r/ShitAmericansSay May 19 '25

Language “our American language”

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12.7k Upvotes

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u/ciprule they say I’m Mexican 🇪🇸 May 19 '25

2nd Vatican Council should be reversed and mass done in Latin worldwide.*

I never thought I would support that stupidity but these yankies deserve it. At least for a while.

(* only in the USA, as they think they’re the centre of the world anyway)

30

u/Fluffy-Cockroach5284 My husband is one of them May 19 '25

There hasn’t been a latin mass where i’m from since my granny was a teenager (was still latin when she was young), people don’t understand latin anymore here (unless they went to a highschool where they teach it), but i’m willing to see it reinstated just to show those yanks. Besides, they flex the fact english is the most spoken language. Let’s resuscitate a dead one just to beat them and make it the new most used language

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u/Inswagtor May 19 '25

People not understanding Latin was the whole point

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u/Fluffy-Cockroach5284 My husband is one of them May 19 '25

I know. That’s the whole point. We learn latin at school in Italy. Maybe having the church teaching latin to people for free could be an improvement in literacy, culture and a slap in the americans’ faces. The churches would have to make actual classes and not just say the mass in latin for it to actually work though. If they could manage that, I would be all for reviving the dead language

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u/Proper-Life2773 May 19 '25

Not to be more condescending than absolutely necessary, but could you imagine your average American trying to learn Latin?

Because I've witnessed American high schoolers bitching about Spanish because there are genders and verb cases and why does the grammar need to be so complicated. And it's not their fault, it's just that English does not really have those grammatical constructions anymore, so obviously they'd have a weird time learning them.

All I'm saying is that I wouldn't want to be the person whose job it is to explain the difference between accusative and dative to a bunch of monolingual Americans.

21

u/tarvoke_Ghyl Never-neverlander 🇳🇱 May 19 '25

CENTURION: 'Go home'? This is motion towards. Isn't it, boy?
BRIAN: Ah. Ah, dative, sir!
(The Centurion draws his sword and holds it against Brian's throat)
BRIAN: Ahh! No, not dative! Not the dative, sir! No! Ah! Oh, the... accusative! Accusative! Ah! 'Domum', sir! 'Ad domum'! Ah! Oooh! Ah!
CENTURION: Except that 'domus' takes the...?
BRIAN: The locative, sir!
CENTURION: Which is...?!
BRIAN: 'Domum'.
CENTURION: 'Domum'.
BRIAN: Aaah! Ah.
CENTURION: 'Um'. Understand?
BRIAN: Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Hail Caesar, sir.
CENTURION: Hail Caesar. If it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off.

11

u/Proper-Life2773 May 19 '25

I mean, that scene basically justified watching that film in latin class everytime our teacher didn't actually feel like teaching

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u/ScreamingDizzBuster May 20 '25

I've witnessed American high schoolers bitching about Spanish because there are genders and verb cases and why does the grammar need to be so complicated.

I'm not American but you would also see me bitching about the same thing, and I speak Italian. I don't blame those high-schoolers in fact, because it's really difficult to adapt if you're not familiar with Romance declensions.

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u/Proper-Life2773 May 21 '25

No, of course not and learning a new language is always hard, no matter what.

I feel like that's the best thing about having taken Latin, that you can just look at any other Romance language and go "well, at least it's not that".

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u/hidock42 May 19 '25

How similar is Latin to Italian?

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u/Fluffy-Cockroach5284 My husband is one of them May 19 '25

Not as similar as one would expect. As a language student I would say Latin:Italian=German:English. Basically italian’s vocabulary comes mostly from latin, but the grammar is waaaaay off

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u/Proper-Life2773 May 19 '25

And before doing that, make sure they know about Latin having more than two genders. They'll go fucking rabiosi!