Deanna Moerman, age 14, of Sioux City, Iowa, for her question:
IS LATIN LANGUAGE STILL IMPORTANT?
Under the elective system of education, many colleges and universities in the United States have abandoned the requirement that all students learn to write and read Latin. But it wasn't too long ago that all were required to learn Latin in order to receive A.B. degrees. Most English and European schools of higher learning still require it.
For hundreds of years, Latin was the leading tongue of western Europe. It was spoken by all those in the Roman Empire and was carried by Roman soldiers to all parts of the world. With its precise expression, Latin was a perfect medium for law and government.
Since the Middle Ages, Latin has not been in general use. It still remains the language of scientific and legal terminology, however.
Latin is definitely still an important language today. It has great educational values because of its precision and logical exactness. Latin students quickly learn to derive the meanings of English words from the related Latin, as well as to appreciate Roman civilization as a source of many influences in modern life.
A student today who learns Latin also gains a background in grammar and vocabulary that will help him learn living languages. This is especially true with the study of any of the Romance languages, such as French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian.
About half of the English words we use today are of Latin origin. Lots of them came from Old French and show forms and meanings that Latin words had acquired in that language.
A majority of abstract English words are Latin in origin. When we say the "Power of liberty,'' the "spirit of independence,'' and the "virtue of charity,'' the two important words in each phrase come to us directly from the Latin.
The Latin alphabet was borrowed from that of the Greeks and probably came through the Etruscans. It had 23 letters in classical times, lacking the j, a and w of the English alphabet. The alphabet, as the Romans used it, became the basis for that used by most Western languages today.
Latin is an inflected language with many grammatical forms for various words. As a result, it can be used with a pithiness and brevity unknown in English.
Latin's grammar is closely related to those of Celtic, German, Slavic, Greek and Sanskrit. Like Greek, the language is highly inflected, meaning that changes in what a word means are indicated by changes in the word ending, rather than by prepositions or word order.
Many scholars find the beauty of Latin in its purity and musical sound.