What is Latin?

Latin is the language spoken by the Romans from 1000 BCE to 500 CE and by academics throughout the world until the 20th century. Though it is no longer spoken in its original form outside the Vatican, where it is still the official language, it exists in a variety of modern Romance languages: for instance, French, Italian, Spanish, Romanian and Portuguese. In fact, Latin, and ancient Greek, provide approximately 80% of the words in English.

Why study a “dead” language?

Contrary to popular beliefs, Latin is not “dead”; it lives on in modern languages. Every time you speak, you are using Latin. The Roman Empire was so vast and its influence so great that its language was preserved. Any person who wants to consider himself or herself well-educated should study this language. Don’t forget that every grade 10 student in the province has to write and pass a literacy test in order to receive his or her diploma. Imagine the advantage a grade 10 student studying Latin has!

What advantages are there to studying Latin?

Students who are intimidated by modern languages, which require a great deal of speaking, often avoid language courses and miss wonderful learning opportunities. Latin is non-conversational! And, Latin can be used to replace the fifth English credit since it is a third language option!!!

Why would anyone study a language they don't speak?

All Universities in Ontario strongly recommend a second language because they believe students of a second language are more literate and write more effectively. Latin is impressive and well regarded as a second language choice.
All community colleges and a growing number of universities in Ontario and across Canada are requiring first-year applicants to complete literacy tests. If an applicant does not pass this, the applicant must enrol in an English course to improve his/her language skills. Former Latin students not only pass this test
easily, but are often exempted from that English course!
All students planning on attending an American college or university must write the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). Latin students in the U.S. score more highly than any other student who studied a modern language. Check out these statistics:

	1995	1996	1997
Latin	579	648	647
French	553	625	623
German	545	625	624
Spanish	501	576	581
(courtesy of the NCLG of the American Classical League)

In fact, over the past decade, students of Latin scored an average of 155 points higher than their colleagues!!! A Latin course signifies that a student is literate, competent and takes his/her education seriously. If you want to go to college or university, Latin is the best preparation!!
Latin also improves a student’s awareness of the world around him/her. It is at the heart of the Romance languages, art, history, philosophy, science, medicine, religion, law and education to name but a few things. It makes students better citizens of the world.

Activities

Games, demonstrations, reenactments, movies, videos, competitions or field-trips to such places as the Royal Ontario Museum, the Zoo, Science Centre, National Art Gallery: a Latin class is an amazing place for all students. Many teachers offer March Break trips to Italy or Greece and many schools offer half-year exchange programmes to these exotic locales. For students who wish to stay closer to home, there is the Ontario Student Classics Conference. This is an annual convention held in May involving some 600 students of Latin, Greek and Classics who compete in events ranging from athletics to academics to the artistic. What more could a student want than two days of fun, to show off their talents, attend a number of social events and make life-long friendships!!

Think Latin. Take Latin. You’ll be glad you did!!!

Written by Margaret-Anne Gillis for Ontario Classical Association