Conventiculum Dickinsoniense, Summer, 2014, First Day (Latin)

Die Primo (Iulii 8) Martis Die

sessio prima erat sessio communis. orationes audivimus et Anglice et Latine, praesertim de libris de grammatica, de lexicis, et de libellis qui ad artem sermocinandam pertinent.

Conclave Principale

post pausam brevem, sessio secunda incepit. in hac sessione Tirones a Peritioribus divisi sunt. Tirones de salutationibus praecepti sunt, sed Peritiores de studiis suis et de vita sua et etiam de tempore subsicivo (otioso) colloquebamur.

Terentius et Milena nobis omnibus tempus longum, id est, duas horas, ad prandium consumendum cotidie dabant. post prandium, Tirones exercitiis ludisque fructi sunt, sed Peritiores de Alibii Tibulli carmine locuti sumus. locus erat excerptus ex Elegiarum libro primo, qui incipit:

Divitias alius fulvo sibi congerat auro

Et teneat culti iugera multa soli...

carmen est et pulcherrimum et philosophicum. Tibullus de militia flocci non facit. poeta autem est miles et dux deae Veneris. puella, nomine Delia, eum omnino vicit. vita est brevis, et Tibullus cum Delia vitam quietam simplicemque agere vult.

post pausam, omnes, id est, Tirones communiter cum Peritioribus, divisi sunt in greges ut de loco Horatii loqueremur. Erat locus notissimus de mure rustico et mure urbano. versus erant similes versibus Tibulli: ambo carmina vitam simplicem et rusticam laudant.

opus erat nobis Peritioribus argumenta ex hoc loco carpere ut fabellam scaenicam produceremus. fabellas scaenicas ultimis horis nostri Conventiculi egimus, Milena et Terentio et Tironibus spectantibus.

post pausam Peritiores iterum cum Tironibus commixti sunt. in greges divisi sumus et de duabus picturis locuti sumus. prima pictura erat Iudicium Paridis, quam Anselmus Feuerbach (1829-1880) pinxit. altera pictura appellatur Equus Troianus. Henricus Paulus Motte (1846-1922) hanc imaginem pinxit. de fabellis Graecis in his imaginibus sermonem habuimus.

Iudicium Paridis

Equus Troianus

et Peritiores et Tirones esuriebant. post hodiernas sessiones omnes ad tabernas ambulavimus quae in urbe Carlisle sitae sunt. cum ambularemus, ventus vehementer inflabant.  postquam omnes sellas nostras in taberna invenimus, caelum aperuit et tam vehementer pluvit ut omnes timeremus ne nos reveniremus madidi.

 Laeti cenamus in taberna in urbe Carlisle

sed post cenam omnes vidimus caelum esse serenum. dei igitur nobis et nostro Conventiculo favebant!

Conventiculum Dickinsoniense, Summer 2014, First Post (English)

Dickinson Blog, Summer of 2014

Today is Monday, July 7, 2014. I am attending my third "Conventiculum Dickinsoniense" in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. It is a weeklong Latin language immersion workshop run by Terence Tunberg and Milena Minkova of the University of Kentucky in Lexington. I have already written about my experiences at last year's Conventiculum.

This year I traveled up to Conventiculum with a new friend, Mary Anna White, who at the Conventiculum will later call herself "Tullia." Mary Anna teaches Latin at Granby High School in Norfolk, Virginia. She was kind enough to drive up to Pennsylvania and was a terrific travel companion. We talked in English on a variety of topics, from our schools, to politics, to teaching strategies and projects, religion, school systems, you name it. She is married to a Latin teacher, so I got to hear a little bit about what that is like.

Mary Anna seemed to like traveling with someone who had a good GPS with a via point that got us around the worst of the Washington, DC, traffic. She also liked the fact that I had been to Conventiculum before and knew where and how to check in on campus, where to park behind our dormitory, etc. We are staying in a dormitory called Goodyear, which is interesting and artsy but not very healthful. It has air quality issues, and I can already feel my sinuses reacting to something in the building. But I am determined not to let this get me down.

Tonight we have our initial reception at the Rector Science Center Atrium on the beautiful Dickinson College campus. We will get to know the fellow participants and the professors a little bit in English, Latin, or whatever languages we choose. Tomorrow morning, after some initial announcements, we will subscribe to a solemn oath only to use Latin with our fellow participants for the rest of the week, which means until noon on Sunday.

I think that this year I will do something different and write about my experiences at Conventiculum to the best of my abilities in Latin. That will be better practice for me. Hopefully, I will produce writing that will be of interest and benefit to Latin-language readers and speakers around the globe.

I also want to try to get a decent video clip of each of the professors speaking Latin this year, something short but good that I can post so that Latinists who have never participated in Conventiculum can get a little taste of the high quality of these professors, and of what Conventiculum is like.

Update: I got some video clips, but, unfortunately, I can't seem to find a way to get them from my Amazon Kindle to this blog! How frustrating! Here is a clip from Amazon Cloud Drive, but it's not the best video clip I took. I'm not sure of the quality of the actual video, either. Terence is getting ready for talking about Greek mythology based on some pictures he's distributing.

Right now I am still trying to decide whether I will put myself in the Tirones, or Freshmen, group. or in the Peritiores, or more skilled Latin speakers' group. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. The Peritiores read and discuss a broader range of literature from a variety of time periods, right up to the modern era. The Tirones work more on vocabulary development and oral expression and participate in a wider variety of games and exercises, which honestly might be more practical to adapt for the introductory Latin courses that I mostly teach. I may ask the professors at the reception tonight what they think.

I also plan to attend the Conventiculum Lexintoniense at the University of Kentucky later this summer. I plan to write up those experiences Latine, too.

Update on 8/8/14: I met my goals this summer, except I never really got decent video of Milena and Terence because my Kindle was uncooperative about posting them online. I got side-tracked and never posted about Kentucky, either, which was very similar in format to the Carlisle program. But either way I scooped The Washington Post on summer Latin Camp. What fun!

Update on 8/13/14: This fun blog post follows up on the article and quotes U.S. presidents translated into Latin.  

Conventiculum Dickinsoniense, or What This Latin Teacher Did With Her Summer Vacation

I teach Latin . I suspect that if  my students ever read this post, they will think I am whackier than Ms. Frizzle, the elementary-school science teacher in the Magic School Bus children's series. For part of my summer vacation, I have been attending the "Conventiculum Dickinsoniense," a summer Latin Camp for folks who want to speak Latin, generally considered a dead language. There are, however, users of contemporary Latin, and I wanted to join that group to improve my ability to use the language. It was a worthwhile experience.

"Nostra grex," or our class, stands in front of Althouse Hall, where our classes took place.

Terence Tunberg of the University of Kentucky is not only fluent in Latin but an energetic and enthusiastic teacher

Here is Terence Tunberg in a rarely-seen pensive moment. He is truly kind to his students

Milena Minkova is Bulgarian by birth but is fluent in both English and Latin as well; she trained at the Vatican in Rome

Some folks think Latin is called a dead language because nobody speaks it, or, worse, that it's impossible to speak. But that's simply not true.

Need proof? Click this link to watch Professor Tunberg at work (on another occasion). 

The question of *why* folks desire to speak Latin is harder to explain. Some find that using the language actively helps them learn and retain it, others find it useful as a teaching technique, and some just find the spoken version of the language beautiful and fun. A few might like the challenge of proving it can be done.

Put me down for "all of the above."

Terence Tunberg told us that he wanted to experience Latin the way the great scholars of the Renaissance, men such as Erasmus, had experienced it, really not all that many centuries ago. It was a journey that took him to Germany to find the immersion experience he desired. After studying with him, I am very glad he found it.

The Conventiculum itself is a way to share enthusiasm with like-minded people. The participants are diverse in their experiences and interests, but all are interesting, intelligent, and fun to be around. One, nicknamed "Petrus Australianus," journeys every summer to this Latin-speaking convention as well as to other ones in the U.S. and abroad.

All the way from Australia, every summer, just to attend!

And Petrus is kind enough to carry around a little pouch full of plastic toy Australian animals just so we can talk in Latin about kangaroos, platypuses, Tasmanian devils, etc.

It's certainly nice to be around folks who get the T-shirts, jokes, and riddles:

Here is a riddle written and solved by classmates

Here is a second riddle written in Latin

This third Latin riddle alludes to a character from Greek mythology (Oops! No more hints!)

This T-shirt translates into Latin an old joke by Groucho Marx

Not all our learning took place in classrooms, however. Participants had sworn a solemn oath to speak nothing but Latin to each other until the Conventiculum was over. So at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as well as in the residence halls, lively conversations took place and friendships were formed. And just as the ancient Roman aristocracy loved to escape to the countryside, so our group enjoyed a splendid outing to and picnic at the nearby Dickinson College Farm. The farm is a model for sustainable agricultural practices and living.

Housing on Dickinson College Farm allows a few lucky(?) individuals to live "off the grid"

This particular Latin convention is not for the faint of heart. Nor is it for beginners in Latin. But readers who can read Latin well and enthusiastically should attend at least once. They will learn what a pleasure it is to bring this ancient language back to life.

Update on 3/16/14: I am successfully using active Latin in my own classes now. I am also sharing enthusiasm for spoken Latin with a wonder regional group, the Tidewater Classical Symposium.