Abandoning Roman numerals

[kerouac2]

The Carnavalet museum (museum of the history of Paris) is going to finally reopen after a very lengthy renovation, whenever museums are finally allowed to reopen.  However, they are apparently provoking indignation in Italy, because the museum is abandoning all use of Roman numerals on their explanatory signs because not enough people understand them anymore.  So King Louis XIV becomes Louis 14 and the XVIII century becomes the 18th century.  Buildings whose date of construction was MCMXLII will no longer be a mystery to the masses.

Naturally, the élite oppose such things, saying the people are being taken for imbeciles or else people who don't know this stuff should learn it, and it should be taught in school.  Really?  Did people say the same things when the first clocks appeared without Roman numerals?

It should be pointed out that although the Carnavalet is in the news, the Louvre already did this a couple of decades ago, except for numbering kings and queens.

I understand having a bit of nostalgia for Roman numerals, but frankly they have done their time, just like when the U was the same as a V.

[tod2]

Interesting Kerouac. I agree - Roman numerals should be a thing that is delegated to the history books. By all means show school kids the old numbering but just as an interest nothing more.

[whatagain]

So hotel Georges V will be renamed Georges 5 ?
Consider me elite but if someone cannot understand which Louis is Louis XIV, he certainly doesn't givea toss about history either.
Interestingly all german corps in the military litterature are labelled after roman digits.
But with errors, writing XXXXVIII instead of XLVIII.
So : don't touch roman digits. What next ?

[casimira]

I completely agree with you Whatagain. They are part of the world's history and should be preserved as such.

[mickthecactus]

Absolutely. Put me on the list plus I’m the only one in the family who can decipher them so I can show off.

[questa]

"Latin is a language
As dead as dead can be.
It killed off all the Romans...
And now is killing me!"

(Supposedly found in a Latin text book on the fly page)

How many ordinary schools teach Latin as a basic subject? Here it is given as a special subject but I don't think many do it. As for the numerals...maybe a couple of lessons to show how the numbers were formed but anymore is wasted time when the school kids are battling to learn their 1st language and mathematics to begin with.
Anyway, it would be better to learn Arabic numbers...they at least devised the concept of zero which the world now uses. It was that simple addition of 0 which made trading possible around the world while the Romans were still hammering out their kid's birthdays

[kerouac2]

I agree that Arabic numbers (officially "Indian" numbers) are worth learning since all of the Middle East uses them. I learned them for my job, but now I have to think hard about some of them.

i.pinimg.com/originals/dc/74/de/dc74de889fcf0d847239ab2fe52fc9ba.jpg

[mossie]

I was taught Latin when I first went to a grammar school, it was compulsory for the first year. It was taught because it gave a good grounding in grammar, which we normal kids had little concept of.

And thanks very much for the Arabic numerals and pronunciation, I had a sketchy knowledge from my time out there, but had forgotten most of it, well it is a year or so ago now.

[onlyMark]

For quite a few years as we know, I was surrounded by these Arabic/Indian numbers and used them most days. So I do remember them.
They often came in useful in tourist areas where someone tried to rip me off with the price as they didn't realise I could read them. Even fuel pump attendants as well.
I vote for keeping Roman numerals and can read them as well, but I think it's those not many years younger than we are who never bothered/needed to know them.
I'd often read them at the end of films to see when it was made, but K2 tells me, or told me quite a few years ago, that they are rarely used nowadays in that fashion.

I wonder if in our lifetime new clock faces will be digital and we are the last generation, or maybe the one below us, to be able to add on 24 minutes to just gone a quarter to twelve on a normal face with hands and know when our train is arriving.

[kerouac2]

I have read that many young people can no longer read a traditional clock face -- only digital versions. But how many of us are good at sundials?

[htmb]

When I taught grades 1, 2, and 3, I always made sure to drill students on analog time, but I doubt many Americans under the age of 40 know or use it these days unless forced. I also taught Roman numerals, and was always jealous of people who had a good foundation in Latin. They seemed much more adept at learning Romance languages because of their Latin backgrounds.

[onlyMark]

Mar 18, 2021 16:24:00 GMT kerouac2 said:

But how many of us are good at sundials?

Pretty good on a fine day. A bit sketchy after dark.

[fumobici]

My mother taught Latin in US high school, when that was a thing that was done.

The Italians still love their Xs, Cs, Vs, Ms, and Is*, mostly as ordinals. Centuries in particular are designated by Roman Numerals although there's a rather elaborate and common cheat where you can express the century with a multiple of 100. For instance: to designate the 16th c. or 1500s, you can say "Cinquecento" which means 500. They just deduct 1000 for centuries between 1100 and 2000, for brevity I assume.

*&c

[bjd]

Imposing Latin grammar on languages like English gave the weird nonsense of sentences not ending with prepositions, for example. In any case, grammar used to be taught in primary school, whereas Latin was often taught in high school.

I had two years of Latin in high school, but have no memory of it helping with French, Italian or Spanish. Probably because the Latin classes were boooring and almost all of us dropped it as soon as we could. Our Latin textbook was called Living Latin but a little doodling easily changed the title to Dying Eatin'.

[questa]

I did a year and was delighted when I could work out a word in English from its Latin base.I liked the teacher who was wise enough to know she only had one year with us so concentrated on vocab and basic rules and less on long translations. Many institutions have Latin mottos and I try to translate them now. a knowledge of Latin has helped when I have been nursing Spanish or Italian mothers...but they have to write their words down so I can 'dissect' them

I was engaged to a chap who was a horticulturist / environmentalist.He taught me about plants and, inadvertently, a lot of Greek and Latin vocab. Things like, the gladioli plant has long spears of flowers...like the spears the gladiators used.

[questa]

Mar 18, 2021 17:52:05 GMT onlyMark said:

Pretty good on a fine day. A bit sketchy after dark.

Try putting it under the porch light, you can see better.