Why Latin?

I was asked to write a blog on why students should learn Latin. More generally, I believe, the question was, “Why Latin?” And it’s a good question. Latin is not technically a ‘dead language,’ though it may as well be. It does have some modern users, the most famous, of course, being the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church. Certainly, classical professors will know Latin in order to read famous Roman poets, orators, and the like. But why learn Latin unless you are going to work in the Vatican or become a professor of the classics? Only a relative handful of people speak it, and English has become the lingua franca of the modern world. Other language study may seem unnecessary at first glance.

First glances, like first impressions, are often deceiving. I believe there is not a single language, and perhaps, no single subject, that any student can study that will enhance his or her general studies more than Latin (of course, having a good grasp on English should go without saying). Studying Latin is beneficial to students even of elementary school age in numerous ways, but we can mention only two here without making this blog too long. First, Latin has had a profound impact on English vocabulary. There are thousands and thousands of words which come from Latin with little mutation. Knowing some of these in the original language can help us understand our own English words. At the same time, study of Latin can increase English vocabulary significantly. If you look at the previous sentence, eight words come from Latin (including the word “Latin”). That’s eight out of twelve in just that sentence alone. Think, also, of the legal, medical, or scientific fields (to name only a few). Much of their terminology comes from Latin directly. Knowing Latin before professional training begins can only be to the benefit of the student.

Second, most students in private or public education will begin learning a foreign language in high school. Almost all of these students will study one of the Romance languages. The Romance languages are those languages which have descended directly, with more or less purity, from Latin. French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian are the most widely spoken of the Romance languages. Mastery of one can actually greatly aid study of the others. The study of Latin, however, increases basic knowledge of any of them. Latin is the grammar and vocabulary base for all five of the languages. If the student wishes to study German, even here there is some aid from our friend Latin. While not sharing much in common with German, Latin nonetheless introduces the student to languages which rely heavily on inflection. An inflected language is one in which the forms of words are morphed to give them new meaning. For example, the word “God” in Latin can take several forms, depending on its function in the sentence. “Deus” is the way you would write “God” as the subject, but “Deum” is the way you would write “God” as the direct object. German is also an inflected language, so learning how a morphing language works can aid the student in this way as well.

By no means do these two reasons exhaust the benefits of learning Latin, but I believe they are compelling enough to stand as sufficient answers to the question “Why Latin?” A better question might be, “Why not Latin?”

Mr. Matthew Gore; Teacher of Latin and Logic at Palmetto Christian Academy of Greenwood