Leading article: Latin lovers

Monday, 9 November 2009

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Should dead languages be resurrected in our primary schools? Some of the great minds of English literature have advised against it. George Orwell doubted "whether classical education ever has been or can be successfully carried out without corporal punishment". William Hazlitt said: "Anyone who has passed through the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape."

But the headteachers' union and the Esme Fairbairn Foundation disagree. They say that a pilot scheme in 60 schools has demonstrated that Latin is an excellent vehicle for teaching young children the mechanics of language and also ancient histiory. We're with the teachers. Those who argue against the teaching of the classics have often conspicuously reaped the benefits of such an education themselves. Yes, Latin can sometimes be taxing but, as the Romans might have put it, ad astra per aspera.

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There are other difficult languages

uberkafir wrote:

Monday, 9 November 2009 at 06:33 am (UTC)

Latin is a glorious language that has had a profound influence on English, as well as being the ancestor of Italian, Spanish, French et cetera. However, it is an indo-european language and I would suggest, therefore, that it might be of greater benefit to students that they learn other languages that are not related to their own, for example, from the Semitic, Altaic and Sino-Tibetan families. Arabic conjugates verbs not only according to number, but also to gender and also has dual forms. Additionally, Arabic plurals are totally irregular. Turkish has specialized verb tenses to describe actions that one has not seen, but only heard of, as well as a system of noun cases as comprehensive as that of Latin.

To truly understand the mechanics of language, it is necessary to travel outside ones native sphere and thereby learn to say what one means in a profoundly different way. Latin is too close to us to serve this task, despite its renowned complexity. Most of the world is outside Europe and its local history- why not take a look?

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