Review: SALVI’s Rusticatio Virginiana Conversational Latin Workshop
Charles Town, West Virginia, 2009

by Dean Cassella

Almost twenty years ago, I asked my first Latin teacher when I would be able to speak Latin. Laughing, he sardonically replied: “Not for a long time.” Year after year went by for me as an undergraduate, master’s student and finally a doctoral student in Classics. Despite having read several thousand pages of Latin literature, and having taught the language professionally for years, that magical moment that I had been waiting for, the Latin conversation, never reared its lovely head.

Well, that has now changed in a big way for me this summer, thanks to an opportunity to attend a week-long workshop designed specifically for beginning Latin speakers. Rusticatio Virginiana (that’s Latin for Virginia Country Life) is run by Septentrionale Americanum Latinitatis Vivae Institutum (English: North American Institute for Living Latin Studies) SALVI an organization dedicated to the promulgation of conversational

Nancy Llewellyn is a Professor at Wyoming Catholic College and advocate of spoken Latin.

Latin in North America. The founder of SALVI, and director of the workshop was Nancy E. Llewellyn, an assistant professor of Latin at the newly formed Wyoming Catholic College. Dr. Llewellyn spent several years studying conversational Latin in Rome- ground zero, if you will- with the renowned Father Reginald Foster and Father Cleto Pavanetto, who teaches classical languages at the Pontificia Università degli Studi Salesiana. Father Pavanetto took part in the workshop, and he was one of the most charming and dedicated teachers I have ever had the privilege of meeting.

The program was held at the Claymont Mansion,an estate built by George Washington’s nephew, which currently houses workshops and conferences such as this one. The site’s isolation was ideal, because the 28 attendees were strictly enjoined not to speak anything but Latin from dawn of the second day.

Reginald Foster, of the recently formed Academia Romae Latinitatis in the Eternal City

The participants ranged from college instructors such as myself, to high school Latin teachers, graduate students, and even a few undergraduates. The common interests of all made the group quick to congeal, and I have no doubt that many lasting friendships have grown out of our week together.

Professor Llewellyn is an absolute master not only of oral Latin, but also of foreign language pedagogy. The various types of classroom exercises she had us do— my favorite was a Latin version of the game show $20,000 Pyramid — in case you’re curious, here’s a YouTube video of the original show.

were a virtual goldmine of material for teachers of Latin- or any other foreign language, for that matter. The informal after-dinner activities were among the highlights of the

David Morgan is Professor of French at Furman University, and a crack shot at spoken latin.

program. These ranged from the frivolous (e.g singing an ingeniously translated version of the Village People song YMCA- “Puer, desperare noli!”) to the high-brow. My favorite in the latter category was a discussion, led by Professor David Morgan from Furman University about the invention of the concept of the “genius” out of late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Romanticism. Professor Morgan, whose fluency in Latin can make one green with envy, also helps direct an oral Latin summer school for high school students at Christendom College.

Professor Llewellyn told us on the first day that large amounts of passive knowledge would rise up into our active memory as the workshop progressed. Not only can I vouch for this, but I received an instantaneous boost in my ability to write in Latin within days of beginning the workshop. I would even venture to say that my ability to read quickly has improved a bit.

All in all, the whole experience was transformational. In recent years, I have experimented with incorporating some oral work in my Latin teaching at UNT. I have met with some success in this. But since returning from the workshop, I have been able to apply my newfound skills in my own Latin workshop. The result is an astonishing 80-90% of my classes being conducted in Latin, to the great delight and benefit of my students, who are learning their verb forms and retaining vocabulary far more readily than most of my students in the past.

If you have a love of Latin and would really like to become part of the Western intellectual tradition, I urge you to enroll in one of SALVI’s (or any one of the growing number of similar workshops in the US and Europe). I promise that you will not regret it!