The problem of maintaining Latin, or, on Seeking a spouse with the same niche hobby
I learned to speak Latin fairly well in a short period of time due to a combination of factors. I began during the pandemic, so I did nothing but read and study for more than six months. Being out of work, isolated, bored, and driven was a very lucky combination. I also suddenly had the financial means to be able to pursue an undergraduate degree in a foreign country, while also supplementing my education with a grueling schedule of online Latin courses and meetings with private tutors. At my university, I was socially isolated from my classmates because of my age and background, so I did not become particularly involved in campus life and was thus able to spend all my spare time reading Latin. By then I also had the study skills and memory techniques to augment my weak natural memory, allowing me to rapidly learn vocabulary. I also met people, both online and in person, who spoke Latin quite fluently yet did not have other languages in common with me, forcing me to communicate with them solely through Latin. I became quite good at finding ways to force myself to interact in Latin with more advanced speakers, by seeking them out and avoiding English, so that, curiously, a few were not aware that I can speak English. Apparently my American accent isn’t as strong as I think it is, at least in Latin.
Maybe, if I had spent less time in conventicula, I would have learned Italian better instead, but I was determined to learn to read Vergil and Apuleius as one might read Shakespeare. I was very driven and lucky enough to be in a situation that allowed me to learn quite a lot, very quickly.
However this was not normal nor something at all permanent. Now that I have more to do and must work, albeit as a tutor and researcher who uses Latin daily, I am realizing just how lucky and improbable my life was before. There is no way to do what I did. I am too exhausted. I can’t structure my life around traveling to seek other Latin speakers or read for eight hours. Teaching itself and correcting is work, so I can’t just demand that my various friends call me so we can practice speaking. They are as busy, if not more so, than I am. Founding circuli Latini wherever I go isn’t easy, either, because I need people more advanced than myself to speak to on a regular basis, not less. Joining a weekly circle online isn’t enough. Even if only for the purpose of being a good teacher and researcher, who has the knowledge to actually do what I am trying to do, I very much want to be living in an immersion environment, or reading all day, and that’s just not possible.
If you ask me, the best solution to the problem of maintaining Latin - especially for people who have spent a long period in an immersion setting and then leave suddenly, which can easily lead to a rapid loss of hard-won language skills - is finding a roommate or, ideally, spouse that also speaks Latin, if marriage is something they hoped for or planned on anyway. This is obviously a bit weird, but it cannot be denied that someone as obsessive and immersed in Latin as myself, or many other Latin students, would do better living with someone who shares a deep, true love of literature and could combine their library with my own. Practically speaking, it makes sense. It gives you something to be passionate about together. You already have the same social circles, too, if you are really interested in Latin conventicula.
Also, I imagine that a common love of the literature itself and the culture, not to mention the philosophical ideas we encounter reading Latin but more especially Greek, could be a common ground upon which a lasting union might be built. Marriage, I suppose, as a person who - admittedly - has never been married and knows very little, is about taxes, chores, obligations, and difficult conversations, not white dresses and flowers. Reading Cicero’s De Officiis together and discussing it is probably more useful to this end than watching a horror movie together (I am hopelessly uncool and out of touch; I don’t know what the non-nerds do on dates, but I suspect it is this).
The problem for most people is, of course, that there aren’t elegant little Latin-speaking grandmothers that arrange these things. At least, not that I know of. Most Latin speakers meet briefly in conventicula, making the possibility of developing friendships, let alone romantic attachments, remote, unless one is as prolific a traveler as myself and as memorable (apparently, my hair is very weird and people never forget it).
NB: This is not an ad that says I am seeking a husband; this is just something I have been reflecting on lately.