Why Latin Should Revive

I am rather excited by various developments which seem to show that Latin may be making a comeback: the Living Latin movement, for example, and some recent publications of Medieval and Neo-Latin texts. It seems possible to me that some momentum may be accumulating.

"Latin is a language without  a country.  It is not the native language of any country.  That is why it is doomed." 

It was a language without a country when the Western Roman Empire fell in AD 476, and for well over a thousand years after that it remained the international language of western Europe. It was not a global language as English is today, and I don't happen to know whether or not the reach of Latin was greater than that of Arabic or Chinese, but within western Europe, it was universal.

 

In European universities, from Finland to Portugal, to Lima, Peru, where St Mark's University was officially established in 1551, lectures were given, discussions were held, and examinations, oral and written, in Latin. Latin was the language of mathematics and physics, of botany, chemistry, geography, medicine. Newton published his Principia, in 1728, in Latin. Spinoza published a few minor early works in Dutch, and then all of his major works were in Latin. 

Descartes and Leibniz each published about half in Latin and half in French. Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes wrote mostly in Latin. Milton wrote in English, Italian, Latin and Greek, the show-off! But these were all 17th- and 18th-century figures, coming at the end of the period of Latin's dominance in Europe. Before the year 1600, although there certainly was a large amount of vernacular literature, exactly none of it could have been considered academic. Latin had no country of its own, that's true, but it did have communities, including the academic community. Students and professors traveled all over Europe and employed the same language wherever they went. It was expected that a professor would teach in several countries over the course of his career, in part to ensure that ideas circulated internationally. 

Latin was the language of royalty and high aristocracy, and of international diplomacy. It was not always expected that every single king and queen could speak brilliantly and spontaneously in Latin, but the advantages of being able to do so were large and obvious.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, military generals, colonels and majors came from the aristocracy, and they traveled internationally, working sometimes for this country, sometimes for another. Although in this case it had less to do with the spread of ideas than with the mercenary officers seeking the most advantageous positions. And all over Europe, battlefield commands were shouted out in Latin.

Latin was the international European language of shipping and commerce. Christopher Columbus did not attend a university, but he did learn Latin, in order to be a ship's captain traveling internationally, and also in order to read works about the Earth's geography which were all either originally written in Latin or translated into Latin from Greek.

So you see, although Latin did not have a country, for over a thousand years it still had some very important uses. And I didn't even mention the Middle Ages, or theology! It may have been no-one's first language -- or very few people's first language -- but it was very many people's second language. The time in which Latin has declined is still a very short time compared to the time when it flourished.

Anyway, when I said yesterday that I was very excited because I thought Latin might be about to make a very big comeback, I was not thinking about it replacing English as the world language numero uno (see what I did there? never mind). I was merely expressing the hope, shared by some others, that Latin may be reviving somewhat from the low point in popularity it has recently reached. At the very least, perhaps more people will resume studying several thousand years' worth of the history of hundreds of millions of people in the language in which it was written.

Neo-Latin Texts from Bloomsbury

The British publisher Bloomsbury has published at least 3 volumes of Neo-Latin literature: 1 volume each of European and British texts, and 1 of texts in British Universities. 1 more volume, dealing with Latin plays written by Jesuits in Japan, may have already appeared. However, I have had only the first 3 volumes before my eyes, and so this post will concentrate mostly on those. Bloomsbury's website shows 6 further volumes scheduled for publication later in 2023 and 2024, with texts by Ermolao Barbaro, Roger Ascham, Robert Persons, SJ, Classical scholars, and Popes Urban VIII, Alexander VII and Leo XIII. Here is the page on this Neo-Latin series on Bloomsbury's website. 

The first 3 volumes in this series, An Anthology of European Neo-Latin Literature, An Anthology of British Neo-Latin Literature and An Anthology of Neo-Latin Literature in British Universities, present a selection of excerpts of items published between AD 1500 and 1800 in the first two volumes, and between AD 1500 and 1700 in the volume concerning British universities. 

 

Each Neo-Latin text -- 19 of them in the volume on European Latin, 18 in the volume on British Latin and 11 in the volume concerning Latin in British universities -- is preceded by an introduction and followed by a commentary, and furnished with a facing-page English translation, each text's apparatus provided by a different luminary from today's world of academic Latin and related fields. The introductions provide information about the authors and situations in which the texts were written, the commentaries help to explain passages which might otherwise be mysterious. They are simply splendid, with much useful information for both the layperson and the specialist. I'm sorry, but I have nothing to carp about here.

The selection of authors in the volumes on European and British Neo-Latin will cause no great surprise to those already familiar with the field: Erasmus, More, Elizabeth I, Buchanan, Milton, Barclay and the other stars of the period are all there. There is Bembo on Columbus' first voyage, Fracastoro on syphilis, an excerpt from John Barclay's novel Argenis -- the usual suspects.

The volume on Latin in British Universities stays true to its title, offering treatises on the correct teaching of Greek, on various power struggles between universities and politicians as well as panegyrics on statesmen with whom the universities happened to have more harmonious relations, and some student compositions which are more art for art's sake.

Carlsen and Fischer: Two Different Kinds of the Best

Magnus Carlsen has been the highest-rated chess player in the world since 2011. His highest rating was 2882 in 2014, currently his rating is 2835. He became world champion in 2013 at age 21, successfully defended his title several times, and earlier this year, he declined to defend his title, which is to say: he's retiring as an undefeated champ. Going out on a high note. And good for him. 

Among many other world's-best achievements, Carlsen has the longest unbeaten streak in the history of elite chess, going unbeaten for 125 consecutive games from 2018 to 2020. For my readers who are not chess aficionados, let me clarify: Carlsen did not win 125 games. The majority of elite-level chess games end in draws. Over the course of 125 games, Carlsen had 42 wins, 83 draws and no losses. His longest winning streak during the unbeaten streak was 5 games. And winning 5 games in a row against the best chess players in the world is quite an achievement. 

As a wise man once told me, "Chess is a game of mistakes." If your opponent makes a bad enough mistake, and you know how to take advantage of it, you win. If you're aggressive and do something unexpected, maybe you'll shake up your opponent and win, or maybe it'll come back and bite you, maybe you'll over-extend yourself, and your opponent will keep their head, weather the storm, take advantage of your carelessness and beat you. Or maybe neither of you will make any noteworthy mistakes and the game will end in a draw.

A long time ago, before I realized that most Grandmaster games end in draws, I read somewhere that Bobby Fischer's playing style was to try to win every game. This confused me. I thought: why wouldn't you try to win every game? But most top-level players play a little differently: they try very hard not to lose, not to make any mistakes. If they catch a bad mistake by their opponent and win, so much the better.

Carlsen is an extremely precise sort of player. Very few mistakes. Very little rolling of the dice, compared to Fischer. Fewer Queen sacrifices. Less drama.

One of the few top Grandmasters who may have been even more aggressive than Fischer was Mikhail Tal, World Champion from 1960 to 1961. Someone, I wish I could remember who, once wrote that Tal "tried to win every game with every move."

That 125-game unbeaten streak by Carlsen is an amazing achievement, arguably the pinnacle of one of the best careers in the history of chess. But there is another streak in chess history which, in the opinion of many, is much more astounding still: in 1970 and 1971, in the process of beating all the other candidates and thus qualifying to take on Boris Spassky for the world chess championship in 1972, Bobby Fischer won 20 consecutive games.

Some will tell you that he actually won only 19 in a row, since one of his opponents, Oscar Panno, sat out the game in protest of his game against Fischer being rescheduled. I don't think Panno had a chance anyway and that people are giving him way too much credit. His major claim to fame today is this silly protest. 

But, po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to, 20 wins in a row or only 19, either way, no one else has come close to what Fischer did there. He won his last 7 games (or "only" 6, if you insist on seeing it that way) in a tournament determining who would be the final 8 players to fight it out for the chance to play Spassky for the world championship. 

With the chess world's minds already blown by this winning streak, Fischer went on to beat Taimanov 6-0, six wins, no draws, in the quarter-final match. And commentators, quite accurately, said that nothing like this had ever been seen. 

And then Fischer beat Larson 6-0 in the semi-final round. 19 wins in a row.

Then, in the final round, against Tigran Petrosian, who had been world champion from 1963 to 1969, Fischer won the first game. 20 in a row. Then Petrosian, very much the opposite sort of player from Fischer, all caution, sypremely solid, waiting to pounce on the opponent's mistakes, won the second game, and he managed several draws, but Fischer won the match 6 1/2 games to 2 1/2.

And then, in the famous world championship match in Iceland, in what was perhaps a severe case of nerves, or perhaps a bit of understandable burn-out after having played at an unheard-of level for a year and a half, Fischer lost the first 2 games. Many said at the time, well, that's it, that remarkable run is over. Being down 2-0 in a match where he needed 12 1/2 points to win and Spassky needed 12 to keep the title, looked to many like an insurmountable obstacle.

But Fischer won the match 12 1/2 games to 8 1/2. 

And that was the end of Fischer's chess career. He made demands for his next match which FIDE, the world chess governing body, were never going to accept. Fischer retired, without officially retiring. In 1992 there was a return match against Spassky which made both players lots of money, and made most of the spectators sad. And that was it, as far as Fischer professional chess career was concerned. 

But that run, from the 20-game winning streak to the lopsided end of the world championship match, is just so very far beyond unequaled. 

It was like the 1977 Sears Point AMA motorcycle road race. Kenny Roberts was so much better than everyone else in US road racing at that point, that no-one knew HOW much better he was: he would go out to a comfortable lead in each race, and then slow down to a comfortable pace, and as long as his bike didn't break, he won, no drama, easy-peasy. 

In 1977 at Sears Point, just as the race was about to start, officials noticed that Roberts' Yamaha was spraying oil from a busted gasket, and so, safety first, they moved him from pole position at the start to the last row, and we got to see some drama.

Roberts started last and four laps later, he was in first place. DiMaggio got base hits in 56 straight games. Mike Tyson laid out the next-best heavyweights in the world in one or two minutes. That's the sort of head-and-shoulders-above-everybody dominance Bobby Fischer displayed at the end of his career.

Nobody Killed the Electric Car!

I first saw Chris Paine's documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? over 15 years ago. I've seen it several times, watching very carefully, because I'm very much interested in electric cars. But only in the past few days has it occurred to me what a melodramatic, overstated and misleading title and outlook and approach the movie has. 

The movie has to do with the General Motors EV1, an electric car made from 1996 to 1999 in order to comply with California regulations. A total of 1,117 were made. They were leased, not sold, to customers in California. And then in 2002, when Republican took over the California legislature and rescinded the electric vehicle requirements, they were all recalled, and all but a few dozen were destroyed. Most of the remaining EV1's are now in museums. I think a few may actually be on the roads, but I'm not sure about that.

I still find GM's behavior with the EV1 to have been deplorable: refusing to sell this breakthrough electric vehicle, only leasing it, although there were customers begging to be allowed to buy them, and then taking them all back and scrapping them. I am in no way defending GM's scrapping of the EV1.

But Chris Paine's movie is, I repeat, a bit melodramatic. It consists for the most part of interviews with GM employees, some of whom worked on the EV1 project and were passionately in favor of the development of the electric vehicle, and some who seemed rather sleazy; and with some of those people to whom GM leased the EV1. 

As far as the viewer can tell by the movie, GM leased the EV1 only to movie stars. I'm guessing that GM leased some of them to people who weren't movie stars. But Paine didn't interview any of them. 

And one thing about actors is that we can get pretty dramatic at times. I say "we," although I haven't acted in a while, because I know I have the drama-queen gene. 

GM didn't kill the electric car, they discontinued the EV1 leases and recalled and scrapped the EV1's. That was not nice, and in my opinion it wasn't smart at all either, but there were still other EV's on the roads. You can see some of them in Who Killed the Electric Car? For example, the Toyota Rav4 EV. In the movie, in a melodramatically tense highway scene, one of the movie stars sees a truckload of these electric Rav4's and exclaims, OMG they're going to destroy all of THOSE too! (Nope. Toyota kept making the electric Rav4 until 2014.) 

Paine's camera shakes during that scene, as if he was getting caught up in the drama. I don't think he intentionally mislead anyone. I think he was caught up. Maybe most people who interviewed that many movie stars in that short a time would get caught up. Movie stars are very riveting, persuasive people. That's why they're stars.

But all this drama had to do with around 1,000 EV's. General Motors has sold about 200,000 Chevy Bolts. Recently, they announced they were going to discontinue the Bolt, and then they quickly reversed that decision. Maybe they've learned from the negative reaction of their handling of the EV1. Before the Bolt, they sold almost as many Volts. The electric Silverado, Sierra, Celestiq, Equinox and Blazer from GM are all already on the roads and showrooms, or coming very, very soon. The recall of the EV1 represents barely a hiccup in the overall scheme of EV production from General Motors. In his follow-up documentary, Revenge of the Electric Car, Paine represents the development of the Bolt as a change of heart for General Motors, but there's no real proof that GM wasn't committed to the most effective technology all along, and in case you didn't know it, EV's are the most technologically effective vehicles, and are rapidly pulling away from internal combustion in terms of their superior function.

And that's only GM. It's a very similar story at Ford, Hyundai/Kia, VW, Sellantis, BMW, Mercedes and almost every single other major automotive manufacturer. The transition to EV's is real, and Elon Musk didn't make it happen. He just jumped out in front of this parade and has pretended to lead it. And maybe, just possibly, he watched Who Killed the Electric Car? and saw how much fuss movie stars could stir up over a thousand EV's, and so decided to make them his first marketing niche and unwitting advertising department.