It appears to me that Latin is the eighth most common language studied in the U.S. There’s nothing specifically here about public high schools, but I suspect that the figures aren’t much different if you restricted it to just public high schools:
The interesting thing though is that, compared to all the countries in the world, any sort of foreign languages are less taught in the U.S. than anywhere else.
I took Latin at my private middle school and my public high school (and lots more since!).
My school offered Latin. I did it for six years. I did Ancient Greek as well.
Took a year of Latin, in the 70s. Catholic HS.
Helpful, actually.
I needed medical terminology in a job I took later.
They did in mine, and I took it. I was the last generation of altar boys that had to memorize the Mass in Latin, and I wanted to know what I was saying, so I studied it on my own for many years before I had formal courses.
I’m not sure if any high schools around here have it, but my daughter MilliCal studied it in middle school last year.
I took Latin in high school. It’s still kind of useful.
I came across this PDF years ago and had a little trouble finding it again: http://www.actfl.org/files/public/Enroll2000.pdf As of 2000, about 1.3% of public high schools students are enrolled in a Latin class, down from a peak of 56% in 1905 but up slightly from a low of 1.1% in the 1970s. In 2000, it was the fourth most commonly taught foreign language in high schools, behind Spanish, French, and German.
There’s some further reading on teaching of Latin and ancient Greek in high schools and colleges here: http://web2.adfl.org/adfl/bulletin/V31N3/313053.htm
My daughter is currently taking Latin, so yes they do!
I “took” II years of Latin, LIX years ago (i.e. starting in MCML), but whether I “learned” it is a different question. But Latin was not offered in the “Protestant” schools in Montreal. In my kids HS, which had a Greek population just over 50%, they taught Greek for Greek speakers and there were no foreign languages at all. All the efforts went into teaching French and English.
I took Latin, recently. Huge mistake.
Are you looking to force a kid into it? Don’t. Let me tell you a secret, it’s not a real language. (Like, you don’t really speak in it! At least, we didn’t.)
The big reason that my classmates gave for taking Latin was that “it will help with the verbal part of the SAT” although that seemed to me to be a dumb reason to study a dead language. (I took Spanish, because I figured it would be more useful.)
Latin was extremely useful to me, since I went into the sciences. But I loved before then and found very helpful for understanding grammar and all the French I took.
My 14 year old loves it, as does his 11 year old sister. Neither I
or they were/ are particularily very good in foriegn languages, but Latin was a blas.
I loved Latin, and I even was part of the Certamen (Latin quiz bowl type thing) club for two years. Our school had Latin I, Latin II, Latin III, and AP Latin.
I can definately see how it can help in the sciences. Also how it would prepare one for French (as opposed to, you know, just taking French). It also made me understand a few minor points of English grammar, like the who/whom distinction (which I understand was inserted into English by people who knew too much Latin).
But it was a big, huge, mistake. A real language is one you learn like a language. You speak it, you get used to converting your thoughts into it seamlessly. The way Latin was taught to me was as a tool for translation. It wasn’t a language, it was a code. Plus, all that stuff about SAT vocab was total bunk.
But there’s more than one way to teach Latin, of course.
I’ve never understood this, which I’ve heard lots of times. Wouldn’t Spanish or French - which are both Romance languages directly descended from Latin - give you the exact same advantage? With the side bonus of actually being useful? I think it’s possible that my years of Spanish studying did help me with the root words in on the verbal sections of the SAT and the GRE. (Both of which, if I may be immodest for a moment, I totally rocked.)
Either way, it seems ridiculous to spend years studying a language that may improve your score by a few points on a single test. I guess I don’t understand the point of studying a dead language at all, unless you’re a Classicist and really want to read Cicero in the original, or a huge language nerd.
Anyway, my public high school did not offer Latin. I grew up in California; virtually everyone took Spanish. French was also offered. The other public high school in my hometown offered German in addition to Spanish and French.
My son took it in a public middle school. I’d rather he learned a useful language.
My daughter had it in high school five years ago. She had a wacko, ex-hippie teacher. Her favorite class, and her favorite teacher.
I never took Latin myself, but was quite familiar with the Latin text of the Mass and other works from my choral singing. When I married a Catholic and began attending her church, the English words of the Mass had an enormous resonance because of my familiarity with the, uh, original.
(Latin is great to sing. Fairly easy, and it sounds great. German is a right royal bitch to sing, but it sounds like nothing else on earth when you get it right.)
I read in the local paper that, starting this year, all three public high schools here in Springfield, IL will offer Latin. Previously, only the “good one” did.
Hey, I did Certamen too! Lots of fun.
Well, just to rebut the anecdotes here… I took Latin I & II. I scored a 780 on the verbal of my SAT. I think it had a lot to do with taking Latin.
I also second the improvements on my understanding of English grammar. The dative and ablative case, gerunds, and so forth. Never had an inkling of what they were as a native English speaker; I understand them completely from Latin.
I never took any other language, but I can figure out what most romance languages are on about from reading.
I also had very good Latin teachers that really helped us to understand roots as well as some Greek. I took a Latin & Greek elements of English class in college and aced it, basically because it was a rehash of HS Latin. (Had to work a little with the Greek stuff, though.)
Believe it or not there are places where Latin is spoken, and in HS we had to be able to recite passages correctly. If the Latin being taught has verbal content, that’s crappy. After all, you never know when you’ll end up at a Catholic Mass. or a Harvard commencement address, or a Latin geek conventions (where Certamen is played).
I went on to take two semesters of Latin in college. I loved it (for the most part), and I was taught by Classics grad students who loved the stuff. We also did a lot of Roman culture stuff as well. Very glad I took it in HS and college, both.
I had to add that my Latin II teacher in HS’ name was Mr. Fear. He was a lanky, nerdy guy who do pelvic thrusts when did declensions. Awesome. Nobody teaches Latin for any reason but the love of the language.
When I worked the border, I could usually think of the Latin word before I could think of the Spanish. I imagine I would’ve eventually picked up enough Spanish to speak something that was close to Ladino.
I did get a 710 on my SATs, and I scored really high on my English and Latin SAT-IIs. Got me accepted to a private university, but I went to the school I could afford.