SPOKEN LATIN
Stn,—I was keenly interested in Mr. Harold Nicolson's remarks on Latin as an international mediaeval language in last week's Marginal Comment. I often discussed this matter with the late Dr. G. G. Coulton, and our talks led to the writing of his small book, Europe's Apprentice- ship (Nelson, 1940), which is hampered by its rather foolish tide. Coulton writes:— " We sec nowadays how an Englishman, settled on the Continent, will often lose half his own English and pick up nothing like its equi- valent in French or German ; and so it must have been with Latin. I cannot help believing that even the greatest minds in the Middle Ages lost something in width or delicacy of perception, and in suppleness of expression by this system. The use of Latin as a world language did indeed extend knowledge, but it diminished its inten- sity. I doubt whether at any university, at any time, there were half a dozen people able and willing to exchange their thoughts over the fireside with the intimacy which is possible at a modern univer- sity, either among older men or among undergraduates. It may be doubted whether any half-dozen ever met, except in the most excep- tional circumstances, among whom every one was able to express all the shades of his thought as readily and completely and syste- matically as we ourselves can in our vernacular. And again, even if an exceptional scholar was able thus to express himself, could he count upon the uptake ? Would every shade of meaning be as well understood as it usually is among our friends ? I doubt whether even Erasmus and Colet and More enjoyed anything like the same opportunities of intellectual interchange as (say) Lightfoot and Hort and Westcott."
—Yours faithfully, RICHARD WILSON Aldine Cottage, Upton, Dude, Cornwall.
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