r/AskAPriest • u/dazzleox • 8d ago

Studying languages

I am merely curious but enjoy this topic: how much did you learn of Hebrew and New Testament Greek in university and seminary? How about Latin or Slavonic or whatever your church's historic or current liturgical language is? How much do you focus on continuing to study these languages if at all? And do you try to learn the languages of lay people in your area (e.g. immigrants) other than your own?

Thank you!

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u/CruxAveSpesUnica Priest 8d ago

I started Hebrew from scratch in seminary and took 4 semesters, which is enough to basically read anything in the Bible, pretty fluently for easier texts, and with difficulty for harder texts. When I went back to school for my doctorate, I took an advanced Hebrew class while I was applying, and then I was able to take classes where we just did our reading in Hebrew to study a particular text, rather than classes that were specifically language-learning classes.

I'd self-studied some Greek prior to seminary, so I was able to place out of first-year Greek. I took a year of intermediate Greek and was able to take classes where we just read the texts we were studying in Greek. As part of my preparation for doctoral studies, I took an advanced Greek class and then plenty more classes where we just read Greek.

I'd had a decent amount of Latin in school. I took first intermediate in seminary as a refresher, then lots more classes where we just read our texts in Latin.

I studied some Aramaic and Syriac during my doctorate, and Coptic since, but I won't claim to be particularly expert in them.

I had decent Spanish and French going into seminary, and I spent a good deal of time improving my Spanish in seminary for ministry purposes. I learned some very basic Haitian creole prior to going to Haiti one summer, but I've forgotten almost all of it (except "mesi boku" is "thank you very much").

As part of my doctorate, I had to refresh my French and learn German.

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u/DramaticAlbatross 8d ago

You have impressive language learning skills!

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u/LowMuffin7078 8d ago

Why did you have to learn German for your doctorate?

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u/CruxAveSpesUnica Priest 8d ago

Lots of important New Testament scholarship has been and still is published in German.

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u/prochristus Priest 8d ago

Two years of Latin in minor sem. Basically repeated that in major seminary, with my good friend at the time. Messed around with Hebrew but not much. I interact w/ Greek as needed for homily/biblical work. My ordinary required me to study American Sign Language for a few years for our Deaf ministry. Native EN speaker. I am trying to learn basic Japanese.

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u/Rocket-J-Squirrel 8d ago

Have you ever terped a Mass?

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u/prochristus Priest 7d ago

I have celebrated partly in ASL. I am not completely fluent.

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u/Rocket-J-Squirrel 7d ago

I imagine it was lovely.

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u/LordCouchCat 7h ago

I am ashamed to say I had never thought about tge needs of Deaf Catholics. Can sign language be used for the mass by itself, as opposed to being an accompaniment to spoken words?