Should Latin Be Offered as a Secondary School Elective?

[KichigaiNeko]

As far as I can understand, English is a bastard language (meaning from everywhere) and not just latin /roman.

[Something completely different]

Of course it's going down the gutter. Most kids nowadays spell worse than cognitively disabled person, retain the vocabulary of a ten-year old, and create some of the most nonsensical terminology.

What are you talking about? 200 years ago most people couldnt even read and write. You`d expect the language to go down the gutter then when spelling is all that counts.

And spelling is a fixed thing, no matter how wrong someone writes, this doesnt change the rules of the language.

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The foundation of the language? How-so? It's a germanic language, not romance. It's an influence no doubt, but the foundation?

Shall we teach them old english? What we know of Proto-germanic and Proto-indo-European?

jury, beef, pork, port, hour, rude, property, famine, desire


These are normaic words, when William conquered the kingdom of england in 1066 england was ruled by a normanic king. the normans - were french.
By being ruled from a french speaking upper class the languages intertwined and combined.

English is not a normanic language, english is a mix out of a normanic and germanic language.

There is no such thing as a 100% pure language, all languages are combinational.

Just listen to someone speak dutch, it`s like a blend of english, german, norwegian and swedish


And by the way, latin and greek are the languages of science and law.
I am not sure about other countries but were I live people who want to study medicin, law or any kind of biology - must have basic knowlege of latin and greek to apply at the uni.

[KichigaiNeko]

He's right you know.

[Kayenneh]

I say Mandarin Chinese would be much more beneficial to learn, since there are about 955 million native speakers in the world. Japanese and Korean wouldn't be silly languages to learn in school either, since there is a lot of business to be made. Personally I would go for Russian, so that I would be able to say more than здравствуйте and спасибо when talking to my eastern neighbors.

[thesummerqueen]

I know a lot of 40 year olds who can't spell either. Education is a choice, not something that can be successfully crammed into someone's head. My brother and I come from the same family. White, middle-class, Jewish background (Jews LOVE education - we were all PUSHED to do well in school), we lived in one of the most affluent counties in the country near Washington DC, and all three of us (me, him and my sister) went to the same schools one after the other (we're four years apart). While I don't agree at all with some of the standards our school system held, it was ten sights better than a lot of others I've seen.

My sister and I are extremely picky about spelling. However, I'm the only one that reads voraciously. My brother can't spell for shit. On the other hand, he's an absolute whiz at science and math. He simply doesn't care about literature or spelling. His verbal vocabulary is more than adequate. I can't do math to save my life.

So what I'm saying is that 1) you might be hanging around too many people who don't value literature, English and writing or 2) surfing the nets on sights that gather the same. Youtube is not an exemplary pit of teh Interwebs.

What I just gave you an example of is not just "bad writing" any more - it's taken on a life of its own as an ironic way of referring to things. That's part of language.

As for using Latin and Greek for science...Botanical societies are beginning to shed that now in favor of English terms, as English is now becoming a standard method of communication. English is still evolving, you see, and Latin is not.

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And actually, if you want to increase a person's vocabulary (and by extension their grammar and spelling) you should encourage them to read. Read, read, read, in their own language (therefore, English). Read lots and lots of books of varying comprehension levels. Don't teach them another language - that gives them someone else's grammar and vocabulary. Read, and write. Writing letters is amazing practice for communication - or writing long-winded e-mails.

[Hovik]

Well, the future of the English language is somewhat pitiful. From experience through the means of observation, it seems that the average student's vocabulary has been and still is decreasing, with spelling and grammar going down the gutter thanks to "text language" and other ridiculous nonsense resulted from pure laziness.
But, here's my solution:
Teach Latin and Ancient Greek.
What mechanism is more efficient to boost the understanding of our own language, along with increasing vocabulary, than to teach students the two languages that most of the English Language's multi-syllabary words are based upon?
From what many of my peers and educators, I have a rather advanced vocabulary for my age. I have the ability to "dissect" words and understand their definitions without difficulty. But why?
Simply because I have somewhat of a command of the Latin language.
Of these words that I know, they include tyrannis (tyrant), uni (I hope to G-d that every one knows that), homo (man, as in Homo Habilis, which translates to "Handy man"), trans (cross), and conserve (keep).
My Ancient Greek vocabulary (which is quite meager) consists of the words saurous (lizard), homo (same), atom, and ped (foot).
Well, that's my idea.

Would any of you guys care to share yours?

Your experience is rather limited, I'm afraid. The truth of the matter is, literacy in the United States is some of the highest in the world. As others have pointed out, language is not some stiff, impermeable, static thing; it changes and evolves through time. Texting (and internet writing) are simplifications to economize. People have always done this sort of thing, but you only notice it so much now because we have a means to transfer information between huge groups of people more quickly than we ever have in the past.

While much of our vocabulary does come from French, that doesn't necessitate the teaching of Latin and Greek. People seem to think that these languages are somehow better than our modern languages. In actuality, they're no better and no worse, and learning them wouldn't really help with our modern language.

In short, the future of our language isn't pitiful at all. It's just as bright as any others. You want to see a language with a pitiful future? Look at any one of the thousands of languages that are on the verge of dying out every day due to lack of speakers; these languages offer countless insights into linguistic theory, yet we're more interested in enforcing arbitrary, prescriptivist notions of how English ought to be used (which is utterly pointless) than we are in preserving languages that are truly in danger.

[zebo-the-fat]

Latin is a great language for talking to a dead roman!

[thesummerqueen]

Oh, by the way - I'm not sure if you're American or European (I assume the latter, because you say "Secondary") but here in the US some schools do offer Latin during the years you'd be in high school: 14-18. I took it for a year to supplement my French and Spanish. The teacher was fucking weird. It was an elective, not mandatory.

[Cato]

Uckfay atinlay!!

[Psykhronic]

I SO GREAT CUZ STANDARD ENGLISH.