Fill In the Blanks

Those of you who’ve never heard the term neo-Latin, may be forgiven for thinking it’s a new South American dance craze. If you’re puzzled when I tell you it has something to do with the language of Romans, take heart, over the years many classes who have confessed they are not really sure what it is either. Some have assumed that they are so-called ‘Late-Latin’, written at the end of Roman Empire. Others have supposed it must have something to do with the middle ages. Or perhaps it’s that pseudo Latin which my five and seven-year-old boys seem to glean from the Harry Potter books, useful for spells and curses that they zip one another with makeshift paper ash ones. No, in fact, neo-Latin is more or less the same as the Latin that was written in the ancient world, classical Latin. So, what’s so new about it?