Why Latin?

When I was a freshman in college, my roommate shared with a group on our dorm hall that she had taken four years of Latin in high school. I remember someone teasing her about taking a dead language. For me, the only languages offered in my high school were French and Spanish, so I too doubted the benefit of studying a language no one speaks anymore.

As a student in pharmacy school, I definitely appreciated the benefits that a knowledge of Latin would have offered me in learning medical terminology, but otherwise I still did not consider its importance.

Fast forward almost fifteen years later when I found myself making curriculum choices for my then first grader. Since beginning the adventure of homeschooling for our family, I have attempted to teach my children classically. Because of that, I was again confronted with the idea of studying Latin.

First of all, I obviously was not a student of Latin, so how could I teach it to my child? Secondly, would it be worth it?

After reading about the benefits of knowing the Latin language and studying it with my son for the past two years, I can say it has been worth it. Here are some reasons that classical languages (Latin and Greek) are beneficial:

• Increases English vocabulary. About half of the English language is derived from Latin, and another fifth from Greek. These words tend to be the difficult, multi-syllabic “SAT” words.
• Aids in the understanding of English grammar. Because of the structure of Latin where the endings of words define how the word is used in a sentence (i.e., an inflected language), it has been shown the Latin grammar teaches students more about English grammar than English does.
• Is the key to modern languages. Knowing Latin makes it easier to learn the vocabulary and grammar of Romance languages (e.g., French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, Portuguese). Also, Latin and Greek help in learning other inflected languages, such as German and Russian.
• Is helpful in certain careers. As I found in pharmacy school, the knowledge of Latin (and Greek) is very beneficial in science-related fields, as well as the legal profession.

After his first day of a local science co-op this year, my son came home and told me that they would be studying about Habitats. He said that his teacher asked if anyone knew what the word habitat meant? My son responded, “Habitat sounds like the Latin word habito, which means I live in, so it must mean something about where we live.”

So, has it been worth it? Yes, absolutely!