P*rl in Latin, whither Python?

[Steve Holden]

Alex Martelli wrote:
> 
> "Suchandra Thapa" <ssthapa at harper.uchicago.edu> wrote in message
> news:slrn90o5ek.3lu.ssthapa at localhost.localdomain...
>     [snip]
> > perligata follow latin's substitution of i, and v for j and u
> respectively,
> > not allowing  k since roman's didn't have j, u, w, or k in their alphabet?
> Also
> 
> Actually, the emperor Claudius (a scholar, before events propelled
> him to the purple) introduced the letter 'u' (he claimed that using 'v'
> for it, an old convention, had no connection any more with current
> pronunciation of the two sounds; spelling/pronunciation
> correspondence was quite important to Latin scholars), though it
> took a while to be fully accepted.
> 
Somewhat ironic that the paperback version of Graves' wonderful
historical novel uses the banner

	"I Clavdivs"

for the front-cover title.  He would have been turning in his grave.

> > whether verbs are properly conjugated or nouns declined (verbs have ~60-70
> > forms, the one used depends on the subject, the tense, whether the verb is
> 
> Read the paper -- it simplifies this (and various irregularities) a lot,
> while keeping the basic idea that words' inflections, not word order,
> are the key of the syntax.  (Existing programming languages can be
> taken as similarly-drastic simplifications of word-order-based syntax).
> 
> Alex

I could hardly believe my eyes when I read the paper: someone asked me
why I was laughing uncontrollably.  I still can't decide whether it's in
Perl's favor or agin it that this sort of drastic change can be installed
simply by use'ing a module.

regards
 Steve
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