Teaching Classics Through Linguistics: A Renewed Grammar-Translation Method

I had my Bachelor Degree in “Lettere Classiche” at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” in 2011 with a thesis of Latin language and literature on the rendering of classic metrics in Italian language (supervisor prof. L. Gamberale). Subsequently, I had my Master’s Degree in Orientalistics at the University of Pisa in 2014 with a thesis of Egyptology on the “Dialogue between a Man and his Ba” (pBerlin 3024) (supervisor prof. M. Betrò). At the same University, I completed my Ph. D. summa cum laude and with rights of publication in 2018 with an Egyptology thesis about the orthographic variations in relationship with morphology occurring in the Pyramid Texts (supervisor prof. M. Betrò, prof. A. Loprieno, and prof. A. Stauder).
During my Ph. D., I published for specialized journals both in the field of Egyptology and more generally in those of Linguistics (es. “Egitto e Vicino Oriente”, “Latinitas”). In Latin, on “Latinitas”, I wrote an article about the similarities between the ancient Egyptian Lamentation literature and the Roman Satire (“Latinitas” 2014).

Since 2018, I have translated popular songs, mostly Disney’s, into Latin, to be sung by Luke Amadeus Ranieri on his channel ScorpioMartianus, and recently partly re-published in my own channel “Rumak”: “Duce me” (“Be prepared”), “Nocte amica amantibus” (“Can you feel the love tonight”), “Et nil est” (“You’re welcome”), “In igni” (“Hellfire”), “Triumphus Aladdini” (“Prince Ali”), and the whole corpus of songs from “Nightmare before Christmas”, some of which have been already released: “Mundus pateat” (“This is Halloween”), “Quid est?” (“What’s this”), “Questus T. Taphii” (“Jack’s lament”), “Regillae carmen” (“Sally’s song”), “Ululonis carmen” (“Oogie Boogie song”), “Furiate” (“Poor Jack”). Some of these have reached a considerable audience. Two of my last pieces, “the Wellerman’s song” and “Bohemian rhapsody”, are totally or partly in ancient Egyptian and Coptic: in particular, the former adapts the content of the middle Egyptian tale of “The Shipwrecked Sailor” (pLeningrad 1115) using the reconstructed vocalization based on Vergote’s, Osing’s, and Vycichl’s studies; the latter adapts the old Coptic content of PGM IV to the notes of Queen's famous song. In another of the most recent pieces, “Dormi dormi”, I adapt Simonides’s Fr. 38 to Vasco Rossi’s homonym song.
On my own YouTube channel, I deal mainly with metrics, publishing recitations of both prose and poetry, and, since 2022, I began with Marina Garanin a cycle of lessons held in Latin about ancient Egyptian language and writing.

Since 2021, I have taught ancient Egyptian language in the Athena Nova private school and Latin and Greek in the Italian public High School “A. Meucci” of Aprilia (Latium), where I developed a method strongly based on historical and comparative linguistics, which is focused on morphology and on etymology as a tool for memorizing lexicon, producing didactic materials of my own.
Some of my original poetic compositions have been published in the international review “Vox Latina”, Tomus 57 (fasc. 225 and 226) and 58 (fasc. 230).

In 2022, I wrote a Latin tragedy in iambic trimeters and lyrical meters, “Medeae daemones” or simply “Medea”, which was awarded two prizes in the international contest “Thalia” (Vicenza, August 1st-7th, 2022), corona aenea (‘bronze crown’ for the third best piece) and persona aurea (‘golden mask’ for the best protagonist actress, Marina Garanin, in the role of Medea). The recording of this piece has been released with Latin, Italian, and English subtitles on my YouTube channel.
In 2023, I was awarded three prizes in international contests devoted to Latin poetry: Certamen Sarbievianum, Certamen Nubicentauricum, Certamen Apollinare Poeticum; and I published “Medea” in book format with Contubernales and as a graphic novel with Nubes.
In 2024, I wrote a second original Latin tragedy, “Agauē”, soon to be published in my channel as a video, in book format and graphic novel by Nubes. With this piece I participated in the second edition of the contest “Thalia” (Vilnius, August 4th-11th, 2024): the piece has also been awarded two prizes: calamus aureus (‘golden pen’ for the best text) and persona aurea (‘golden mask’ for the best protagonist actress, Marina Garanin, in the role of Agave).

After earning her MAT in Latin and Classical Humanities from UMass Amherst, Jacque taught Latin for 22 years in independent schools in Western Massachusetts and Los Angeles, CA. She is a past President of the North American Institute for Living Latin Studies (SALVI) and has attended and helped to organize numerous events for Latin speakers. In 2020, Jacque left the world of education to earn her CPA license, and she now leads the Finance department of the Pasadena Playhouse State Theatre of California.

Mark Buchan, a former Professional Classicist, currently teaches in the Writing Program at Rutgers University. He received his BA in Classics from Cambridge University, his PhD from the University of Michigan, and has written a book or two on Homeric poetry. He can be found in his natural habitat, the jazz and piano bars of New York City.

Jason Pedicone, the co-founder and President of the Paideia Institute, received his Ph.D. in Classics from Princeton University in 2013. Jason has taught courses in Latin, Greek, and the history of Classical Scholarship at the university level in the U.S. and Western Europe, and is an adjunct professor at Brooklyn College and Fordham University. Jason’s research and public speaking focus on public humanities and Latin and Greek pedagogy. Jason received a Fulbright Fellowship for research in Germany in 2004, and a Jacob Javits Fellowship in 2013 to support his graduate work.  In 2015, together with Paideia's co-founder, Eric Hewett, Jason was awarded the President’s Award by the Society for Classical Studies for outstanding achievements in promoting the study of Classics. He lives in Manhattan.