Seriously.
I've learned a lot since then. For example, I actually know Italian better now than I did then (funny how this works) and for it quite pointedly realize that I actually know precisely jack squat about Latin. And how stupid was I? That opening sentence is like me saying I know how to fly an airplane because I've got my Boy Scouts merit badge for small boat sailing.
Despite the disillusionment, I bought what follows below. It is the only book I own that I cannot read. I bought it a long time ago and for no reason other than I thought it was cool. And really, can you deny the utter coolness of How the Grinch Stole Christmas in freaking Latin? (I mean, *!*) There's something intrinsically fascinating--which, of course, and if we're speaking at least circumferentially of translation, is Geek for "cool" --about your favorite, or at least most nostalgic, books and/or other media in another language--and allthemoreso (yes, one word) a dead language? Maybe it's just me.... But I can't help myself. Languages are, well, cool. And I have a number of my favorite books in Italian, a couple in Hebrew (despite the fact that I read Hebrew only slight less badly than Latin), and a few in French as well (which, despite my once-prejudice for the language and its mother country, is a lot closer to Italian than Latin). I take them down periodically and flip through them. Most of them I've even read once or twice--and even cover-to-cover--but it's not the reading, but the having, that is just awesome. I mean, imagine this: owning and displaying copies of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever in Darug or The Lord of the Rings in Wamo! Cool!
And even cooler: to be able to read those languages and analyze the intrinsic problems and inevitable interpretive shifts due to the semiotic transition....
(Okay, I'll stop.)
So, my recommendation (recommendation, after all, being the very object this feature is intended to feature)? Indulge yourself in a specious interlinguistic adventure, and find a book you love in a language you don't know or have even before heard of, wait eagerly for it to arrive in the mail, then minutes after delivery quietly post the new treasure (and just touch it, hold it: feel its electricity pulse through its skin!) somewhere inconspicuous, yet available to examining eyes, and (do you feel it?) quite simply make yourself look just that much smarter than you really are (it's like a magic diet pill!) simply by having it, which, heck, when it comes right down to it isn't that great a stretch; owning a book written in a dead language does in very fact make you smarter. Like Mozart.
Anyway, merry Christmas, everyone!
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