How about we make sure students can speak and read English fluently? As re. Latin - as with all language study our current pedagogy is wrong where we have students studying grammar and vocabulary without context. We learn language as children via context and repetition not by studying grammar. That comes from learning language in context.
English without Latin would be nearly as barbaric as northern Europe was before the Mediterraneans brought Latin - and Jesus... not in that order of importance.
bump
Medical terminology has evolved in great measure from the Latin and Greek languages. During the Renaissance period, the science of anatomy was begun. Many early anatomists were faculty members in Italian schools of medicine. These early anatomists assigned Latin names to structures that they discovered.
I agree in principle, but not in practice. If the American public is lacking the synapses that lead to learning what an indirect object is in English, then it will find that concept even harder in Latin. If the folks have no clue what an adverb is, or a participle, they will stare at you glassy-eyed if you bring up the corresponding features in Latin.
The dumbing down cannot be reversed by teaching Latin to the general public. Someone needs to write about why you can stop anyone on the streets of Amsterdam or Stockholm and ask for directions in English, and get a coherent answer in English. You can even have some success in Paris, Cologne and Rome! (Schools which do not take no for an answer. Learn it or don’t pass.)
My son is in 10th grade and in a classical program with the 3 areas Rhetoric Grammar and Logic. Latin is required he is now in 5th form
They go 2 days a week in full blazer tie slacks the other 3 days parents use online lesson plan to follow and ensure assignments are complete
I am very very lucky as his high School is held at a Baptist Church 5 mins from my house
“Anyone who has struggled through Spanish 102, only to find it difficult to impossible to ask for directions to the restroom in a Latin American restaurant”
forgive my spelling
Dande esta los banos?
Mas Cervesa.
All the Spanish I need to know.
Wait till I write my Mandarin.
JungWa
Personally I think conversation level is all you need or want for most languages outside your native tounge.
Pig Latin?
Thats because two years of a language is not enough. And just a little grammar and conversation practice with other students is not enough. A good education should treat language study with as much importance as any other part of the curriculum, for as many years. I'm not sold on Latin, I would promote a living language.
Or maybe a couple of years of Latin followed by 6 years or so of a living language, followed by several more at the university level. The point is not to order dinner, but to be able to engage the language (and its people) at an adult level. You don't speak english like a preschool kid, and your goal should be to express adult ideas in either language at a similar depth.
You won't be fluent the day you get off the plane, but you will have the tools to achieve much more than just fluency when the need and opportunity arise. And you will have read widely, more than you would have otherwise.
I had a dual major undergraduate degree in French and Chemistry. While I confess that neither major has been of particular value for my MA in Urban and Regional studies and long career in government relations, I still read and speak French fluently. I also believe that traveling to France and being able to feel totally at home in a different culture was a life changing experience. I continue to read French books and newspapers and gain a different perspective that I could not without my French language background. I am particularly dismayed that many graduate degree programs no longer require proficiency in a foreign language.
I took latin in high school. It was a mixture of a waste of time and difficult because the teacher was such an a$$.
I figured I might become a doctor, a lawer , or a priest and they all needed to take Latin. Turns out, I studied engineering.
The fact that latin serves as root words for a lot of english usage was worthwhile. And since it was a dead language, if we said “veni , vidi , veecheee” , no one could tell us it was wrong but my teacher said the proper pronunciation was ‘wenee , weedee, weekiee”. How the hell did HE know?
Using Huckleberry Finn’s example, if a person in French class were to say, “parley voo franzy?” the french teacher would be vehemently upset because it was said ‘wrong’. But that is what it looks like when you read it, not parlay voooo francai.... because French was an evolving, spoken language while Latin had died unless you were a catholic cardinal at a pope choosing ceremony.
My recommendation is to choose the language that is closest to you geographically that you do not know. For me, it was Spanish, and the geographic distance was about half a block away. That would have been far better for me.
Language is geography is demographics is proximity is.... power. When you luze one of those elements you luze power. Latin has no power. Chinese or Spanish or Russian or Sikh or Persian, they have power today.
I think Latin may actually have held up better in the schools in recent years than French has, but the general trend seems to be against Western European languages (except for Spanish and Portuguese, which are widely spoken outside of Europe). Of course, to learn Chinese or Arabic or Japanese or Russian at all well, it’s best to start early. That may leave room for some Latin in middle school, but I don’t think it will be making too much of a comeback, especially given how schools and students are nowadays.
My grandfather taught Latin back in the 1950s.
In High School.
L
