Scribble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scribble/32/3317_2.png) [@Scribble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scribble)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2008, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-a-dead-language/450487/16 "2008-05-24T23:59:38Z")
[QUOTE=DaphneBlack] Duck is ‘bato’ (root: bet tet aleph). [/QUOTE] \ Interesting. In Spanish, the word for “duck” is “pato.” It’s also “pato” in Portuguese (same spelling, different pronunciation.) I’ll make a bet that “pato” is a cognate to "bato,"and that the Portuguese and Spanish words both have a Semitic root. \ \ The French words are “canard” (for a male duck) and “cane” (for a female duck.) According to the English-to-Italian dictionary I used, the Italian for duck is “papera,” (for the live bird) and “anatra” (for a cooked duck.) The fact that such closely related languages as Spanish, French, and Italian have such different terms for a common animal makes me think that they each took the word from different source. I would bet that “pato” comes from Arabic, while “canard” has a Germanic root, and “papera” comes from the Latin. Anyone know how to say “duck” in Latin? \ ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2008, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-a-dead-language/450487/17 "2008-05-25T00:17:34Z")
[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat] Not according to Microsoft, who claim well over a million active developers (not that I believe everything Microsoft tells me!). [/QUOTE] That’s probably Visual Basic. Not the same thing. I even wrote (and got paid for) a poem in Basic: Basic Poem 10 Print “em Po”; 20 Goto 10 ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2008, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-a-dead-language/450487/18 "2008-05-25T00:18:48Z")
Three semesters of ancient Greek. Give me a text to translate, a lexicon, and a grammar reference and I can probably still in some time give you a half-decent translation. Ask me to decline a noun or conjugate a verb and I’m stumped. The two big texts I’ve translated were the first half of Plato’s _Meno_ and book 16 of _The Odyssey_. Yes, Homeric Greek and Attic Greek are very very different. With either, though, you really get a whole new level of appreciation for the text - there are lots of words (_logos_ comes to mind here) which just don’t translate very well. I’m torn between studying (on my own) biblical Hebrew, modern Hebrew, or modern Arabic this summer, so there may be an addition. ---
**Author:** ![Antonius\_Block](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/51bf81/32.png) [@Antonius\_Block](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antonius_Block)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2008, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-a-dead-language/450487/19 "2008-05-25T00:20:35Z")
[QUOTE=Scribble] Anyone know how to say “duck” in Latin? \ [/QUOTE] **Anas**. ---
**Author:** ![DaphneBlack](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daphneblack/32/5389_2.png) [@DaphneBlack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaphneBlack)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2008, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-a-dead-language/450487/20 "2008-05-25T00:58:58Z")
[QUOTE=Scribble] \ Interesting. In Spanish, the word for “duck” is “pato.” It’s also “pato” in Portuguese (same spelling, different pronunciation.) I’ll make a bet that “pato” is a cognate to "bato,"and that the Portuguese and Spanish words both have a Semitic root. \ \ The French words are “canard” (for a male duck) and “cane” (for a female duck.) According to the English-to-Italian dictionary I used, the Italian for duck is “papera,” (for the live bird) and “anatra” (for a cooked duck.) The fact that such closely related languages as Spanish, French, and Italian have such different terms for a common animal makes me think that they each took the word from different source. I would bet that “pato” comes from Arabic, while “canard” has a Germanic root, and “papera” comes from the Latin. Anyone know how to say “duck” in Latin? \ [/QUOTE] I would not be at all surprised if ‘pato’ in Sp. and Pg. is Arabic-derived. Italian ‘anatra’ must come from Latin ‘anas’ (dunno about ‘papera’). Duck in modern German is ‘Ente’ but I don’t know about any older forms there. Yay, languages are fun! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-a-dead-language/450487.md?page=2)