your last sentence is inaccurate: an english reader cannot read any latin at all naively, but a modern chinese reader can interpret little/some/most of classical chinese, depending on the specific text in question
English is a weird Romantic-Germanic hybrid (Germanic by linguistic classification but with a tremendous/predominant vocabulary of Romantic origin). A more apt comparison would be with respect to a French/Italian/Spanish reader. See: Interlingua
Only for the fun of it (actually recreation), your sentence (phrase), slightly modified, in English and its possible translation in current Italian:
> English represents a strange Romantic-Germanic hybrid (Germanic by linguistic classification but with a tremendous/predominant vocabulary of Romantic origin). A more appropriate comparison would be with respect to a French/Italian/Spanish bibliophile.
L'Inglese rappresenta uno strano ibrido Romantico-Germanico (Germanico come classificazione linguistica ma con un vocabolario tremendamente predominante di origine Romantica). Una più appropriata comparazione sarebbe rispetto ad un bibliofilo Francese/Italiano/Spagnolo.
I have noticed that (in my experience) when you use in English the Latin-originated synonyms of more commonly used English (possibly Germanic originated) words you are perceived as having a higher level of education (and also as being a tad bit snob).
The Romance influence in English comes from the elites after the Norman conquest, which is why Latin-rooted forms are seen as more upper class (and, often, pretensious).
misread, my bad; but i remain suspicious because from what i've heard the latin grammar is something quite alien, but then again i heard it from an english speaker....
I am a native English speaker, though one with much more interest in the structure of language than average.
Latin grammar isn't all that different from English grammar. It's usually possible to translate a sentence from Latin into English in a way that simultaneously preserves both the meaning and the grammatical structure of the original.
Attempting to do that between unrelated languages is vastly more difficult; in such cases, a translation that tries to preserve the source grammar will usually end up being hopelessly ungrammatical in the target language.
I think you're overestimating, or at least overselling, the degree to which modern Chinese people can read classical text without training.
I'm actually with colorincorrect here. There's a nontrivial overlap between formal modern Chinese and Classical Chinese.
This is especially evident if you ever read contemporary Chinese works about Chinese history. Large tracts of Classical Chinese are discussed without translation assuming the reader understands the text in question and often the contemporary work itself can read very classically.
Modern literature can also occasionally lapse into Classical Chinese constructions for a sentence or two.
And anecdotally I don't think I've ever met a Chinese high school graduate who didn't have some proficiency with Classical Chinese.
I've said this before elsewhere, sometimes it's useful to think of Classical Chinese as a separate language from modern Chinese, sometimes it's useful to think of it as an extremely elevated register of modern Chinese. Modern literary works can be more or less "classical" in nature depending on the whims of the author.
> There's a nontrivial overlap between formal modern Chinese and Classical Chinese.
> This is especially evident if you ever read contemporary Chinese works about Chinese history. Large tracts of Classical Chinese are discussed without translation assuming the reader understands the text in question and often the contemporary work itself can read very classically.
If you read some non-contemporary early modern English literature, you may find Latin, classical Greek, or French discussed or used without translation in the expectation that the reader will be able to understand it directly.
But this is evidence that the reader is expected to have undergone significant training, not that English speakers can understand ancient Greek without training.
> And anecdotally I don't think I've ever met a Chinese high school graduate who didn't have some proficiency with Classical Chinese.
We can be even more definite here: this is because Chinese high school graduates have all received training in Classical Chinese.
You can successively "classical"ize a Chinese work that you can't do with English or French vis-a-vis Latin. I can take a sentence and iteratively make it more and more classical. Here's the sentence "His name is John," successively made more classical. Every version except the last can be found in all sorts of modern Chinese written works. Conversely every version except the first is valid Classical Chinese.
Even within Classical Chinese you can be more or less "Classical."
他的名字叫约翰。
其名为约翰。
其名约翰。
其名约翰也。
Moving away from examples in the language itself, high-level programs of advanced modern Mandarin comprehension, both for foreign speakers and native speakers test for some knowledge of Classical Chinese.
Every modern Chinese language for foreign speakers learning program I know of dedicates at least one (if not multiple) module at the advanced level to Classical Chinese (this is separate from a dedicated Classical Chinese course that goes in more detail) with Classical Chinese readings.
For ILR level 5 modern Mandarin fluency the U.S. State Department explicitly lists knowledge of Classical Chinese (to the level of a native speaker) as a prerequisite (and in fact Classical Chinese shows up on a sample test I cannot find at the moment).
It is also a component of the HSK level 6, which suggestively calls it “能读懂略带文言色彩的文章“, that is "can read articles with a slight amount of Classical Chinese flavor" hinting again at a register-like relationship.
And of course Chinese comprehension tests for native speakers in China and Taiwan have a Classical Chinese component.
I would be very surprised to find any similar standard for Latin and English or Latin and French. What ESL program teaches Latin?
Note this isn't just cultural pride from China. These are foreign institutions that have deemed a certain amount of Classical Chinese necessary to understand the modern Mandarin corpus (more so than just set phrases such as sine qua non in English, but true grammar and independent vocabulary).
Sure everyone receives training in Classical Chinese, but that's because it's a symbiotic relationship. Because everyone knows Classical Chinese it influences the modern language. Because it influences the modern language it becomes a prerequisite for Chinese language programs (even those for foreign speakers).