Cultural Languages Beyond English

[lightcrystal]

There have been many comments in many off topic threads like "English is a loincloth of the Romans" etc.

As a native English speaker who doesn't have a real second language :
what is the best second language for cultural purposes? That is, NOT tourism etc. But reading sacred texts and historical documents in their original language.

Sanskrit?
Hebrew?
Latin?
Old pre 1400s French?
Various African languages such as Hausa?
Arabic?
Ancient Greek?
Pre Han Dynasty Chinese?

Imagine you are a time traveler monk. You are here to convince me to learn a new language.

[Availle]

Good question, but I'd say it depends what culture(s) you're after.

European cultures, I'd say go with Latin.
Most official documents were written in Latin until the middle ages and in certain cases, beyond (think tomb stones or university certificates). Not to mention South America after the conquest. Latin also "informed" the Romance languages, and today's Romanian is essentially just Latin modernized. That's an extra bonus.

For East Asian Cultures, Chinese, definitely.
Chinese characters were used in Korea until the 15th century, and are still in use in Japan - both with modifications of course, but I'm sure you'll get the gist of any document by knowing the original characters. Speaking is another can of worms, but that's not what you're after.

[annise]

If you aren't doing for face to face contact, you need a language that is written. So that wipes out some of the ones you listed. Every "educated" Englishman learned Latin and Greek so they could drop quotations into their writings and the hoi polloi didn't understand. It also does help nowadays to find what English words you don't know mean by working out the roots
Most of the earlier uses of writing were for religion, though it was handy for trade purposes. And for keeping in touch across empires and tax collection

Anne

[barbara2]

Good question, but I'd say it depends what culture(s) you're after.

European cultures, I'd say go with Latin.
Most official documents were written in Latin until the middle ages and in certain cases, beyond (think tomb stones or university certificates). Not to mention South America after the conquest. Latin also "informed" the Romance languages, and today's Romanian is essentially just Latin modernized. That's an extra bonus.

For East Asian Cultures, Chinese, definitely.
Chinese characters were used in Korea until the 15th century, and are still in use in Japan - both with modifications of course, but I'm sure you'll get the gist of any document by knowing the original characters. Speaking is another can of worms, but that's not what you're after.

I'd go with Latin too for those, and for yet another reason - the poetry! Vergil, Catullus, Horace ... I spent the Covid lockdown enjoyably trying to bring my Latin back from the dead. The complex grammar of classical Latin might appeal if you like to code or solve puzzles.


Being able to read Chinese characters is a distant goal of mine - for reasons Availle has mentioned. I live in the same hemisphere as China which makes the culture more important (and interesting) to me I guess. Edit: as do you I notice.



Barbara