ext_99595 ([identity profile] griffinick.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] jducoeur 2006-03-01 08:31 pm (UTC)

I have no idea whether it's a good tutorial yet

It's bound to be (within a very limited sphere, as you duly noted), given that it's from the National Archives site, which is loaded with helpful information.

On quick glance, it looks like a very abbreviated and condensed overview of Latin, and is probably geared more towards people who have a document in front of them and are wondering how the hell they're going to decipher it (their "reference" information is somewhat a dead giveaway). The reality is that none of the lessons seem to be presenting some of the more period-specific issues of late Latin (e.g. bastardization of grammar, disuse of more compact and sophisticated constructions, etc), with the exception of certain stock phrases and constructions that are common in medieval documents. The Latin it presents is pretty simplistic, and with the exception of certain telling medieval words (e.g. maneria), it could be mistaken for a very basic overview of Classical Latin. I wouldn't say that the majority of this tutorial is useful only for the period 1986-1733, though the word list certainly is based on documents from that period.


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