Why Do We Teach Dead Languages?

Contributing Author: Mrs. Donna Seidman, Latin Teacher

Flourishing: Volume 8  | Issue 2

Students often ask me why they have to learn Latin. After all, it’s a dead language. What use is it today? I could respond with the typical answers to this question by saying that Latin:

• Improves SAT test scores (which translates into more scholarship money).

• Helps you learn other Romance languages (Spanish, French, Italian, etc.).

• Helps you learn English (over 60 percent of our English vocabulary is from Latin).

• Helps you understand science since 90 percent of its vocabulary is from Latin.

• Helps you understand technology (that’s right). Computer and software programming are complex languages with multiple sub-clauses much like Latin.

• Introduces you to the powerful people of ancient times like Cicero, Caesar, and Virgil who model rhetoric and which have moved and persuaded many for millennia.

• Is cross-fit for the brain.

While each of these reasons is true, none are primary. Learning any language is useful. Latin, unique from other languages, helps us understand the power and influence of our language, literature, and culture.

“You can never understand one language until you understand at least two.” ~ Geoffrey Willans, 20th century English writer and journalist.

Since we are a classical Christian school seeking truth, goodness, and beauty, naturally we teach Latin. Many do not see its merit. Knowing language means communicating with God, family, and others. Language is powerful; a word given in the right circumstance is like apples of gold in settings of silver (Prov 25:11). God communicates with us using the language of the Bible. If language is so important, why not just study English?

Isn't Spanish more useful? Learning any language transforms the mind to understand ours more clearly and carefully. Why have the best colleges historically required two years of another language? It’s not so you can live in another country; only the very few ever do. No, it is that taking a foreign language that provides keys to their own language. For English speakers, it is Latin that unlock the most keys to understanding.

Words are powerful. With words, God created the world. In John 1:1 we read, “In principio erat Verbum et Verbum erat apud Deum et Deus erat Verbum.” In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Classical languages like Latin and Greek tend to be challenging to learn because they have unfamiliar grammatical structure.

By making the unfamiliar familiar, we gain greater access to 2,700 years of rhetoric, speeches, prose, and poetry that influenced the English authors we love and admire. Nearly all of the authors we study at Trinity mastered Latin. Through studying Latin, students understand the richness and beauty of the English authors who use these Latin idioms and phrases.

From Latin, our students understand the power and perseverance of poetic structures. Knowing more about that unveils our scriptures as huge portions of the Old Testament came to us in poetic forms. All of my Latin students practice poetry recitation in the dactylic hexameter; they hear the poetry before translating. It’s so rhythmic, they understand how Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey (twenty-four books each) were passed down orally for 400 years before being written down! Latin poetry transports readers to another time and culture allowing them to experience the human condition in a way that the translation cannot.

While original scriptures were not written in Latin, reading the Latin Bible will help the reader understand the grammatical and authorial intent of biblical poetry. Latin grammatical usage is similar to Greek. So, when Jesus gives a command to one person or plural persons, it’s immediately evident what and to whom the words are addressed. A reader can tell immediately if the form is indicative (indicates), an imperative (command), or a subjunctive (a hope, dream, or possibility). When we study the precision of language in scripture or literature, we think more carefully about how we answer other people, whether in person, or writing. I think everyone can agree we can all improve in this area.

Over the years, David Mulroy, author of The War Against Grammar, asked his college freshman to paraphrase the opening sentence of the Declaration of Independence. Sadly, less than half recognized this sentence and fewer than a third could paraphrase. Rather, students performed what they were taught in school, which was not grammatical parsing to identify subjects, objects, and so forth but a free association of words. They were guessing. How does Latin help students read all forms of complex sentences? Latin students have learned to identify the parts of sentences, clauses, phrases, and so forth to unpack precise meanings. They do not have to rely on Google or AI to understand the documents protecting their freedoms.

At Trinity, we understand the power of language and the importance of studying great works and absorbing complex ideas without relying on search engines, or other crutches. We impart a deep understanding of language's importance in communicating ideas within our families, church, and community. So why does our culture want to take the easy route to finishing a task? Do we encourage our children to do what is easiest or what will make them better humans and better Christians?