The Latin Playground

In this first installment of the Latin Playground, we’re bringing you three episodes from our first recording session. We come together to explore the fascinating intersection of language, translation, and spirituality in Emanuel Swedenborg’s 18th-century NeoLatin. You’ve arrived at Episode 1. In this episode, you meet the playground crew and we discuss the following topics.

Topics we explore: 

• Why are language and words such a big part of soul-stirring?
• Why translation matters.
• The personal journeys each of us has taken into Latin studies.
• How language shapes our understanding of spiritual truth.
• Jonathan’s longing to sit down with people and look at the Latin directly.
• How the language you speak affects the way you think.
• How translating Swedenborg’s Latin in real time opens spiritual concepts in entirely new ways.
• NeoLatin - it exists!
• What Swedenborg says about who is associated with who in the spiritual world… guess what? Language supersedes religion as something that unites people!
• Our awe at the persistence of ancient linguistic patterns.
• Latin inflection and English word order.
• Latin can express tone of voice because inflection allows for freedom in word order.
• Kids as linguistic geniuses.

This is a podcast we are producing for the joy of it. We are at the mercy of our zoom connections and our limited skills and capacity for dressing up the podcast the way one is meant to be. So, a relatively informal production! But we couldn’t get together and talk about these things without sharing them! The subject matter is just too good not to! 

If you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and rate it wherever you listen to podcasts! If you’d like to support the translation work of the Swedenborg Foundation, please make a donation to the Jonathan S. Rose Translation Fund at swedenborg.com/donate and note that the Latin Playground inspired you to do so! 

Thanks for playing with us on the Latin Playground! See you next time! 

The Latin Playground is a project of the Swedenborg Foundation—a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, independent, educational organization. Everything we produce is on account of the generous giving of our donors. Learn more at www.swedenborg.com.

In this first installment of the Latin Playground, we’re bringing you three episodes from our first recording session. We come together to explore the fascinating intersection of language, translation, and spirituality in Emanuel Swedenborg’s 18th-century NeoLatin. You’ve arrived at Episode 2. Get ready to fly through the galaxies of Latin and English!  In this episode, we discuss the following topics.

Topics we explore: 

• Strengths and weaknesses of Latin vs. English.
• This/That in English vs. Latin’s many demonstratives and how this is important to understand when translating.
• Understanding Latin and English as galaxies when translating and why it matters.
• The English galaxy is larger than Latin and has eaten Latin several times.
• Pruritus vs. having an itch. Anglo-Saxon words hit different than Latinate English terms.
• Twinkle, twinkle little star vs. Scintillate, scintillate asteroid minific.
• Latinate English words can sound abstract in English; they are distant in the English galaxy but near the core in the Latin galaxy.
• Concupiscence: concupiscentia. Scentia - growing, con - strong, cupis - craving. It means a strong and growing craving. Compare that to how viscerally “concupiscent” hits.
• To translate words that are in the center of the Latin galaxy, you need to translate them into core English words, not distant Latinate stars.
• The dates of the NeoLatin period: 1300-1700. Swedenborg wrote all of his Latin after 1700! It continued later, but it was on its way out.
• Are you a NeoLatin scholar? Come be a guest on our show!
• Language grows and changes along with thought and ideas.
• Our concept of what is possible is limited by language.

This is a podcast we are producing for the joy of it. We are at the mercy of our zoom connections and our limited skills and capacity for dressing up the podcast the way one is meant to be. So, a relatively informal production! But we couldn’t get together and talk about these things without sharing them! The subject matter is just too good not to! 

If you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and rate it wherever you listen to podcasts! If you’d like to support the translation work of the Swedenborg Foundation, please make a donation to the Jonathan S. Rose Translation Fund at swedenborg.com/donate and note that the Latin Playground inspired you to do so! 

Thanks for playing with us on the Latin Playground! See you next time! 

The Latin Playground is a project of the Swedenborg Foundation—a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, independent, educational organization. Everything we produce is on account of the generous giving of our donors. Learn more at www.swedenborg.com.

In this first installment of the Latin Playground, we’re bringing you three episodes from our first recording session. We come together to explore the fascinating intersection of language, translation, and spirituality in Emanuel Swedenborg’s 18th-century NeoLatin. You’ve arrived at Episode 3. In this episode we jump into our first Latin passage and hear from Swedenborg about talking to angels from each of the three levels of heaven. Follow along with the passage below!

Topics we explore: 

• We look at our first Latin passage: Arcana Cœlestia 3346. PASSAGE INCLUDED BELOW TO FOLLOW ALONG!
• Fancy old S’s in printing
• Ligatures in Latin
• The audio gets a little garbled in this one at brief moments but it all works out! Bear with us!
• Swedenborg writes about talking to spirits and angels nearly continuously for many years at the point of writing this passage.
• He writes of talking to spirits and angels of each level of heaven and how each level’s speech differs. We hear what it was like for him to talk to each in their own language!
• There are five cases of Latin nouns: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative. You’ll hear us mention nominative and ablative, and maybe others.
• Many Latin vocab words! Word of the day: loquela! It can mean speech or language.
• Wait a minute... do we even need words for perception?
• The multi-layeredness of language.
• The structure of the sentences conveys meaningful emphasis on its own.
• There are sixteen prepositions in Latin that all mean just about everything. They’re your best friend when you’re starting and they’re problematic when you’ve been doing it for awhile. "You can't trust 'em as far as you can throw 'em." --Chara Daum
• The universal language of thought that is instinctive with all of us. See Heaven and Hell 243.
• Theory of translation: going into metalanguage between languages.
• We glimpse how Swedenborg is trying to translate his first-hand experience of angelic language.
• What distinguishes the different levels of heaven.
• Even though there’s a universal language in the spiritual world, there’s also many different kinds of language, too.
• Words as flames in the esoteric tradition.
• The connection between spelling and spells! We speak things into existence.
• The words you’re using are the concepts you are living by.
• From the highest heaven to earthly language—many layers of language!
• We are all receivers of inflow—direct from the divine and indirectly from the spiritual world.
• We have a receptor in us that turns squiggles on the page into meaning and you start to feel something.
• Where does language end? In our hearts.
• What is the quality of your self-talk? How is it making you feel? How might you speak a different language inside?
• Grammar lets us feel things.
• Swedenborg is writing to try to build thoughts to get you back to a place of feeling.
• Reflective, music backed reading of the Latin passage and the New Century Edition translation.
• Say it with me! “Loquela angelorum tertii cœli modo apparuit mihi sicut radiatio lucis, in qua perceptio ex flamma boni quæ inerat.”

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LATIN PASSAGE

Ut hæc scirem, et pro certo, ex Divina Domini Misericordia, datum est nunc per plures annos pæne continue cum Spiritibus et Angelis loqui, et cum spiritibus seu angelis primi cœli ipsamet illorum loquela; etiam quandoque cum Angelis secundi cœli, illorum; sed loquela angelorum tertii cœli modo apparuit mihi sicut radiatio lucis, in qua perceptio ex flamma boni quæ inerat. 

Arcana Coelestia §3346

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This is a podcast we are producing for the joy of it. We are at the mercy of our zoom connections and our limited skills and capacity for dressing up the podcast the way one is meant to be. So, a relatively informal production! But we couldn’t get together and talk about these things without sharing them! The subject matter is just too good not to! 

If you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and rate it wherever you listen to podcasts! If you’d like to support the translation work of the Swedenborg Foundation, please make a donation to the Jonathan S. Rose Translation Fund at swedenborg.com/donate and note that the Latin Playground inspired you to do so! 

Thanks for playing with us on the Latin Playground! See you next time! 

The Latin Playground is a project of the Swedenborg Foundation—a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, independent, educational organization. Everything we produce is on account of the generous giving of our donors. Learn more at www.swedenborg.com.

The Latin Playground is a new upcoming production from the Swedenborg Foundation. New episodes coming in January, 2025! In this video, host Chelsea Odhner talks to translator Jonathan Rose, the Series Editor of the New Century Edition about the upcoming series. 

The Latin Playground is a new way to engage with Swedenborg's writings. Swedenborg wrote in Neo-Latin. At the Swedenborg Foundation, we translate the spiritual insights he wrote down into modern, accessible English in our New Century Edition of Swedenborg's theological works, but something new happens when you interface with the Latin itself. No Latin skills necessary!

 In the Latin Playground, we get to learn alongside Jonathan Rose as we delve into the spiritual realities Swedenborg was trying to put into words. The Swedenborg Foundation is a non-profit organization that depends on donations to continue its work of making Swedenborg's ideas accessible. Consider giving at swedenborg.com/donate to the Jonathan S. Rose Translation Fund to help us in our mission.

The Latin Playground is a project of the Swedenborg Foundation—a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, independent, educational organization. Everything we produce is on account of the generous giving of our donors. Learn more at www.swedenborg.com.

Alongside translator Jonathan Rose, we delve into the nature of language, the nuances of Neo-Latin, and the spiritual experiences of the scientist and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. Never heard of Neo-Latin or Swedenborg? No problem! Come learn with us as we explore the inextricable link between spiritual revelation and grammar. 

Coming January, 2025. Subscribe now to be notified when the first episode comes out.

Created by Chelsea Odhner.

The Latin Playground is a production of the Swedenborg Foundation, an independent, educational US-based nonprofit. Everything the Swedenborg Foundation produces is the direct result of the generous support of our donors. Learn more at Swedenborg.com. 

The Latin Playground is a project of the Swedenborg Foundation—a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, independent, educational organization. Everything we produce is on account of the generous giving of our donors. Learn more at www.swedenborg.com.