Hans Henning Ørberg (21 April 1920 – 17 February 2010) was a Danish

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

and teacher. He received a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

in English, French, and

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

at the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen (, KU) is a public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia, after Uppsala University. ...

and taught these languages in many Danish high schools until 1963 and then taught in a Danish Gymnasium until 1988. He was the author of , a widely used method for learning Latin through the natural method.

Career

From 1953 to 1961, Ørberg worked in the , an institute where languages are taught according to the " natural method" of learning. While there he created a new course in Latin: published in 1955. Besides the author's name, there are no non-Latin words in the book. The book has been revised a few times, including in 1983 and 1991; the title was also changed, to . In his

retirement Retirement is the withdrawal from one's position or occupation or from one's active working life. A person may also semi-retire by reducing work hours or workload. Many people choose to retire when they are elderly or incapable of doing their j ...

, Ørberg directed the publishing house and gave lectures in Europe and the United States on the natural method.

Ørberg's is based on the natural method, or contextual induction. In this method, the student, who needs no previous knowledge of Latin, begins with simple sentences, such as ("

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

is in

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"). Words are always introduced in a

context In semiotics, linguistics, sociology and anthropology, context refers to those objects or entities which surround a ''focal event'', in these disciplines typically a communicative event, of some kind. Context is "a frame that surrounds the event ...

that reveals the meaning behind them, or they are explained in the margins of the text with images, Latin

synonyms A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

antonyms In lexical semantics, opposites are words lying in an inherently incompatible binary relationship. For example, something that is ''even'' entails that it is not ''odd''. It is referred to as a 'binary' relationship because there are two members i ...

, or short Latin

definitions A definition is a statement of the meaning of a term (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). Definitions can be classified into two large categories: intensional definitions (which try to give the sense of a term), and extensional definit ...

. Grammar is gradually made more complex until the student is reading unadapted Latin texts. Unusual for a Latin course,

pronunciation Pronunciation is the way in which a word or a language is spoken. To This may refer to generally agreed-upon sequences of sounds used in speaking a given word or all language in a specific dialect—"correct" or "standard" pronunciation—or si ...

and understanding, rather than

translation Translation is the communication of the semantics, meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The English la ...

, are stressed. A dictionary is not necessary in this system; because the textbooks are composed entirely in Latin, they can be used by speakers of many languages. The student is assumed to know the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...

and be familiar with a

Romance language The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...

or English. The course consists of two parts: and , along with a series of classic texts like

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in Caesar's civil wa ...

's . Using illustrations and modifications, these texts can be understood through context and by reference to words already learned. Chapters consist of an illustrated and annotated reading followed by a concise and formal discussion of the grammar used in the chapter, as well as several , or exercises, that require the student to apply these grammatical concepts to selections from the chapter's reading. These exercises ask the student to manipulate the grammar of Latin sentences rather than to translate. Even the grammar discussions are entirely in Latin, grammatical terminology being introduced as necessary. The book also uses macrons throughout. This enables readers to internalize and learn proper phonemic vowel length, which is essential to maximum understanding of the sounds of the Latin language.

Notes

References

External links

Lingua Latina (Official Page)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Orberg, Hans Henning 1920 births 2010 deaths Danish academics Language teachers Danish Latinists 20th-century Danish philologists University of Copenhagen alumni 20th-century writers in Latin Textbook writers

Career

See also

Notes

References

External links