Although they exuded passion for the subject and knew the language backwards and forwards, they taught it as a puzzle to be deciphered or a specimen to be dissected. My Latin professors in high school and college didn’t do much to dispel the impression that Latin was a dead language. I wasn’t going to let myself be less cultured than them. Let’s face it: until the 20th century, pretty much every major cultural figure in the West had an education centered around the study of the Latin classics. As someone interested in literature, history and art, everywhere I turned I would run into the influence of Latin literature and Roman culture. “Why don’t you study a language you can actually speak with people, like Spanish?”Įven later when I was studying Latin in Rome, Italians were amused and bewildered that I was learning Latin, especially when my Italian still needed so much work.īut to my mind, it was obvious why I should learn Latin. “What are you going to do with Latin?” they asked, “It’s a dead language,” they said. When I first started studying Latin, friends and family were skeptical. Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
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