The Latin Backlash

After all the "resurgence-of-Latin" stories, after the part-Latin script of the blockbuster The Passion, backlash is inevitable...Here (at the Scotsman) is Hugh Reilly's, "May the Latin language requiescat in pace." Choice quote:

Forget decadence; the reason for the collapse of the Roman Empire was that while the Marcus et al had their heads up their anuses dealing with datives, ablatives and nominatives, Attila rode in and implemented the rather nihilist diktats of the Hun town-planning department.

Yep, it's enough to get a Latin teacher's blood a-boilin'...

[UPDATE (3/21/04): RogueClassicism also picked this piece up, and also more stories about the fate of Latin in Scotland; Mark Liberman at LanguageLog "punctures the joke" with facts about Germanic and Turkic languages, as well as giving more details about Attila; FURTHER UPDATE (3/21/04): Some more posts at LanguageLog on these tangents...]

Comments

[Anna]

I'll bet this guy's inbox has more flamage than Rome in 64 CE.