Latin: A Lively Dead Language

Technically speaking, Latin qualifies as a dead language. It is no longer changing; its grammar and word structure have remained the same for centuries now. However, if Latin is a dead language, then it has certainly left its ghost flitting around in many currently spoken languages today. Because of this, learning Latin is extremely beneficial to anyone who plans on learning languages such as Italian, French, or Spanish where many Latin roots provide the backbone of common words. Even English, which is technically a Germanic tongue, still borrows many words from Latin due to the influence of William the Conqueror's French speaking invasion in AD 1066. Today, anyone who desires to have a richer understanding of many modern (and Latin-derived) languages should seriously consider studying Latin.

Learning Latin can greatly help improve the vocabulary of students. Among my friends, those who studied a Latin course in high school tend to have a higher level of vocabulary than those who did not. This probably comes about from the fact that knowing the Latin root of different unknown vocabulary words makes it easier to make an accurate guess at the probable meaning of the English word. Latin skills especially come in handy for students studying the scientific world because Latin (largely due to the fact that it indeed is a dead language) was chosen as the primary language for naming many regions of science (such as the system of taxonomy for various species). Even a basic knowledge of Latin can greatly help students who are tested over the meaning of possibly unknown vocabulary words on standardized tests.

Additionally, as previously mentioned, knowledge of Latin can greatly provide the foundation for the studying of other languages such as Spanish or Italian. In fact, as I studied both Latin and Spanish simultaneously, I found that the similarity between the two languages was astounding. If the roots of many English words find their grounding in Latin, then it is even far more so for a language directly related to Latin such as Spanish. If you wish to ever study many European languages, Latin is a great place to start to build a general foundation of knowledge that will help you learn other languages more quickly.

Overall, Latin may be a dead language, but it certainly has left its traces heavily sprinkled about the "living" languages of today. Studying Latin will not only improve your understanding of English, but will also make future studies of Latin-derived languages much easier.

Sources Consulted:

Learn Latin: A Lively Introduction to Reading the Language (Jones, Peter. 1997)