I find Latin a language without importance, because no one speak Latin anymore, but there are people interested in learning it. What do you think about it? Do you believe it is to learn? I mean, it's important to learn the grammar because it helps to be better when we speak in any language, but I think it's not possible to learn for speaking it. Let me know your thought.
I live in the United States. I studied Latin for three years in high school. I think now that it was a pretty much a waste of time. It's not only a dead language, it's a dead cultural tradition.
Why did I study Latin? Because, fifty years ago, all the fancy elite private "prep schools" taught Latin, and my public school wanted to be like the prep schools.
Why did the prep schools teach Latin? Because a hundred years ago, it was an entrance requirement to the elite universities like Harvard and Yale.
Why was it an entrance requirement for Harvard and Yale? Because it was required at Oxford and Cambridge, and the U.S. universities wanted to be like the British universities.
Why did Oxford and Cambridge require Latin and Greek? Because, historically, they were created to educate Christian ministers, and Latin and Greek were the languages of the Christian church in the Middle Ages.
Latin (and Greek) are fine if you truly <em>enjoy</em> them, or if you are a science historian who needs to read Newton's <em>Principia</em> in the original, or are planning for a career in the Vatican... or something like that.
When I studied at university ( medical ) we were learning. But I could not learn as language , only termins. Because latin is very diffucult language and I had to learn other medical objects.But now I see italian language looks like latin language
There are a few cases in which latin still has importance. I can think of two. One is, if you are going to be a doctor, many medical terms are in latin. My sister who studied medicine, therefore had latin as one of the subjects in highschool. Another field where latin has use is history. Many old texts are written in latin, and if you want to study them, latin could be useful. As a language as such, I do not think it has much use. Of course some of the basics are also used in the roman languages which evolved from vulgar latin, but why not directly study those languages? I do not study Ænglisc, old English, to improve my English.
Well, I can't speak from personal experiencie, but many of the scientists I've worked with knew some greek and latin. Not that they spoke or used those languages in their everyday lives, but they knew most of the prefixes, sufixes, and roots of words because they are present in scientific terminology and everyone agreed that it made their lives easier.
Alessia , I agree with you. You are totally right :)
