Electronic Highways
Latin: It’s not just for classics majors
Although Latin is a dead language—so called because it is no longer learned as a native language—there are many benefits to picking it up.
Learning Latin can give you a better understanding of grammar and help develop and expand your vocabulary. Latin roots like “dict” and “gress” form the basis of hundreds of everyday English words. It also can help you in your career. In law and medicine, the use of Latin terms is rampant and many scientific fields rely on Latin for name derivation. Latin can help you when you are travelling abroad because Romance languages, including Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian, are descended from Latin. Most importantly, after learning a bit of Latin you won't make the faux pas of referring to yourself as an alumni of UB.
There are a number of ways to pick up Latin online. Science fiction and fantasy author (and former Latin teacher) C.J. Cherryh encourages readers to readers to “look at Latin the way Romans learned it: no grammar, no rules. No fear.” Her website includes Latin: the Easy Way, a tutorial focusing on spoken Latin rather than grammatical rules. If you are an auditory learner, you may like Latinum, an online Latin language course based on out-of-copyright textbooks that is available as a podcast. A more formal approach to online learning is available through Finland-based Academia Thules, an experimental online school dedicated to teaching ancient Roman culture.
Latin resources abound on the Web. The University Libraries’ Classics subject guide focuses specifically on library resources available electronically. Of particular note is the Perseus Digital Library, which contains texts from Roman authors, both in translation and in the original Latin. The site also includes linguistic tools and direct links to cross-referenced texts. Additionally, Google books contains many titles on the language and William Whitaker’s Words is a powerful, online, Latin-English dictionary.
Interested in learning more about the language and its history? The University Libraries’ catalog yields some numerous titles, including “Ad Infinitum: a biography of Latin” by Nicholas Ostler and “Latin alive: the survival of Latin in English and Romance languages” by Joseph B. Solodow.
For just a taste of Latin, Wikiquote has a list of Latin proverbs and their translations. Of particular interest is the section on mock Latin, sayings or aphorisms that look like Latin without being Latin, created by directly translating English words without conjugation or declension or by simply adding “us” or “um” as a suffix to a non-Latin word.
As finals approach, Illegitimi non carborundum!
—Karen Walton Morse, University Libraries
Reader Comments