At lunch today, my colleagues and I started swapping tales of our high school foreign language classes.
“I jumped around too much,” I admitted. “Two years of Spanish, one year of French, and one year of Latin.”
Latin? Eyebrows raised. It sounded so cultivated, so steeped in intellectual tradition.
“Well, I was really into English, and one of my teachers told me that learning Latin would help me master English grammar.” This was partly true. The less glamorous reality was that I was dodging Spanish 3 after barely surviving Spanish 2. Plus, I thought it would be pretty impressive to say I spoke a dead language.
Did a lot of people take Latin?
“There were about eight people in my class, and it was the only Latin class in the school. I remember one guy who wanted to become a pharmacist, and he somehow convinced two of his friends to join him.” (All three of them were notorious for being major druggies. Even Mr. Duffy, our stern and disgruntled teacher, knew it. Once, while explaining abstract nouns, he said, “I couldn’t put a pound of ‘speed’ on this desk. Though I’m sure some of you could.”)
Was it helpful?
“Honestly? Not really. It was brutally difficult, and I retained almost nothing.” The thing about Latin is that its vocabulary hasn’t evolved in centuries. While the students in French class were learning to talk about their favorite pastimes or ordering food in a café, we were conjugating verbs like ‘pillage,’ ‘lay siege,’ and ‘set fire.’ The practical utility was lacking, to say the least. But then again, no learning is wasted, right?” (A statement as hollow as it sounded. I can’t recall a single rare Latin phrase today, so even my bragging rights are shaky.)
