Latin is an exclusionary LIE

[TodHistories]

Various Classics and historical programs have denied my application on the grounds that I do not know the “ancient languages.” This is a SHAM, and all of academia should be ashamed of it. I did not apply to be a reader of Latin or of Greek but to be a historian. Oh, you might say, but how can you read Livy if you cannot read Latin? The answer is obvious! Livy, like every other ancient writer, has been translated time and time again. Perhaps you needed Latin to read him back in 1807 but no longer: now any man, woman, or child can purchase Livy or any other classical text in English at their local bookshop.

 

So why do programs still insist on the classical languages? To keep people out. Professors pretend that Latin and Greek matter because they know Latin and Greek and most people do not. It makes them feel elite and special and important. It lets them pretend that ordinary people who don’t know Greek could never do what they do, when that is a LIE.

[MEFB2015]

Wow. Well done for basically summarising the opposite of your attempted position. You seem to be incapable of realising that if you cannot read the original texts from which you are working then you are immediately beholden to the whims of the translator. Don't you see that? Your comment that "perhaps you needed Latin in 1807" is staggeringly fatuous and if you are a genuinely serious academic the you should realise the sheer idiocy of your post. The increasing accessibility of Classics is wonderful, but not when it means that lazy people think they can fully engage with classics without engaging with the primary texts (or, even worse, effectively dismiss the primary texts as meaningless now we have a nice, easy "translation", seemingly ignoring any potential foibles of the translator); your complaint smacks of nothing but dumbing down of the most academically obtuse level. 

 

Honestly, if you are not skilled enough to read the original texts, then you are not a Classicist. 

[anonnoname]

It's also really important to remember that so much nuance is lost in the act of translation. That's a fact that is true of any modern language translation as well! Just because a text is accessible and available in English doesn't mean that you are actually accessing the the true meaning of the text. How can you possibly write an academic paper about a work by an acient author when you could be drastically misinterpreting the intended message because of a particular translator's phrasing? 

And even beyond that, how can one purport to understand the ethos/mores of a given culture when you can't even understand the language that that culture used? There are cultural practices of the ancient world that cannot be articulated or explained in English because we simply do not have a close enough equivalent in modern society. It is in those instances that a knowledge of the Classics becomes essential. One can even say the same of different languages and cultures today! Even having read English translations of French novels, historical texts, etc., and having visited every city in France, one would never be able to truly understand French culture without speaking and reading in the original language. This issue is even more pressing with regard to studying the Classical world, because we simply do not have the same access. Aside from ruins/art, the language of the ancient world is all the we have left to base our assumptions on. 

Although most people do not know Latin or Greek, and fewer and fewer schools are offering them as courses, it is the job of any potential historian to seek out the tools that they need to succeed. Those studying French history learn French; those studying the Italian Renaissance learn Italian. Why should Classical scholarship not demand the same level of knowledge?

I completely understand that rejection is difficult to bear, and that we sometimes try to lay the blame anywhere we can to avoid confronting a difficult truth. But to attempt to dismiss the entire foundation that Classical scholarship is built on is an erroneous argument. 

If you want to have the same knowledge of the Classical world that any layperson can attain, continue on your current path. If you truly want to be a Classical historian, learn Greek and Latin. It's as simple as that. 

Edited March 5, 2016 by darlingviolet

[pro Augustis]

5 hours ago, TodHistories said:

Livy, like every other ancient writer, has been translated time and time again. Perhaps you needed Latin to read him back in 1807 but no longer: now any man, woman, or child can purchase Livy or any other classical text in English at their local bookshop.

is simply not true. The vast majority of inscriptions and papyri, material that is rather relevant in at least some capacity for most historical projects, has not been translated. Also, as the previous posters have pointed out, so much is lost in even the best translations. Roman ideas of government, expressed in Latin, have nuances that do not survive the transition into other languages. Not to mention that no translation is flawless, and several passages have been interpreted in very different ways by different translators. 

Finally, why 1807? Livy has been available in English translation since 1600.

[ἠφανισμένος]

16 hours ago, TodHistories said:

Various Classics and historical programs have denied my application on the grounds that I do not know the “ancient languages.” This is a SHAM, and all of academia should be ashamed of it. I did not apply to be a reader of Latin or of Greek but to be a historian. Oh, you might say, but how can you read Livy if you cannot read Latin? The answer is obvious! Livy, like every other ancient writer, has been translated time and time again. Perhaps you needed Latin to read him back in 1807 but no longer: now any man, woman, or child can purchase Livy or any other classical text in English at their local bookshop.

"Various computer science programs have denied my application on the grounds that I do not know "mathematics." This is a SHAM, and all of academia should be ashamed of it. I did not apply to be a mathematician but to be a computer scientist. Oh, you might say, but how can you be a computer scientist if you do not know math? The answer is obvious! Computer programs can be used by just about anyone. Perhaps you needed mathematics to use them back in 1987 but no longer: now any man, woman, or child can buy a computer program at their local Office Depot."

In case I need to spell it out: your argument fails because you've confused the skills necessary to produce scholarship with the skills necessary to read and appreciate classical texts. The former requires substantial knowledge of the classical languages, which is why your applications were rejected (assuming you're not a troll). The latter can of course be done to a large extent in English or any other modern language.

[ciistai]

18 hours ago, TodHistories said:

Various Classics and historical programs have denied my application on the grounds that I do not know the “ancient languages.” This is a SHAM, and all of academia should be ashamed of it. I did not apply to be a reader of Latin or of Greek but to be a historian. Oh, you might say, but how can you read Livy if you cannot read Latin? The answer is obvious! Livy, like every other ancient writer, has been translated time and time again. Perhaps you needed Latin to read him back in 1807 but no longer: now any man, woman, or child can purchase Livy or any other classical text in English at their local bookshop.

 

 

 

So why do programs still insist on the classical languages? To keep people out. Professors pretend that Latin and Greek matter because they know Latin and Greek and most people do not. It makes them feel elite and special and important. It lets them pretend that ordinary people who don’t know Greek could never do what they do, when that is a LIE.

You're welcome and godspeed.

Try to learn some humility and to control your ego while you're hitting the books as well. It will get you quite far.

P.S. I love that you hyperlinked to your very own post, which we already have had the misfortune of reading. Tacky and whimsical

[heliogabalus]

Ok, to play devil's advocate--and I actually think that the original post is just a lame trolling attempt--I don't think that the "so much is lost in translation" argument holds up as well as most people think. When it comes to non-fiction prose, the translator's understanding and communication of the original is arguably as good, if not better, than the understanding of most specialist readers. It is possible that the translator has made some odd changes according to her "whims," but it's unlikely. Also, 90% of Classicists are at the mercy of paleographers' and editors' whims when they are reading Latin and Greek : not many could actually read some parchment or papyrus that was found.

Pro Augustis is, of course, dead on about epigraphy and papyrology--which is more important to a historian than a lit specialist--as is Petros with his argument. If you want to be a specialist in Roman history, you're going to need to know Latin. You aren't a specialist unless you know the language of the people you study, you're just some guy who reads about Roman history, and why would a graduate program accept you and take the risk that you won't be able to learn it, when there are lots of good applicants that already know it. Also, since you're going to have to know Greek too, and you'll be required to learn German and French/Italian before you finish, you won't have time to learn the basics in grad school.

And it's not just elitism--although there is that, I mean why do you want to study Rome as opposed to 20th Century Yugoslav history? Incidentally, if you did want to study 20th Century Yugoslav history, you would be required to learn Serb-Croatian, if not Slovenian and Macedonian too.

Edited March 5, 2016 by heliogabalus

[Apogeee]

Just wondering why someone who doesn't want to be in a classics program applied to those.

[ExponentialDecay]

Why would anyone in their right mind want to troll a classics forum?

[sacklunch]

20 hours ago, heliogabalus said:

Ok, to play devil's advocate--and I actually think that the original post is just a lame trolling attempt--I don't think that the "so much is lost in translation" argument holds up as well as most people think. When it comes to non-fiction prose, the translator's understanding and communication of the original is arguably as good, if not better, than the understanding of most specialist readers. It is possible that the translator has made some odd changes according to her "whims," but it's unlikely. Also, 90% of Classicists are at the mercy of paleographers' and editors' whims when they are reading Latin and Greek : not many could actually read some parchment or papyrus that was found.

Pro Augustis is, of course, dead on about epigraphy and papyrology--which is more important to a historian than a lit specialist--as is Petros with his argument. If you want to be a specialist in Roman history, you're going to need to know Latin. You aren't a specialist unless you know the language of the people you study, you're just some guy who reads about Roman history, and why would a graduate program accept you and take the risk that you won't be able to learn it, when there are lots of good applicants that already know it. Also, since you're going to have to know Greek too, and you'll be required to learn German and French/Italian before you finish, you won't have time to learn the basics in grad school.

And it's not just elitism--although there is that, I mean why do you want to study Rome as opposed to 20th Century Yugoslav history? Incidentally, if you did want to study 20th Century Yugoslav history, you would be required to learn Serb-Croatian, if not Slovenian and Macedonian too.

Your post raises a number of important issues surrounding what academics 'do' and in particular what do scholars working in classical languages 'do' and for whom. Yes, you're quite right that many academic translations of ancient texts are great and perhaps even offer the reader/graduate student/young academic a better grasp of the material than her/his own reading of the primary text. But what's lost when students/scholars cannot access the original (or as you rightly pointed out, the 'original' created by an editor--diplomatic vs eclectic debates notwithstanding here!)? What are classicists to research and write on? "Philology" is clearly out, then. But, who cares, right? Philology is a naughty word these days. In any case, these issues still loom in the heads of many grad students. 

[PrimeMumble]

On 3/4/2016 at 6:10 PM, TodHistories said:

Various Classics and historical programs have denied my application on the grounds that I do not know the “ancient languages.” This is a SHAM, and all of academia should be ashamed of it. I did not apply to be a reader of Latin or of Greek but to be a historian. Oh, you might say, but how can you read Livy if you cannot read Latin? The answer is obvious! Livy, like every other ancient writer, has been translated time and time again. Perhaps you needed Latin to read him back in 1807 but no longer: now any man, woman, or child can purchase Livy or any other classical text in English at their local bookshop.

 

 

 

So why do programs still insist on the classical languages? To keep people out. Professors pretend that Latin and Greek matter because they know Latin and Greek and most people do not. It makes them feel elite and special and important. It lets them pretend that ordinary people who don’t know Greek could never do what they do, when that is a LIE.

I do not agree with this opinion, but to give bad reputation points to this comment is stupid. Bad reputation is used to distinguish trolls from people. A guy with an opinion opposed to the one we hold is not a troll by default.

[ExponentialDecay]

1 hour ago, PrimeMumble said:

I do not agree with this opinion, but to give bad reputation points to this comment is stupid. Bad reputation is used to distinguish trolls from people. A guy with an opinion opposed to the one we hold is not a troll by default.

A classicist that is complaining about having to learn Latin is not a troll? What now, we're supposed to take the cranks who claim to have solved quantum physics without knowing basic trigonometry seriously?

[ciistai]

6 hours ago, PrimeMumble said:

I do not agree with this opinion, but to give bad reputation points to this comment is stupid. Bad reputation is used to distinguish trolls from people. A guy with an opinion opposed to the one we hold is not a troll by default.

Better to receive bad reputation on a mostly-anonymous forum post than to receive it after running amok speaking to faculty members and other people in the field like this, face-to-face. I can't imagine the reaction were OP to speak like this to people at the AIA/SCS annual meeting, for example.

OP could consider this a lesson learned. OP should also click the link I provided (admittedly, I did so snarkily) and look into a post-bacc. Plenty of people do one - after all, we don't all have the foresight at age 18 to start planning for doctoral program reqs and there are plenty of ways to bolster one's application for the next time around. Also, it's made abundantly clear on most (if not all) program/ department webpages that the languages are expected, and presumably one would read these pages thoroughly during the application process - but then again OP's rant indicates that they feel that they should not learn Latin, not that they learned of this requirement late and just didn't have enough years of it.

Edited March 7, 2016 by ciistai

[pro Augustis]

On 3/5/2016 at 5:35 PM, heliogabalus said:

Ok, to play devil's advocate--and I actually think that the original post is just a lame trolling attempt--I don't think that the "so much is lost in translation" argument holds up as well as most people think. When it comes to non-fiction prose, the translator's understanding and communication of the original is arguably as good, if not better, than the understanding of most specialist readers. It is possible that the translator has made some odd changes according to her "whims," but it's unlikely. Also, 90% of Classicists are at the mercy of paleographers' and editors' whims when they are reading Latin and Greek : not many could actually read some parchment or papyrus that was found.

The translator's understanding is likely better than mine, yeah. But the scholarly reader and the translator have different aims. The translator must create a readable, literary text, and sometimes that requires the sacrificing of accuracy. I have often found that, when I reach a tricky patch of Latin or Greek and reach for a translation to give me an idea, the translator has paraphrased the section because there simply is no smooth way of expressing the idea in English. Even when not going so far as paraphrasing, translators have to smooth over ambiguities in the original. An example from some work I have done recently: in the first century CE, there is a British prince named Togodumnus and a client king named Togidubnus. One scholar argued that the two were the same individual and that the passage in Dio taken to refer to Togodumnus' death had been misinterpreted. I ultimately did not find that argument persuasive, but had I not been able to read the original Greek I would have been totally unable to meaningfully agree or disagree with the suggestion. Every passage is not so thorny, admittedly. But I have come across enough that are that I don't think you can sacrifice the ability to deal with them without hamstringing your research right out of the gate. 

[historicallinguist]

On March 5, 2016 at 0:09 AM, MEFB2015 said:

Wow. Well done for basically summarising the opposite of your attempted position. You seem to be incapable of realising that if you cannot read the original texts from which you are working then you are immediately beholden to the whims of the translator. Don't you see that? Your comment that "perhaps you needed Latin in 1807" is staggeringly fatuous and if you are a genuinely serious academic the you should realise the sheer idiocy of your post. The increasing accessibility of Classics is wonderful, but not when it means that lazy people think they can fully engage with classics without engaging with the primary texts (or, even worse, effectively dismiss the primary texts as meaningless now we have a nice, easy "translation", seemingly ignoring any potential foibles of the translator); your complaint smacks of nothing but dumbing down of the most academically obtuse level. 

 

Honestly, if you are not skilled enough to read the original texts, then you are not a Classicist. 

I am not a Classicist, and I am a theoretical linguist. But I do not quite agree with your position here. If you think that something in Greek/Latin cannot be fully translated into a different language, you are implying the ineffability of certain meanings in certain languages. Your assumption would be something in line with the position that language influences thinking. This was a position that has been recently confuted (see http://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/does-language-i-speak-influence-way-i-think). 

I think the original post has some truth that can be defended. To put in the argument of the original post in a slightly different way, the original post seems to me that it wanted to say different utterances may express the same propositions. As long as the translated sentences (with the utterance of English, for example) can be read as the same propositions which the original Latin/Greek sentences wanted to convey, I think it is fine to use translated works to extract meaning (i.e. propositions).

Just a caveat, I am not a Classicist. Classicists may want something beyond meaning. If you also want the form of the original texts, certainly there is no other option than going to the original texts. However, you still get the same meaning (assuming that the translation is good enough so that no meaning is lost in the process of translating), but the utterance is certainly different. 

Anyways, I think that dismissing a position different from the dominant as not worthy is blocking the new way of inquiry, and I honestly do not think it is a good way to go. 

 

 

 

[knp]

Form has no influence on meaning?!

I may faint.

[ἠφανισμένος]

47 minutes ago, historicallinguist said:

As long as the translated sentences (with the utterance of English, for example) can be read as the same propositions which the original Latin/Greek sentences wanted to convey, I think it is fine to use translated works to extract meaning (i.e. propositions).

Just a caveat, I am not a Classicist. Classicists may want something beyond meaning. If you also want the form of the original texts, certainly there is no other option than going to the original texts. However, you still get the same meaning (assuming that the translation is good enough so that no meaning is lost in the process of translating), but the utterance is certainly different.

The bolded sentences contain some major, major caveats.  And yes, classicists are generally very interested in the form of the texts we study.

Compare these sentences:

Καλὴ ἡ παιδεία.

Institutio bona est.

“Education is good” is an acceptable translation of both, but the semantic range of καλή is not exactly the same of bona and not exactly the same as “good.” The same holds true for παιδεία / institutio / “education.” The scholar who has not read large quantities of Greek and Latin texts is essentially blind to these distinctions and the implications they hold for interpreting the texts. I don't think anyone is really arguing that translations of Greek and Latin texts are worthless qua translations. The point is that anyone who wishes to produce scholarly work based on Greek and Latin texts must read the originals and not be reliant on a translation, the quality of which you cannot evaluate if you don’t know the languages. This really doesn’t have much to do with Sapir-Whorf.

Edited March 17, 2016 by Petros
formatting

[historicallinguist]

18 minutes ago, knp said:

Form has no influence on meaning?!

I may faint.

No, I guess no influence at all (I am aware that there are counterarguments). In particular, the form of the sentence has nothing much to do with meaning. See Chomsky's Syntactic Structures, where he argues extensively that syntax and semantics are two separate and different things.

Edited March 17, 2016 by historicallinguist

[knp]

Did you read Petros's post? I was being silly, but they made my point again in an actually eloquent way. Just because there is no good English word for numen (or possibly even a good series of words), doesn't make one believe the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis! Or, for example, pius. Leads to "pious." Can be translated "pious." But "pious" now has all sorts of English baggage from having spent centuries in a majority-Christian context that it did not have in (pre-Christian) Latin, and in fact it came with a whole different set of baggage. Because classicists and other humanists like myself are concerned with that baggage, not with the bare minimum proposition, you have to use the original language probably 8-9 times out of 10.

Edited March 17, 2016 by knp
spelling

[historicallinguist]

47 minutes ago, Petros said:

The scholar who has not read large quantities of Greek and Latin texts is essentially blind to these distinctions and the implications they hold for interpreting the texts

I feel this argument very problematic. If the scholar does not know these distinctions and implications in the first place, how can he "read large quantities of Greek and Latin texts" that contain such distinctions and implications? If the scholar has already knows these distinctions and implications in the first place (not unlike some sort of a priori knowledge), then what is the point for this scholar to "read large quantities of Greek and Latin texts?

 

47 minutes ago, Petros said:

“Education is good” is an acceptable translation of both, but the semantic range of καλή is not exactly the same of bona and not exactly the same as “good.” The same holds true for παιδεία / institutio / “education.”

Sure, they are different, but they are not totally different. These three certainly have overlapping in terms of meaning, and this is why the Greek version and Latin version are mapped to the English "education". Translation in this case may be better in a sense that it takes out the peripheral (i.e.the non-overlapping part) (e.g. the specific properties of the education in a specific culture) but retains the core (i.e. the overlapping part)(e.g. education).

But again, if you really want to get BOTH the peripheral and the core, translation may not be the best option.

However, in certain cases, the core per se are sufficient to do the work. Then, in these cases, there is no point to deal with the peripheral. I think in such cases translation would work well.

 

 

 

Edited March 17, 2016 by historicallinguist

[knp]

I'll take all your premises as given, which I should note is a generous gesture on my part. There are probably certain cases where the "core" meanings are enough to do the work. Unfortunately for the idea of doing scholarship on only those cases, however, those cases do not map to any particular area of scholarly inquiry. So it's not like we can say, "Oh, if you're interested in Roman historiography, you don't really need to know Latin, but if you're interested in Roman literature or classical archaeology or non-elite history, you do need to know it." Instead, your cases where the "core" is sufficient—which I already allowed might be up to 20% of cases in my previous post—are about evenly spread across all fields. There is no coherent subset of core-only cases from which you could build a rigorous scholarly career. You could—and many people do—write an okay but not great undergraduate senior thesis that way. Whether you're interested in Roman historiography, literature, classical archaeology, non-elite history, reception studies, or literally any other field of classics/any literature/area studies, though, if you ever want to get past that introductory level, you're rapidly going to see your work run up against either the huge number of questions where style is important or the equally huge (if not even bigger) number of questions that can't be answered without using some of the majority of the literature that has never been translated or has been only sketchily translated into English. So I don't think anyone is saying that it is impossible to contribute to classical scholarship without knowing Latin/Greek; either a scholar wandering in from another field or an undergraduate/master's student could contribute a good article if they found one of these situations where you don't really need to know it to say something interesting. However, there are not enough "peripheral" materials to sustain a PhD, let alone a career, in the classics—and that's even without the fact that most surviving material that has ever been written in Latin has never been translated into English!

Again: for scholars of cultures and texts, we are concerned with cultural specifics, the very things you describe as "peripheral" and ideally dispensed with!

[ἠφανισμένος]

 

17 hours ago, historicallinguist said:

17 hours ago, Petros said:

The scholar who has not read large quantities of Greek and Latin texts is essentially blind to these distinctions and the implications they hold for interpreting the texts

I feel this argument very problematic. If the scholar does not know these distinctions and implications in the first place, how can he "read large quantities of Greek and Latin texts" that contain such distinctions and implications? If the scholar has already knows these distinctions and implications in the first place (not unlike some sort of a priori knowledge), then what is the point for this scholar to "read large quantities of Greek and Latin texts?

Have you ever learned a foreign language to an intermediate or advanced proficiency level? It's a serious question. Because you learn languages by using them for communication -- in this context, through reading. The more you read, the more deeply you understand. The process is more like a dialectic than like what you're describing.

17 hours ago, historicallinguist said:

18 hours ago, Petros said:

“Education is good” is an acceptable translation of both, but the semantic range of καλή is not exactly the same of bona and not exactly the same as “good.” The same holds true for παιδεία / institutio / “education.”

Sure, they are different, but they are not totally different.

Who's saying they're totally different? 

17 hours ago, historicallinguist said:

Translation in this case may be better in a sense that it takes out the peripheral (i.e.the non-overlapping part) (e.g. the specific properties of the education in a specific culture) but retains the core (i.e. the overlapping part)(e.g. education).

I'm really not sure what audience you're addressing here. Better for whom? For what purposes?

17 hours ago, historicallinguist said:

However, in certain cases, the core per se are sufficient to do the work.

What cases would those be?

[historicallinguist]

41 minutes ago, Petros said:

Have you ever learned a foreign language to an intermediate or advanced proficiency level? It's a serious question. Because you learn languages by using them for communication -- in this context, through reading. The more you read, the more deeply you understand. The process is more like a dialectic than like what you're describing.

Besides English, I am fluent in two modern languages, and two classical languages. In addition, I also have no problem in reading and writing for a third modern language (cannot converse fluently in this one though). All of these five languages are non-Indo-European languages. For a number of Indo-European languages, I studied the some linguistic aspects of them, but certainly not much, as I am not a philologist.

Yes, the more I read, the deeper I understand, subject to a restriction. I think that at the very beginning when we start to learn a new language it may be helpful to read so as to learn about the  language. However, after getting a certain amount of the structural and other linguistic informations about the target language through readings or other means, more readings in the target language seems not to be productive in terms of enhancing our understanding of the target language. That is, the effect of doing reading becomes saturated after doing a certain amount of reading. 

41 minutes ago, Petros said:

I'm really not sure what audience you're addressing here. Better for whom? For what purposes?

For example, if you are a typologist, and wants to study the synchronic typology of the languages in the world. Certainly it is impossible for a typologist to be an expert learning all languages in the world and understanding all cultural nuances of different lexical items in different languages in the world. Then, for typological research purpose, all the typologist needs for making an English translation for a lexical item in an unfamiliar language (say, some indigenous languages in South America) may be the core meaning of the lexical item and the peripheral meanings (which I think it is more closely tied to the specific culture where the language is used) can be omitted in this case.

Thus, translation may be better for a typologist to run a typological research program. It is better in a sense that it is more practical, and cost-effective.(cost means a lot of things, such as time, finance, efforts to memorize etc)

 

 

Edited March 17, 2016 by historicallinguist

[ἠφανισμένος]

3 minutes ago, historicallinguist said:

41 minutes ago, Petros said:

I'm really not sure what audience you're addressing here. Better for whom? For what purposes?

For example, if you are a typologist, and wants to study the synchronic typology of the languages in the world. Certainly it is impossible for a typologist to be an expert learning all languages in the world and understanding all cultural nuisances of different lexical items in different languages in the world. Then, for typological research purpose, all the typologist needs for making an English translation for a lexical item in an unfamiliar language (say, some indigenous languages in South America) may be the core meaning of the lexical item and the peripheral meanings (which I think it is more closely tied to the specific culture where the language is used) can be omitted in this case.

Thus, translation may be better for a typologist to run a typological research program. It is better in a sense that it is more practical, and cost-effective.(cost means a lot of things, such as time, finance, efforts to memorize etc)

This is helpful, thanks. This is why, I think, I and others were puzzled by the approach you've taken in this thread. The discussion prior to your post was not aimed at linguists doing linguistic research. It was aimed at classicists and would-be classicists doing historical and literary work. Linguists can of course use and produce scholarship on many different languages without needing the kind of knowledge that we're suggesting is absolutely essential for someone wanting to do literature or history in a foreign language (ancient or modern).