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Why Latin?
by
Scott Barker
Lingua
Latina gaudium et utilis est!!
The Latin language is fun and useful!
I.
Character.
"It doesn't take intelligence, it takes a certain kind of
character," a teacher of mine likes to say.
Latin takes perseverance, stubbornness, and endurance.
Latin is a challenge. It's
not just for geniuses any more.
II.
Virtue and Vice.
Read, in Latin, about the virtues of Hercules, Lucretia, and Coriolanus,
about the vices of Cataline in the speeches of Cicero, and judge for
yourself the virtues and/or vices of Julius Caesar in his own Commentaries
and those of others, and read about the party life of mediaeval students
in their songs. Encounter such terms and concepts as "chastity,"
"probity," and "avarice," perhaps for the first time.
(By the way, what does "e.g." stand for?)
III.
Literature and History.
Learn about gods and goddesses, mythology, historical folks, and
geographical references to help with present and future studies in history
and literature. The lyric
poetry of Herrick, Keats, and Shelley would be no where without the old
Romans, Catullus and Horace. The
study of Latin will soften the blow and enhance your enjoyment of Homer's
Odyssey, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare's plays and the rest of
(Western, at least) human literature.
As Hamlet says about the ghost: "Hic et ubique," or
"Here and everywhere."
IV.
Vocabulary, Vocabulary, Vocabulary.
At least 60% of words in the English language are derived from
Latin, often through middle French (1066AD and all that), 30% of English
words are of Anglo-Saxon origin, and 10% from Greek and other languages.)
Most, if not all, of the 206 bones in your body are Latin.
(SAT's anyone?)
V.
Translation.
"There
is no better way for the student to train himself in the choice of the
very word that will fit his thought than by translation from Latin and
Greek. Thus he develops
habits of analysis, habits of discriminating choice of words, habits of
accurate apprehension of the meaning which another has sought to convey by
written words, which lead to power of expression and to power of clear
thinking. Such habits are worth more to the lawyer than all the
information which a modern school may hope to impart." Roscoe Pound, Dean of the Law School, Harvard University,
circa 1900. (circa?)
VI.
Grammar.
You must learn the grammar of a foreign language in order to learn
it well. This is especially
true of Latin because the word order won't help you.
Latin is a highly inflected language--has lots of endings to
learn--and can put words almost anywhere in the sentence. (Greek and
Russian are also highly inflected.) What
is the proper way to use "I" and "me" in English?
How about "who" and "whom"?
"We" and "us"?
Latin will show you. What's
a relative clause or pronoun? What
is the subjunctive mood? Hey,
what's a "mood" anyway? Imperative?
Infinitive? Direct
object? Indirect object? Participle? Gerund?
"I
will say at once, quite firmly, that the best grounding for education is
the Latin grammar. I say
this, not because Latin is traditional and mediaeval, but simply because
even a rudimentary knowledge of Latin cuts down the labor and pains of
learning almost any other subject by at least 50 percent.
It is the key to the vocabulary and structure of all Romance
languages and to the structure of all Teutonic languages, as well as to
the technical vocabulary of all the sciences and to the literature of the
entire Mediterranean civilization, together with all its historical
documents." Dorothy
Sayers, from "The Lost Tools of Learning"
VII.
Logic.
Trains your mind. Trains your memory.
Unraveling a Latin sentence is an excellent exercise in thought, a
real intellectual puzzle, and a good introduction to logical thinking.
Latin involves a similar process to that used in Euclid's geometric
proofs, (Q.E.D., Quod Erat Demonstrandum=That which was to be
demonstrated) or, to the thought process involved in trying to fix your
car. You have to be able to
SEE things and the connections between words and concepts.
VIII.
Latin is dead, NOT!
The only thing that is dead is the mind of the person who
says "Latin is dead." Latin
is not dead, it's eternal. Latin is "dead" the way your great-grandparents are
"dead," the way the US Constitution is "dead," or the
way the soldiers who took the beaches of Normandy are "dead."
We continue to live by their deeds, influences, and inspiration.
If not for them, we would not be here.
If not for Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and
Romanian would not be here either. Remember
that scene from Monty Python's "Life of Brian"?
To wit:
"...OK,
OK, besides the roads, system of government, sanitation, personal safety,
language, culture, and the rule of law, what have the Romans ever done for
us?"
Finis
est.
Ave atque Vale!
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