Is there a point to studying Latin?

[Cpt Corallis]

Firstly, it sounds awesome! Secondly:

It's a root language. Many languages today can trace at least part of their roots back to latin. As a result the structure and syntax, as well as the origins of words, can be found there.

This. Even reading Black Library/ Discworld/ Harry Potter Novels and their pseudo latin has helped me to understand where words come from. Eg, I am now aware that lumos is to do with light and so luminescence . Obviously that is a simple example, but the same principles apply.

 

[Cpt Corallis]

Ever since 1952 when Cornelius Pantzrocket first though of having one language for all citizens of the world people have argued that they shouldn't have to learn a new language "you can learn my language" they always say. Latin was invented because the only way for us all to have the same language was to make up a new one so EVERYONE had to learn a new language and thus couldn't argue their way out of it. It didn't take however because of a little historical event you may have heard of called World War One which made everyone on Earth, especially those on the internet into racists who don't want to talk to eachother.

Sir. I would like a copy of your history textbook. It sounds a hell of a lot more entertaining than the one i'm studying from!

 

[SckizoBoy]

TL;DR Why doesn't Latin suck? Tell me.

Spoiler: pic snip

[br]Pic Related: "Pushy Parent"​

Yeah, thanks, the 'parent' just had to be Asian, didn't she?!?! =P

OT: Latin (and Greek) are the source of virtually every language spoken in the western world, so it's good to know. Besides, a lot of law, taxonomic and technical language is derived from Latin. Debatably, Greek is better to learn than Latin, since Romans largely spoke it (well, upper-class Romans of the mid-Republic onwards) and contemporary historians typically wrote in Greek.

Uh, yeah, sorry that's all I got.

 

[teqrevisited]

So that you can point out why "Romanes eunt domus" doesn't mean "Romans go home"?

I don't know. I think it could potentially help learning the languages that share it as their roots but even then I don't think that'd be worth learning yet another language.

 

[BlackSuit]

Is it useful? It depends.

I had Basic Latin for three years. I was in Languages and Literatures, it made sense because I taught me a lot about origin and evolution of languages. Also a lot about linguistics and sentence composition.

If you want to academically pursue languages, Latin is useful, it helps you understand basic language mechanics, especially if you speak or are learning languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, French and even German [it can help here because of the latin use of root words and "word endings"].

SCIENCE! It also helps there since it has been said that learning complex foreign languages like Latin, Mandarin, etc helps your reasoning and wit.

That said... I love how it sounds when you read it with the correct [non-"churchy"] accent but it's a damned language hard as nails and full of weird things in it...

Not for the faint of brain.

 

[Jodah]

As others have said, Latin is a base language that many others are based on. By learning it it can be easier to learn others and one can "decipher" other languages with moderate success. This works with Spanish and its derivatives as well.

 

[MisterM2402]

To answer your title question, yes.

An I'm not going to bother with a justification as if you need to ask this question your probably not the type of intellectual likely to have an appreciation for such things that it relates to.

"doctors, biologists, historians and theologists " correct but there are much much more

Don't be so quick to assume. I understand that in fields such as taxonomy, Latin phonology/etymology may be helpful, but studying the entire language itself, grammar and all, seems rather pointless.

Do you really need to study a whole language just to be able to guess what a few words mean? Is the genus Bufo (toads, I think) really that hard to learn just on it's own? It would be like studying Italian to know what the term "forte" means on a musical score.

[sup]RE[/sup]CAPTCHA:

 

[Frankfurter4444]

As a recent graduate in medicine, I can say a lot of the medical terminology I kept missing would have been a lot easier to remember if I knew Latin. Beyond that, I agree that in the present (unless you want to work in the medical field) there are a lot of other languages that it would be more practical to learn first.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

Spanish, Manderin, Arabic and Russian are useful in trade jobs. The ability to communicate with suppliers and consumers in different countries is pretty damn superior over Latin in that field (Unless you were sending something to the Vatican).

Latin however is prominent in Theology, Law,Science and History.

 

[trooper6]

Well, studying any language is often helpful in understanding your home language better. And sometimes people like to learn for the sake of learning, but the OP doesn't seem to be a person who likes to learn for the joy of learning so we'll go with the practical...

There are many fields and subfields of study where Latin can be quite useful. While I, personally, am a 20th Century scholar, so don't need it, all my medievalist colleagues use their Latin all the time. I'm in the field of Musicology...but it holds the same for any historian or literature or religion person.

If it isn't useful to you, don't study it. But it is useful for any number of other people.

 

[thylasos]

Personal experience tells me it's vastly useful in terms of learning any other romance languages, as well as other languages, slavics in particular, which use a similar case-system.

As well as understanding etymology, legal terms, and so on.

It's wonderful for its own sake, never mind all that, and you open yourself up to a world of literature which is otherwise rather less striking; in spite of relatively faithful translations, a great deal of nuance and structural beauty is lost.

 

[HerrBobo]

I study Latin. It is not dead. Anyone that has study it, from a linguistic view point will see that it is very much alive in the Romance languages, that is to say Vulgar Latin is still very much alive.

Classic Latin....less so. While many Classical Latin words can be found in the Romance Language, it was too proactively preserved in it's ancient state to be considered fully alive. It is not fully dead either though. I think of it more in stasis.

Anyone who says Latin is a dead language is ignorant of its study and therefore does not have an objective view point.

I study Classic Latin as party of my M.A. so I can read ancient texts.

 

[ItsAChiaotzu]

To answer your title question, yes.

An I'm not going to bother with a justification as if you need to ask this question your probably not the type of intellectual likely to have an appreciation for such things that it relates to.

"doctors, biologists, historians and theologists " correct but there are much much more

Ironic that you are calling him out for not being an intellectual when you can't distinguish between "your" and "you're".


Unless you want to learn lots of other languages, I don't really think it does have much of a practical use beyond being nice sounding.

But seriously, fuck Caecilius. If anyone gets that I'll give them a massive internet hug.

 

[kidigus]

I certainly hope so, because I'm going to...

 

[ReservoirAngel]

You can say whatever you want and it sounds seductive and profound.

 

[Ace of Spades]

Latin isn't spoken anymore, but since it's the base for a good deal of languages, it can help you learn root words.

 

[Goofguy]

It's been mentioned but Latin is the base for the Romance languages. I speak French and while I have no thorough understanding of Italian or Spanish, I can understand a good chunk of them because of the similarities between all three of them. Plus, so many phrases and words we use are Latin so it doesn't hurt to comprehend the language better:

Carpe diem
Mea culpa
Alma mater
Versus
Semper fidelis
Requiescat in pace
Anno Domini (AD)
Veni vidi vici
Jus solis/jus sanguinis
Ad lib (ad libitum)
Ad hoc
Ergo
Veritas
Ipso facto
Para bellum


And many more that I couldn't think of off the top of my head.

 

[MisterM2402]

but the OP doesn't seem to be a person who likes to learn for the joy of learning so we'll go with the practical...

I'm actually learning Japanese at the moment - a lot of that is to do with the "joy of learning", but at least Japanese is a lot more practical than Latin XD I do see that some people learn languages for the hell of it, but surely there are more useful languages that are just as fun to study.

I can see why you assumed I didn't like learning, though haha

Plus, so many phrases and words we use are Latin so it doesn't hurt to comprehend the language better:

Carpe diem
Mea culpa
Alma mater
Versus
Semper fidelis
Requiescat in pace
Anno Domini (AD)
Veni vidi vici
Jus solis/jus sanguinis
Ad lib (ad libitum)
Ad hoc
Ergo
Veritas
Ipso facto
Para bellum

And many more that I couldn't think of off the top of my head.

Ah, but you see, I know (roughly) what half of those mean and I haven't studied any sort of Latin etymology. They are loanwords/phrases that I'm sure you could find in any English dictionary.

 

[Jamboxdotcom]

Let me put it to you this way: language has always been my strongest skillset, but even so, i never truly understood English (and it's my native tongue) until i took Latin. Granted, my Latin teacher was amazing, so i would imagine that with a bad teacher Latin might be somewhat useless. But with a teacher of at least mediocre ability, you'll likely find that your grasp of English and other languages you either have studied or will study will be much stronger.

Yes, i'm aware of the irony of claiming that language is my forte and then proceeding to mangle a paragraph like i just did. It's been a long day.

*edit 2* To clarify and/or elaborate: I've found that much of what we know or are taught lacks any knowledge or education regarding the why of the matter. English was very much that way, and two years of Latin gave me those answers. I also took 4 years of German, which helped as well, but the two years of Latin were much more valuable to me. Heck, my two years of Latin, taken concurrently with my last two years of German, helped me to grasp German better as well.

 

[Andrew_Mac]

The only things i know in latin are tree names (from my dad) and these phrases:

Vacca stulta (stupid cow)
Nunc est bibendum (now it's time to drink)
Confacimus navegemus (fuck it, lets go sailing)
and
Habetis bona deum (have a nice day)



Useful to know i'd say.