[Zarkai]

I finally got the opportunity to take Latin, am just a couple weeks in and I am already amazed at how useful this is. This has major applications for nearly every field. I know memorizing species names would have been easier. Learning French and Spanish would have gone so much quicker. This allows for reading guys like Seneca and Cicero. I don't know how many times Latin even comes up in my philosophical readings. (Wittgenstein includes a multi-page Latin quote in his Investigations)

Understandably Latin used to a a staple in education and was required in University educations... What happened, why do people not see the importance of this!?

[Monte314]

Some of us do. My children all studied Latin and Greek in middle school.

[Winklepicker]

Because it's not a living language/less immediate gratification for the "lay person"? I agree, it'd be super useful in several major fields in addition to language-learning (like science/medicine, are the first that come to mind), but usually involves higher education, which isn't a sure thing for most of the population.

[Coxswain]

It's still going strong where it matters. Google Translate has instantiated the Latin option a while back and you can get some radio as well. Gary Coulter's programs are awesome.

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As a matter of fact I spoke Latin in the streets of LA just a couple of weeks ago.
Tourist couple from Portugal were asking for the "Standard" - a happening place downtown. Nobody could understand their brave attempts at English. I did get it... and responded in Italian. Not sure why but it came out that way. So they scrambled to continue in Portuguese. I quickly switched to Spanish. They did not speak Spanish or Italian and I don't speak Portuguese but we understood each other just fine. So we spoke regional Latin I suppose.

[darniem]

Because Western education has shifted away from the model of traditional liberal arts (which is geared to simply being well rounded as well as educated) to learning for the sake of practical application.

We're schooling people to do not to be. If it isn't immediately "useful" for getting grads into the job market, who cares? Latin isn't that useful according to common thought...the time spent declining verbs could be used studying business trends or learning a trade.

All my monk-professors are proficient in written and spoken Latin, and sometimes they just go off on tangets in class, in Latin, and the rest of us modern oafs look on in confusion
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[scorpiomover]

These days, people's attitudes tend to be that if it doesn't make you more money in your career, it's not worth spending the time, not when you could be getting drunk and getting laid.

[sed0007]

It is a victim of the ever accelerating reduction in the lowest common denominator of 'satisfactory' graduation requirements.

If it was still taught, kids of every race and class would not only be using better English, but spelling and composing at a level more conducive to obtaining meaningful employment of any kind, regardless of degree.

[The Dan Keizer]

I have begun studying Latin recently. I have always loved languages, I don't know why I didn't start with Latin first. But better late than never, I guess.

[Still Standing]

	Originally Posted by darniem To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	If it isn't immediately "useful" for getting grads into the job market, who cares? Latin isn't that useful according to common thought...the time spent declining verbs could be used studying business trends or learning a trade.(

Right. It's relevant to only a minority of jobs, and not everybody finds the need to learn another language or improve their critical thinking skills. I guess it could be an elective class for future scientists and doctors, though.

[Monte314]

A solid grounding in the grammar of Indo-European languages is a necessary foundation for gaining true mastery of any Western language. The best places to start are one of the dialects of ancient Greek and/or Latin.

Imperator is the Forum expert; presumably he will show up eventually to make a definitive statement.

[PovertyPenalty]

	Originally Posted by Zarkai To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Understandably Latin used to a a staple in education and was required in University educations... What happened, why do people not see the importance of this!?

Because those who know Latin can learn many other things in less time, and have a better understanding of the world.

You don't want the masses capable of that, do you?

[Autumnleaf]

The Catholic Church stopped conducting daily mass in Latin in order to be more hip to the scene. Since then Latin has gone from the dead language to the buried language. Also, the people in the United States of soon to be Mexico realize that learning Espanol might be more useful than learning Latin.

[Kisai]

I went through Wheellock's Latin a while ago. I'm a bit rusty, but I had fun learning it. Its such a powerfully concise language and I like it better than English.

[Typhon]

I've done a bit of studying Latin so that I can better remember anatomy and all of the other bits of English that borrow from Latin. Definitely helps if you take a physical anthropology course, and it makes you sound smart as balls.

But it's kind of obvious why Latin isn't well known anymore. It's a prestige language that has a very limited usage for most of your daily activities. I think it is a fantastic language to learn if you want a college education but people would complain that it isn't practical enough for most professions and majors.

[KonTiki]

It's hard to convey the joy that came with translating Caesar's Gallic Wars as a sophomore in high school.

One of the reasons Golden Age Latin was so elegant was that language was used to restrict access to power. You needed a to be well educated to be part of the Roman aristocracy, and that meant having expensive tutors. In modern America, class is based primarily on money. That is good because it nobody is excluded from social organizations because of poor education. It's bad because we've lost the notion of refinement and high culture (if you believe there is such a thing).

[Eyedears]

	Originally Posted by Zarkai To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Understandably Latin used to a a staple in education and was required in University educations... What happened, why do people not see the importance of this!?

It's called "relevance," a Red Diaper Doper Baby-induced obsession in "education" that started in the very early '70's. (It ruined my own college education, which began in '73.) Before they turned everything inside-out & upside-down, education was understood to be a matter of rigor (not "fun," not "entertaining," etc.). In my own field (foreign language education) the end result was "proficiency" learning, as opposed to "achievement" learning: "As long as the student can get his meaning across, why quibble about grammar and pronunciation?" Behold, the Ebonification of language.
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Or as PovPen summed it up:

	Originally Posted by PovertyPenalty To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Because those who know Latin can learn many other things in less time, and have a better understanding of the world. You don't want the masses capable of that, do you?

Latin is a form of aerobics for the mind (like Algebra), and as Shakespeare already so brilliantly penned, tyranny needs fat and flabby followers (sugar, TV & Rock addictions, anyone?), aka drones:

"Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a-nights.
Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look.
He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.
He reads much, he is a great observer,
and he looks quite through the deeds of men.
He loves no plays, as thou dost, Antony;
he hears no music." (Julius Caesar 1.2.)

[yoginimama]

	Originally Posted by Monte314 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	A solid grounding in the grammar of Indo-European languages is a necessary foundation for gaining true mastery of any Western language

^^ This. Plus also, it's fascinating in its own right. Learning the declensions, the conjugations and the subjunctive gave me a whole new understanding of language in general. (And btw, ENGLISH HAS A SUBJUNCTIVE and I desperately wish people would use it. Example: "It is very important that you BE on time." "That...be," that's the subjunctive. These days people say "It is very important that you ARE on time," which automatically makes gears grind in my head and also causes angels to weep.)

[Subgenius]

	Originally Posted by Monte314 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	A solid grounding in the grammar of Indo-European languages is a necessary foundation for gaining true mastery of any Western language. The best places to start are one of the dialects of ancient Greek and/or Latin. Imperator is the Forum expert; presumably he will show up eventually to make a definitive statement.

Yeah. That's so untrue it's laughable.

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[Zhen]

Originally Posted by Zarkai To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I finally got the opportunity to take Latin, am just a couple weeks in and I am already amazed at how useful this is. This has major applications for nearly every field. I know memorizing species names would have been easier. Learning French and Spanish would have gone so much quicker. This allows for reading guys like Seneca and Cicero. I don't know how many times Latin even comes up in my philosophical readings. (Wittgenstein includes a multi-page Latin quote in his Investigations) Understandably Latin used to a a staple in education and was required in University educations... What happened, why do people not see the importance of this!?

agree! i've always thought the same thing - that it was THE single most practically useful thing i ever studied out of my entire study career and have studied latin french and spanish and thankfully latin was first! I've also studied a range of subjects where latin lingo was particularly used...very helpful! unfortunately though there are few people qualified to teach it- for that reason it is only available to the very wealthy that go to elite private schools or the gifted that go to elite academic schools that require an exam to enter....hence very very few people actually get exposed to latin in the younger generations...such a shame!

not to mention the humour and wisdom in those little translations you do of ancient texts...just realise you are so privileged to share in these!

[Imperator]

Latin is a dead language, as dead as dead can be.
First it killed the Romans, now it's killing me.

Time, money, interest, and novelty pushed Latin out of the classrooms. There's a bit of a resurgence though, and I believe some parts of the country are still experiencing a shortage of qualified Latin teachers.

[darniem]

My Latin prof in college translated Puff the Magic Dragon into Latin. He also sings song about the Trojan War:


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This is what happens when nerds get guitars.

[Imperator]

	Originally Posted by darniem To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	My Latin prof in college translated Puff the Magic Dragon into Latin. He also sings song about the Trojan War: To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. This is what happens when nerds get guitars.

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.

I've been told Cambridge sent them a bunch of free books for that.

...I prefer OCTs....

[Hydro]

Latin and Greece demised after the West started about 40 years ago to sacrifice classical education to the new gods of post-modernism.

Welcome to the deductive world...

[Autumnleaf]

	Originally Posted by Imperator To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Latin is a dead language, as dead as dead can be. First it killed the Romans, now it's killing me. Time, money, interest, and novelty pushed Latin out of the classrooms. There's a bit of a resurgence though, and I believe some parts of the country are still experiencing a shortage of qualified Latin teachers.

I'm sure some former Priests would be willing to give teaching a try.

[darniem]

	Originally Posted by Autumnleaf To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I'm sure some former Priests would be willing to give teaching a try.

Well, I would foresee the battle of Ecclesial Latin versus Classical Latin taking place. Now there's a good ol' nerd fight waiting to happen!