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Title: Latin Letters between Family Members in the United States
Author(s): DINAN, Andrew C.
Journal: Humanistica Lovaniensia
Volume: 73    Date: 2024   
Pages: 505-539
DOI: 10.2143/HLO.73.0.3294206

Abstract :
This paper presents a catalogue of Latin letter writing between family members living in lands that were or would become part of the United States. Many of these letters are pedagogical exercises, albeit extracurricular, in which the sender and/or recipient seeks to sustain, improve or exhibit his or her knowledge of Latin. Other letters, however, have little to do with pedagogy and reflect rather the author’s high degree of comfort with Latin such that it was natural to be employed in personal communication. This paper indicates that Latin was quite capable of being a language of intimacy. In this, as in other genres of Neo-Latin, Americans were following long-established European practices.

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