Daniele Michienzi, professor of letters, thanks to a witty and competent language, makes Latin a “pop” subject
“Haud unknown Loquor”: “We are not saying things you don’t already know”, but “Vestis Virum fact”, that is “the dress is man”. These two Latin quotations can reflect the highly appreciated work of Daniele Michienzi, professor of letters at high school, two books coming out next year and an overwhelming passion for Latin. Thanks to his Instagram profile @Loquendum (that we can understand how “something that must be said”) Disclosa the Latin, but (and it is here that the essay of Erasmus comes to help) does it in such a fun way, to make the languages ancient and witty.
A lover of writing, in 2004, at the age of nineteen, won the “Sofia” youth literary prize with a story inspired by the somewhat ramshackle family of the Malaussène of Pennac. To his first degree in communication, he immediately adds another, in modern letters, to follow his vocation for teaching.
Daniele, tell us a little about you …
“I was born in Catanzaro, but in reality I have always lived in Milan because my parents, both teachers of mathematics (now retired), had moved here for work. I believe that the love for teaching was transmitted to them. I did the Manzoni classical high school in Milan, where I discovered the Greek, but above all the Latin, my great passion.
How did this love come about?
“In reality it was born even before starting to study it at high school. I remember a book that my parents gave me during middle schools: Latin taught the younger boys. In that small volume, there were two things that had struck me. The use of colorful images, and the use of Latin to create small dialogues. That volume, unfortunately now found, remained impressed in my imagination.”
A absolute predilection for the Latin language, but not only.
“I have a huge passion for linguistics. I loved subjects such as semiotics and creative writing; in my profile, ironizing, I explain that I have a fetish for the ablative and I declare to have moved after passing the examination of glottology. As a curious person as I am, I like to go and discover the grammar, the morphology and the structure in the languages. I did it for example with the French and especially with the Japanese language. A little nerd I read the manga, I looked at the Anime and Japanese cartoons.
How do you study the Japanese as self -taught, in an era in which the internet was still in the dawn and books on the subject were really scarce?
“I remember that I had downloaded some university boy’s notes and I bought myself a book in Japanese, the dictionary of Kanji. A summer, in Calabria, I started to study it.”
Typical Calabrian pastime … above all, in a still analog world, how did you look for the characters and kanji in the dictionary?
“I took advantage of the torrid heat of the early afternoon, then being my passion I was really involved in the study! To look for a character you had to follow a precise scheme, based on the number of sections, but having a nerd soul, I am also enjoying.”
How is the relationship with your students?
“I think I have established a good relationship; they have been and are still enthusiastic about the attention dedicated to my profile, I also make disclosure for them, even if of course, I never expose them in my contents. For me the teacher’s work is a very serious job that must remain in their own sphere. With them I like to use modern educational techniques. My Instagram page, in February last year, was born a little by chance: I had created a laboratory with my students with my students with my students with my students with my students The Latin translation of Sanremo’s songs.
Who are your followers?
“I speak above all to curious people, or those people who have tasted Latin in high school, but who do not remember it. In my opinion there is a great demand for classics and classicism today. I try to make content more” pop “, not absolutely in the sense of being simplified or worse distorted, but with the intention of making them popular. I am a creative person and I try to use my skills developed in the world of writing, And of the theater in the best possible way.
A solid professionalism seasoned with humor and lightness, not surprisingly, for your degree thesis, you brought Satyricon.
“I chose Satyricon because it still makes me laugh a lot: a novel that seems to have been written in the 1980s. I see it very similar to my language and my way of being. A characteristic of mine is precisely the use of irony, life already has its weights and I like to never take itself too seriously. My idea is to make the Latin as pleasant and light possible.”
Almost thirty years ago, a volume now unobtainable had approached Daniele Michienzi to Latin with great curiosity. Today he develops a sort of version 2.0. A modern and equally stimulating version for anyone who decides to know more than this language, probably not so dead, explained with a witty, contemporary and, above all, competent language.
