Why Latin?

… I am writing for my school newspaper article on the benefits of taking a classical language such as Latin. I am interested in learning what experts think about the benefits of taking a “dead” language, such as Latin. I am currently in Latin 2 and my friends (and their parents) ask me this question all the time. …
A young correspondent

When one gets an email like this, it feels important to answer from the heart. So I took some time this Monday morning to reflect. Here’s part of my answer.

All languages open us to understanding different cultures. Historic languages give us deeper more meaningful insights into our shared human past. I’m a historian so the main function of my own learning of Latin and Greek is to get closer to my historical sources.

Moreover, all language learning deepens our understanding of our own language(s). Some say this benefit is more directly realized in Latin because of how its grammatical system has been so rigorously articulated over the millennia, but this depends on how you are learning the language and if that approach works for you. Think of it this way, if your head is full of strange things like conditional clauses, moods, genitives, and gerundives, you cannot help but see analogous constructions in English or any other language you speak or learn now or in future.

For those scared of language learning, Latin can feel like a safe starting space often with fewer pressures to perform or improvise. I was placed in Latin because back in the 1990s my learning disabilities meant my high school teachers thought I couldn’t learn a spoken language. It took me decades to stop believing they were right. I finally tried immersion Turkish ‘for fun’. Unlike for my classmates, the grammar came easily to me. I understand how languages function, even when the new language has few to no Indo-European or even Semitic loan words or shared syntax or grammar. Speaking other languages is still challenging for me, but so is speaking English. (I’m still super grateful for my seven years of speech therapy). Latin gave me the confidence to maximize my own abilities and led me to a career in history that continues to bring me daily joys.

Finally, don’t underestimate the role of pleasure from any form of knowledge acquisition. When we do something hard and make progress through disciplined learning, it feels good! There is nothing wrong with wanting to challenge yourself and engage with any academic subject because it gives you deep personal satisfaction. That feeling is how we find our drive in life. If we only value training and not learning, we would be denying part of our humanity.

Sometimes it helps to flip the question on the person asking. Why do you ask? Were there subjects in your own education that seemed impractical at the time but you now value for the experience or knowledge? What challenges have you taken on in your own life? Why did you decide to stick with that challenge? What do you think the function of high school and college learning should be? Why? What happens when the practical skills we may learn along the way become out-of-date in this rapidly changing world?

Update:

Colleagues have helped me think even more about this topic. There has been much discussion of how Latin has come to be associated with class in the Anglophone world and how it was a marker of European power historically. I thought it might be useful to add some bibliography to my post:

Waquet Françoise. 2001. Latin or the Empire of a Sign : From the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries. London: Verso.

Ellsworth Hamann Byron. 2015. The Translations of Nebrija : Languaje Culture and Circulation in Early Modern World. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

Morley Neville. 2018. Classics : Why It Matters. Cambridge UK: Polity Press.

Goff Barbara E. 2013. Your Secret Language : Classics in the British Colonies of West Africa. London: Bloomsbury.

Further reading suggestions welcome.