Hip Sixties Latin Instructor Translated Beatles Songs into Latin for His College students: Learn Lyrics for “O Teneum Manum,” “Diei Duri Nox” & Extra

I’ve inter­act­ed with many enter­tain­ing lan­guage-learn­ing assets in var­i­ous lessons—from minis­eries in Span­ish to com­ic books in French—all geared towards mak­ing the unfa­mil­iar lan­guage rel­e­vant to dai­ly life. Be taught­ing coun­ter­in­tu­itive professional­nun­ci­a­tions, pars­ing a brand new sys­tem of gram­mar, or mem­o­riz­ing the gen­ders of phrase after phrase will be labo­ri­ous and intim­i­dat­ing within the class­room. Doing so in each­day pop cul­tur­al set­tings, not as a lot.

In relation to the train­ing of lifeless lan­guages, the assets can appear much less method­ready. I cer­tain­ly appre­ci­ate the lit­er­ary and rhetor­i­cal genius of Vir­gil, Ovid, Horace, Cicero, and Julius Cae­sar. However dur­ing my highschool years, I didn’t at all times discover their work straightforward to learn in Eng­lish, a lot much less in for­mal clas­si­cal Latin. The ela­tion I felt after suc­cess­ful­ly trans­lat­ing a pas­sage was some­instances damp­ened as I puz­zled over his­tor­i­cal notes and gloss­es that usually left me with extra ques­tions than solutions.

That’s by no means to say that stu­dents of Latin shouldn’t be uncovered to cul­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal con­textual content or learn the best exem­plars of the writ­ten lan­guage. Solely {that a} break from the heavy stuff every now and then goes a good distance. May I sub­mit to Latin instruc­tors one inge­nious software from Eddie O’Hara, for­mer British Labour Par­ty MP and clas­sics trainer? O’Hara handed away in Might 2016, and never lengthy after his demise, his son Ter­ry O’Hara tweet­ed these trans­la­tions of Bea­t­les songs (includ­ing two Christ­mas tunes) his father made within the 60s for his stu­dents. On the time, these have been the peak of pop cul­ture rel­e­vance, and, whereas a far cry from the com­plex­i­ties of the Aeneid, a enjoyable approach for Latin be taught­ers to narrate to a lan­guage that may appear chilly and impos­ing.

I’ll admit, my Latin has fall­en into such a state that I can’t imme­di­ate­ly vouch for the accu­ra­cy or ele­gance of those trans­la­tions (“cue fierce argu­ments amongst Latin gram­mar­i­ans,” replies one Twit­ter consumer), however there’s no rea­son to doubt Mr. O’Hara knew his stuff. ““He was a born edu­ca­tor,” his son remem­bers, “He was a trainer and clas­si­cist by again­floor and he had a robust inter­est in edu­ca­tion­al mat­ters and Greek cul­tur­al her­itage.” Edu­cat­ed him­self at Mag­dalen Col­lege, Oxford, O’Hara taught at Perse Faculty, Cam­bridge, Birken­head Faculty, and within the ear­ly 70s, C.F. Mott Col­lege within the Bea­t­les’ personal Liv­er­pool.

In addi­tion to his position as a states­man, the Liv­er­pool Echo remem­bers O’Hara’s many many years as “a pop­u­lar trainer who introduced class­es to life trans­lat­ing Bea­t­les lyrics into Latin.” We don’t have any indi­ca­tion of whether or not he actu­al­ly tried to sing the lyrics, although his stu­dents certain­ly will need to have try­ed it. What should the cho­rus of “All My Lov­ing” sound like as “Ita totum amorem dabo, Tibi totum, numquam cess­a­ba”? Or “She Loves You” as “Amat te, mehercle”? Singing them to myself, I can see that O’Hara was sen­si­tive to the meter of the orig­i­nal Eng­lish in his Latin ren­der­ings. However I’d actual­ly like to see some­one set these to music and make a video. Any of our learn­ers as much as the chal­lenge?

Remaining­ly, since ear­ly six­ties Bea­t­les lyrics aren’t as like­ly to interact stu­dents in 2017, what pop cul­tur­al mate­r­i­al would you trans­late at the moment—classics train­ers on the market—to succeed in the bemused, bewil­dered, and the bored? If you happen to’re already laborious at work utilizing hip assets within the class­room, please do share them with us within the com­ments!

Notice: To view the photographs in a larg­er for­mat, please click on on the hyperlinks to those indi­vid­ual photos: Image 1 – Image 2 — Image 3. When the picture opens, click on on it once more to zoom in.

Notice 2: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this publish appeared on our web site in 2017.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spir­it” Per­formed in Clas­si­cal Latin

Can Mod­ern-Day Ital­ians Under­stand Latin? A YouTu­ber Puts It to the Test on the Streets of Rome

They Might Be Giants’ John Lin­nell Releas­es an EP of Songs in Latin

The Sto­ry of Lorem Ipsum: How Scram­bled Text by Cicero Became Used by Type­set­ters Every­where

Josh Jones is a author and musi­cian based mostly in Durham, NC.