Re: The Institute for Latin Studies (University of Kentucky) Prof. T. Tunberg, Leuven, 21 February 2001. Dear Sir,
A couple of months ago, I had the pleasure to write an introduction to a reprint of Smith's English-Latin Dictionary. In it, I gave some reasons why I think the active use of Latin to be important, indeed vital for the survival of Latin studies. I observed that Quintilian already noted that there are three ways to learn a language: by speaking, by reading, and by writing. I stressed that these were the ways that enabled the humanists and their successors te become competent Latinists. For political and sociological reasons, I said, the active use of Latin gradually disappeared and eventually vanished from the universities and schools in the twentieth century, and Latin became a truly dead language. Before that, there was a solid tradition to teach people to speak Latin in order to command the Roman tongue. This old approach had its merits: it paved the way for creative play appealing to the young, gave them an opportunity to commit the Latin grammar and vocabulary to their memories, and to bring Latin really into their lives. From a scholarly point of view, this method of training was useful as well. How can we judge the beauty of a Ciceronian phrase or of a Vergilian hexameter, if we do not know it from the inside, by being obliged to write prose and verse ourselves? Moreover, the active use of Latin almost naturally involves an interest in all the periods of Latin language and letters, and makes us consider it a great continuum. This is essential for the survival of Latin studies, since the importance of ancient Latin literature is also a consequence of Western culture's bimillenarian interest in it. And we should not forget that, for many centuries, Europe and the Americas were culturally unified by their common interest in the ancient literatures as well as their participation in one, Neo-Latin literature. That heritage from early modern and modern times contains works which are fundamental for our culture. Most of these works are not available in translations, but deserve to be read and studied, and that requires a good training in Latin. In his recent seminal book "Latein Sprechen im Unterricht" the Berlin pedagogue and Latinist Andreas Frisch presents a scholarly development of these questions and pleads for a return to the active method of learning Latin.
To my surprise, I found that my esteemed colleague, Prof. Tunberg, adhered to the same principles in promoting the Institute for Latin Studies. For many years, I have read and appreciated Tunberg's articles on Medieval and Neo-Latin literature, many of which are written in an elegant Latin. For that reason we invited Professor Tunberg to become a member of the editorial board of our journal Humanistica Lovaniensia. I have also had the opportunity to discuss many scholarly problems with Professor Tunberg here in Leuven, as well as in Rome, where we both attended the meetings of the Academia Latinitati Fovendae. Since we spoke only Latin, I was able to admire Tunberg's mastery of active Latin and his wide knowledge of Latin literature from ancient, medieval and modern times. Therefore, I am quite confident that he is "the right person in the right place", and I ask you to support with all possible means the Institute for Latin Studies, which he will surely shape into a centre of excellence in the United States.
Sincerely Yours, Dirk Sacré Professor of Latin at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Member of the Academia Latinitati Fovendae
Created on ... March 26, 2001