Latin: why?

[Bonsoir]

Latin was my most important subject at school. I did years and years of it and have never felt it was anything more than a waste of time.

I know not everyone feels this way and I would be grateful if you could share your opinions as to the useful skills Latin develops in school pupils.

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It is not until you do Greek that you realise much of what we think of a latin origin is actually Greek.

Greek? No, I meant the main languages that English is based on - the Germanic languages. greek and Latin have influenced vocab, but scant else. Hence Old Norse, Old English, Old germanic languages, Gothic, etc, that people are happy to ignore while overplaying the influence ofd Latin and Greek.

And the window thing shouldn't surprise you in the least. It's an old Norse word - vindauga - wind-eye. English isn't a Romance language, so most of it's day-to-day vocab isn't Romance in origin.

Didn't know fenster was German, though - that's interesting.

I bore my kids rigid by pointing out the roots of English words - both latin, greek and germanic origin. I love pointing out the similarity of words in English and other languages, or failing that between other languages. I have a great kids picture dictionary that has words in Engliash, German, French and Spanish.

They are probably not very interested, but they do know that English is a mixture of two major language roots, plus lots of extra bits.

I enjoy it anyway, and they are stuck with me .

Ew to it's, sorry. Interesting that English bucked the trend of adopting the Latin form here.

Actually we do use the word fenestration (well not often probably for most !).

The beauty of English - you can find two words for most things - one from germanic stock and the other from latin stock.

Which two major language roots? See, I'd say, in terms of structure, initial grammar and later developments plus basic non-specialist vocab, you have Anglo-saxon/Old English and Old Norse, and then in terms of specific vocab areas you have Latin (w Greek) and Norman and central French, and then later borrowings from all over the place.

I think if you break it down you'll find the Latin a bit more limited in either scope or general use in English. I like the fact that in some cases we retain almost the same words from Norman and central French - so guard/warden, warranty/guarantee, etc.

I meant the Germanic roots (from Anglo Saxon invasion) and the French/latin roots from the Roman and Norman invasions. Overlaid on the older celtic language that must be hiding in there somewhere for our oldest words.

I didn't do Latin and DS does. He loves it and is going to carry it on for GCSE. It has massively improved his English. The main difference between Latin and MFL is surely that GCSE MFL involves learning some phrases, vocabulary and a bit of grammar so that you can do very basic things like send a post card, describe the weather, and go shopping in countries that have very similar ways of life to the UK. Latin GCSE on the other hand, involves learning a language so that you can respond with a literary analysis of texts and understand a culture that is radically different to our own but has had a huge impact on the development of Western culture.

I don't think MFL and Latin are comparable. One is learnt for primarily practical reasons and the other for understanding a very different culture in a way that puts language and it how it used at the centre of understanding that culture. Latin teaches a wholly separate culture and as a consequence, teaches us something of what it means to be a human being; MFL teaches us how to communicate with people who are really similar to us.

I think the linguistic benefits probably could be gained in large part from in depth study of other MFLs, but the thing you get with Latin is access to the basic cultural capital - literary, historical, conceptual - that's shaped the western world. With access you get a voice in how to interpret it and how to use it - and that's too important to be abandoned to the Bullingdon Club boys.

So you can post on mumsnet when geeky grammatical threads come up (finally it came in handy!)

Not much Celtic left - placenames are pretty much all that's left, in England at least. Old Norse was really influential, though, throckenholt - had a big influence on the language changing from a synthetic (case endings) grammar to an analytic (word-order) grammar - ON also synthetic, but case endings started to be blurred and dropped due to contact with ON.

Clothes, wouldn't learning, say, Mandarin have a similar effect? Or Old Norse (yes, am banging the drum for effect now).

What grammatical thread was that? latin grammar quite different in many ways from English.

Argh, sorry all. I believe I have begun to rant. I am Putting Off Doing Things.

Isn't Old Norse of the same sort of origin as the germanic languages ?

Might have to dig out my teach yourself Old English book when I get home (never did get very far with that ).

Latin is really not important for a career in medicine - The few bits of Latin that are still used are really very easy to learn. Like others have said I think the proper teaching of English is far more important.

Well, they're both from the Germanic branch of Indo-European, so cognate languages, but ON languages not the same as Anglo-Saxon. But then there's lots of variety even in AS - I'd have had a hard time reading Old Kentish, for example.

No, Habbibu, I don't think Mandarin or Old Norse would serve the same purpose because neither has had such a huge impact on Western culture. Roman and Greek culture also give us links to other worlds - Asia and the Near East as the cradle of civilisation, and parts of Africa.

I think that many of the practical advantages of learning Latin (understanding how language works, having a proper grasp of grammar, and so on) stem from the (now old-fashioned) way it is taught, rather than being intrinsic to the subject. There's no reason you couldn't learn French properly instead of writing endless letters booking campsites. And you can learn Latin properly without doing that, though learning Latin properly is really difficult. Actually it's because it's so difficult that the snob factor attached to it is so irrelevant - it's your ability, not your parents' money, which will enable you to learn it.

In my opinion the solid arguments for Latin don't relate so much to why it's good for an individual pupil to learn it, but why keeping the classics alive is so important for us as a society - they help us to make sense of the ancient world, they enable us to read classical literature in the original (or, if we are lucky, a translation from the original, rather than a reinterpretation from a translation), give us a window into the politics and philosophies and sciences and poetry that still influence us.

And yes if you study law or something it's fun having shortcuts.

I was just going from this, Clothes "Latin teaches a wholly separate culture and as a consequence, teaches us something of what it means to be a human being;". Question is, in the modern world, should western children not be learning more about non-western cultures?

They do learn about non-Western cultures, in History and Geography. That doesn't make it less important to learn about the foundations of Western culture.

Sorry meant to add - re. the teaching of English grammar, it is woeful and needs to be addressed. I have a son doing Latin at the moment and one of his biggest challenges is having so little foundation in English grammar. Great for him if he comes out the end of his Latin years with an understanding, but why should he have to take another language to get this? English is appallingly neglected.

I don't think you can replace the skills learned through Latin with an MFL, certainly not if you to replace them in like for like hours and effort.

Latin is quite singular in what it does provide in a fairly concise package.

As has been said, learning any language opens up the brain in an unusual way. And the earlier the better, even if you never uttered a word of that language again, your brain would function better for having learned it in the first place.

Then there is the historical aspect of learning an ancient language. Nothing gives us a direct pathway to the past than the words written at the time. Words are capital to we humans. As is storytelling. Once you absorb the words of those who went before us, you open up somehting unique.

Then there is the analytical nature of studying Latin. The puzzle element. This is more akin to maths than learning an MFL.

I could go on and on...

But the important thing to remember is that Latin is flexing all these musclles at the same time. By studying it, you are givig your brian a multi-workout that is very time-lite.