Anyone here read anything from Julius Caesar?

[OneFootInTheGrave]

OK - a quickie, on some of the aspects - for Vet, on Croatian

http://www.matica.hr/vijenac/vij206.nsf/AllWebDocs/Mislimlatniski

and the words... I guess latin is not big in the mountain names anywhere, neither is it in animal/plant names, all the languages keep their own, as well cats and dogs were the same in the russian steppe and in Dalmatia... except Romance languages, but if we had that too... I think we would not fall under Slavic language family...

as for the mountains, I guess we also say Alps ... but I think mountains have not kept their latin roots elswhere either much...

[Heraclitus]

How do you southern slavs feel about the former roman latin past of your land? Do you (plural) think you killed the roman population? mixed with them peacefully? dominated them and imposed your language?

People in the slave class in ancient Carantania (a ancient Slavic state that we Slovenians identified with them) where called "Krščeniki". A clear corruption of Christians.

Most people here (Slovenia) assume we mostly replaced them but that some mixing did happen.

They did not merge with Latin, they did not inherit names of hills or streams or
plants or animals from Latin.

In Slovenia its a bit different.
Latin-Slovenian

Towns & cities:
Carnium-Kranj
Celeia-Celje
Longaticum-Logatec
Metulum-Metlika
Poetovio-Ptuj
Pyrrhanum-Piran

Lots of other cities where rebuilt but Emona dosen't really sound like Ljubljana.

Rivers:
Colapis fluvius-Kolpa
Corcoras fluvius-Krka
Dravus fluvius-Drava
Savus fluvius-Sava

[Heraclitus]

De Bello Gallico is often used as an introductory text for Latin because of it's relatively simple and straightforward language. You could just get a parallel translated version and get cracking.

Thanks for the advice. I'll probably get to it in a few weeks.

[Dauphin]

Still not saying anything to the fact that you'd still be better off (have more practical use) out of just learning Spanish than Latin.

If you're trying to claim that knowing Latin will help you learn French AND Italian, I'm not sure a prior knowledge of Latin is anymore useful than a prior knowledge of Spanish. Probably will help with learning the other languages just as much. Only difference is, you would actually have known a more practical language to begin with.

And that anyway says nothing for those who are learning only their first non-native 'second' language.

Learning Latin helps in learning your own language. My grammatical understanding of, as opposed to simple ability to speak, English was learnt in Latin classes.

[Traianvs]

I read parts of the commentarii in secondary school. I liked it. Lots of siege and battle stories