# Arguments for studying Latin. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 14, 2006, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arguments-for-studying-latin/348316 "2006-03-14T15:03:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arguments-for-studying-latin/348316/21 "2006-03-15T02:49:03Z")
[QUOTE=OtakuLoki] **Excalibre** , my understanding had always been that the imperfect is a tense. Until you’d mentioned it, I never heard of an aspect in language. Since perfect is for acts that happened once and imperfect is for acts that have happened for a period of time, or are continuing to happen, it is a legitimate distinction. Usually in English the imperfect uses a gerund, but not always. Though, I’ll admit part of that is because tenses aren’t taught well these days either. [/quote] It’s just that there’s no precise parallel between the Latin perfect and imperfect “tenses” (and yes, they are called “tenses” in Latin pedagogy, but in my fantasy world, they use the proper names for things like that in teaching. Also, I have a pony.) English _does_ of course have ways to express what is expressed by the imperfect in Latin - the trouble is, we _don’t_ have anything like a simple verb ending to do it. We have “I used to _[blank]_” or “When I was a child, I would _[blank]_ every day”, or just plain “When I was in college I \*[blank]\*ed all the time” (which is expressing it _lexically_ - through word choice - rather than _grammatically_. English isn’t FUBAR at all in this respect, though - Latin has very rich verb morphology. Some languages have even more. Some have a lot less - Chinese, for instance, has an aspect distinction between perfect and imperfect, but it has no tenses at all, so to signify that something happened in the past, you have to rely on context, or else specify it lexically (for instance, to paraphrase a Chinese sentence, “Yesterday I go to library”) - no special verb ending at all. I’m not trying to nitpick here - I’m just hoping to show that the Latin style of lots of verb tenses and aspects and moods and a grammaticalized distinction between active and passive is only one way languages can work - English isn’t weird at all just because it differs from Latin in that respect. > [@](#): > > Secondly, I never meant to say that Latin would be enough to get you understood by everyone. However, I will say, in countries with a romance language it would get you by. Would it? I don’t speak Latin beyond a few words, but I do speak Spanish and some Portuguese and French, and a tiny bit of Italian - and none of them are so similar to Latin that it would be easy at all to have a conversation that way. On the other hand, if you learned Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese, you could be understood (albeit slowly and haltingly) amid communities speaking any of the others. (French is vastly different from the other Romance languages in its phonology; knowing Latin wouldn’t help in the slightest in trying to speak French.) If you’re traveling in the Romance world, it seems like any of the Romance languages would be a better choice than Latin. > [@](#): > > In countries without one, there are still going to be relatively large numbers of people who have some familiarity with it, even in China and India. It’s not a universal language, I just said it’s closer to being one than any other language currently in use, with the possible exception of English. I’ll still stand by that, though I don’t argue that more people speak chinese than Latin. (Or even spanish) In sheer numbers, more people speak Mandarin (as a first language) than anything else. By about twice as many, actually. Of course, Chinese is of limited use outside East Asia. But - and I’m not trying to be argumentative, so please don’t take it that way - I simply don’t think there’s that many Latin speakers in most countries. I think you’d probably do better with French or German in most places, including China. I have no numbers to back up my suspicion, but you made the assertion - can you back it up with anything? Latin used to be common throughout Europe, but it’s not common even there anymore, and I’ve never heard anything to suggest that Latin scholarship was at all common in Asia. There’s _some_ Latin speakers everywhere, to be sure, but (outside the Vatican) how many places have more Latin speakers than French speakers? French is useful in large parts of Africa and quite a few places in Asia as well. Germany doesn’t have the same colonial history which means it’s not a common first language in that many places, but there’s a lot of German speakers out there anyway. There’s just not that many Latin speakers at all, as far as I’ve ever read. > [@](#): > > Finally, I don’t mean to talk about transplanting latin grammatical rules to the English willinilli. The whole don’t end a sentence with a preposition is another bit of that same kind of idiocy as worrying about splitting infinitives. However, learning to think and consider such things makes it easier to recognize similar things in English. It may just be I had shitty English teachers, but I never understood the imperfect, subjunctive, or many other things about English until I got them in another language, and had to think about such constructions. The trouble is English doesn’t truly have an imperfect - not according to any analysis of English grammar I’ve seen. Lemme check - I have an English grammar right here. In Pullum and Huddleston’s _A Student’s Introduction to English Grammar_, English sentences can have an “imperfective interpretation”, but there’s no explicit marking for the imperfective aspect. That is, English has mechanisms to express the same things, but it’s not done through a verb tense or an aspect marker. English verb morphology is substantially different from that of Latin. I agree completely that learning Latin can help you understand English grammar better, but I think the same could be said for any foreign language. I had similar experiences with you in high school Spanish classes - learning another grammar helps you realize what you’ve been taking for granted in your native language. But then, I think a lot of it is simply that only the most rudimentary grammar is taught in English classes, and a lot of it is frankly wrong. There’s lots of reasons to study Latin - for one, Latin is a beautiful language in my opinion. And even the little Latin I know is useful to a surprising degree in learning technical vocabulary in other fields. But it’s not all that useful in traveling the world, which is why I think learning any of several other languages makes more practical sense. ---
**Author:** ![myskepticsight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@myskepticsight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/myskepticsight)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arguments-for-studying-latin/348316/22 "2006-03-15T02:57:18Z")
I took a semester of Latin last year. Got a D. I got behind right away because I didn’t study enough. Too many endings. Words had 7328734 definitions, so translating was hard for me. It’s a complicated subject, especially if you have no interest in it like myself. LOTS of memorization. I do remember that when you pronounce the letter “v” it sounded like “w” (right?) So the known phrase “veni, vidi, vici” (roughly “we came, we saw, we conquered”) would be pronounced like “weni, widi, wiki” which I thought was sort of funny. I’m currently taking French and getting A’s. 🙂 But if you are willing to put in effort, I think learning Latin is helpful and sort of cool. It was neat to go through your vocab and figure out what some of our words in the english language started out as. And in our textbook were all those known phrases like the one above, and it was cool to learn what they actually meant. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arguments-for-studying-latin/348316/23 "2006-03-15T03:03:03Z")
[QUOTE=myskepticsight] I do remember that when you pronounce the letter “v” it sounded like “w” (right?) So the known phrase “veni, vidi, vici” (roughly “we came, we saw, we conquered”) would be pronounced like “weni, widi, wiki” which I thought was sort of funny. [/quote] During classical times, yes. But the switch from /w/ to /v/ happened pretty early - I’ve heard that it happened in the second century, which is well before the Empire fell apart and Latin stopped being a commonly-spoken language. ---
**Author:** ![myskepticsight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@myskepticsight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/myskepticsight)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arguments-for-studying-latin/348316/24 "2006-03-15T03:12:19Z")
[QUOTE=Excalibre] During classical times, yes. But the switch from /w/ to /v/ happened pretty early - I’ve heard that it happened in the second century, which is well before the Empire fell apart and Latin stopped being a commonly-spoken language. [/QUOTE] Ah. Our prof told us to say it that way, that’s all I knew. It was over a year ago and I skipped class or zoned out a lot too so it’s all hazy. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arguments-for-studying-latin/348316/25 "2006-03-15T03:16:15Z")
[QUOTE=myskepticsight] Ah. Our prof told us to say it that way, that’s all I knew. It was over a year ago and I skipped class or zoned out a lot too so it’s all hazy. [/QUOTE] That’s the standard pronunciation. Latin is generally taught with either the pronunciation of the Classical period - like what you learned - or (if you’re in a seminary) church pronunciation (which doesn’t actually reflect any historical period.) But Latin existed for centuries in a lot of times and places. Setting an arbitrary start and end is hard to do, but Rome was founded somewhere around 700 BC, and the Western Roman Empire collapsed sometime in the 5th century AD. Pronunciation was not uniform over this period. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arguments-for-studying-latin/348316/26 "2006-03-15T03:36:50Z")
[QUOTE=Excalibre] English isn’t FUBAR at all in this respect, though - Latin has very rich verb morphology. [/quote] Well, while I like using English (I’m lazy, you see) I tend to view it as something of the worst compromise between romance and germanic language traditions. That’s something of a prejudice, I’ll admit, but one with enough learning behind it, that I think I can defend it to most people. > [@](#): > > Would it? I don’t speak Latin beyond a few words, but I do speak Spanish and some Portuguese and French, and a tiny bit of Italian - and none of them are so similar to Latin that it would be easy at all to have a conversation that way. Mixed results here. I took a little Latin, but a lot of French. So when I did my travels with the Navy, I fell back on my French, mostly. It worked everywhere I went, but the Latin I knew helped me over the rough spots. I do know my Latin teacher made it through Italy (special case, I’ll admit) without knowing a word in any other language. > [@](#): > > There’s just not that many Latin speakers at all, as far as I’ve ever read. I don’t have a cite, I’m afraid. And I’m not taking your comments as being needlessly argumentative. You’re obviously more informed about this than I am, and I recognize that. I’m not going to back down easily, but I hope I can recognize when I’m wrong. If you use a big enough cluebat on me, first. Seriously, though, anyone with a specialization in biology, paleontology, and many other sciences, as well as legal matters, will have some familiarity with Latin - not necessarily as spoken, but enough for basic communication. Of course, part of that may just be filtered through my own experiences, and with rose colored memory glasses. > [@](#): > > The trouble is English doesn’t truly have an imperfect - not according to any analysis of English grammar I’ve seen. Lemme check - I have an English grammar right here. In Pullum and Huddleston’s _A Student’s Introduction to English Grammar_, English sentences can have an “imperfective interpretation”, but there’s no explicit marking for the imperfective aspect. That is, English has mechanisms to express the same things, but it’s not done through a verb tense or an aspect marker. English verb morphology is substantially different from that of Latin. Cool, thanks for the knowledge upgrade. > [@](#): > > I agree completely that learning Latin can help you understand English grammar better, but I think the same could be said for any foreign language. I agree completely with this. I didn’t mean to imply that it was **only** learning Latin that offered that benefit. However, I tend to assume that Americans are mono-lingual until I learn otherwise, so if an American asks for a reason to learn Latin, I’ll include that as a reason. > [@](#): > > There’s lots of reasons to study Latin - for one, Latin is a beautiful language in my opinion. And even the little Latin I know is useful to a surprising degree in learning technical vocabulary in other fields. But it’s not all that useful in traveling the world, which is why I think learning any of several other languages makes more practical sense. You may be right. I just think that Latin isn’t quite as dead as many people like to describe it as being. After all [Winnie Ille Pu](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014015339X/sr=8-1/qid=1142393647/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-0704451-8117657?%5Fencoding=UTF8) is still readily available. Of course, I’ve got to be one of the few people to have coined a new Latin verb in the past couple of decades. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arguments-for-studying-latin/348316/27 "2006-03-15T03:42:00Z")
Erk, now Amazon is giving me all sorts of suggestions for latin translations… including [this](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/086516472X/ref=pd_cpt_gw_1/002-0704451-8117657?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155). I don’t know whether to be bemused or to feel vindicated. ---
**Author:** ![Queen\_Bruin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Queen\_Bruin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Bruin)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arguments-for-studying-latin/348316/28 "2006-03-15T03:46:21Z")
3 years of Latin has proven pretty useless for my husband’s law school career thus far. I mean, how often does a law prof. assign Against Cataline in the original or something like that in this day and age? It’s just a few terms; I don’t really see how several years of Latin are an advantage in this case. I still think it’s worthwhile, but so is the study of any foreign language, not just Latin. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arguments-for-studying-latin/348316/29 "2006-03-15T04:25:38Z")
[QUOTE=OtakuLoki] Well, while I like using English (I’m lazy, you see) I tend to view it as something of the worst compromise between romance and germanic language traditions. That’s something of a prejudice, I’ll admit, but one with enough learning behind it, that I think I can defend it to most people. [/quote] Again, I’d disagree. English is atypical among Germanic languages, to be sure, but it’s grammar is solidly Germanic in origin. Of the grammatical morphemes used in English, every one of them came from Germanic. While French influence on English was substantial, it was in the area of vocabulary that it was really significant, which is part of the reason English has such a large vocabulary compared to most languages. The influence of French on English grammar was miniscule - beyond a little bit of derivational morphology - endings like “-age” and “-ize”, which are still useful in forming new English words, French had practically no influence on English grammar. > [@](#): > > Seriously, though, anyone with a specialization in biology, paleontology, and many other sciences, as well as legal matters, will have some familiarity with Latin - not necessarily as spoken, but enough for basic communication. Of course, part of that may just be filtered through my own experiences, and with rose colored memory glasses. Law uses substantial amounts of Latin, but I’m not sure I see where biology or paleontology do. Species names are a sort of pseudo-Latin, but a lot of them are simply attempts to translate modern place names into Latin. Knowing every species name on earth won’t help you ask where the bathroom is. > [@](#): > > After all [Winnie Ille Pu](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014015339X/sr=8-1/qid=1142393647/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-0704451-8117657?%5Fencoding=UTF8) is still readily available. Check out _Harrius Potter et Lapis Philosophi_ as well. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arguments-for-studying-latin/348316/30 "2006-03-15T07:00:34Z")
Latin is also really useful for explaining the case system in English. (It’s certainly not the only one, but Russian doesn’t give you the same vocabulary boost.) MAN…MEN MAN + ’S…MEN + ’S COW…COW + S COW + ’S…COW + S’ HE…WHO HIS…WHOSE HIM…WHOM …suddenly make more sense when you’ve seen a bunch of Latin paradigms. “Oh, the funny little apostrophe is really a way to distinguish between different number (singular vs. plural) and case (nominative~oblique vs. genitive) that happen to be pronounced the same in most paradigms, and isn’t really punctuation per se.” “Oh, \*whom \* is the same case as _him_, and \*who \* is the same case as _he_. I’ll stop using it wrong now.” ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arguments-for-studying-latin/348316/31 "2006-03-15T07:10:15Z")
[QUOTE=Dr. Drake] Latin is also really useful for explaining the case system in English. (It’s certainly not the only one, but Russian doesn’t give you the same vocabulary boost.) MAN…MEN MAN + ’S…MEN + ’S COW…COW + S COW + ’S…COW + S’ HE…WHO HIS…WHOSE HIM…WHOM …suddenly make more sense when you’ve seen a bunch of Latin paradigms. “Oh, the funny little apostrophe is really a way to distinguish between different number (singular vs. plural) and case (nominative~oblique vs. genitive) that happen to be pronounced the same in most paradigms, and isn’t really punctuation per se.” “Oh, \*whom \* is the same case as _him_, and \*who \* is the same case as _he_. I’ll stop using it wrong now.” [/QUOTE] In regard to the pronoun system, that’s true - English retains the distinct between nominative and oblique (or subjective and objective) cases in the pronoun system. But the \<'s\> on a possessive is not actually an example of the genitive case. Nouns (aside from pronouns) don’t have any case distinctions in English. The \<'s\> is actually a clitic, which is clear because it can be detached from the noun it ought to be on - if you’re referring to the pants worn by the King of Siam, you say “The King of Siam’s pants”, even though “King” is the possessor and “of Siam” is a prepositional phrase modifying the noun. The \<'s\> gets attached to the _end_ of the phrase in English, even when that means it gets attached to something other than the possessor. If it were a case ending, it would naturally always be attached to the possessor, even if that possessor wasn’t at the end of the phrase. That’s the problem with looking at English grammar through the lens of other languages. It’s a subtle difference, yes, but what you see with the English possessive is not the same as the genitive case in other languages. Though it’s occasionally taught that way because English grammar has been taught according to grammatical analyses dating back to Roman times based on Latin. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arguments-for-studying-latin/348316.md?page=1)