It's everywhere. It's in your law classes. It's in your philosophy classes. It's in your literature, your churches and your French and Spanish classes.
What? What is this terrifying plague-like monstrosity that is supposedly everywhere you turn?
Latin.
(Google Images)
As you can probably see from the picture above, Latin looks a little bit scary with all its capital letters, lack of punctuation and "Vs" where vowels are supposed to be. But despite its confusing syntax (which by the way goes subject, direct object, other parts of speech with the verb at the end) and it's 110 noun endings and 720 verb endings (that you must memorize by the way), Latin is actually super fun and useful to learn.
Let me attempt to convince you that Latin is worth studying.
1. You can easily learn different languages.
I'm about to get super geeky here. Bear with me.
As you may or may not know, Latin is a dead language tracing back to the Romans. In the time of Julius Caesar, the Roman Empire was the dominant nation, expanding from Ionia (or modern day Turkey) to Britannia (or modern day England). Because of this, a lot of languages in Europe today have bits of Latin in them.
Languages such as Spanish, French, Romanian, Italian, Portuguese and English (which are known as "Romance Languages") are all based on Latin. If you know Latin, then it is a lot easier to learn one of these new languages or to understand what others are saying.
2. Latin is pretty much everywhere.
Latin phrases are used all throughout American government, law, literature and even in common speech. Even if you don't understand what the phrase refers to, you can figure it out with Latin! For example, ad infinitum is a commonly used saying in literature. If you don't understand what it means, you can break the word up by saying "Ok, so I know ad means 'to' and Infinitum means 'infinity'...oh I know! To infinity!"
3. Latin makes you sound smart.
Not only is Latin really useful, Latin really makes you sound smart! Slip some common Latin phrases in your daily lives, such as "Semper Ubi Sub Ubi" or "Alea iacta est." People wouldn't know what it means, but it makes you sound really smart.
4. If you're a science nerd, then Latin is your best friend.
Ok, Biology peeps, this one's for you. You know how you classify different organisms with those huge, long words? That's Latin! If you understand the vocabulary of Latin, then you can figure out which animal is which without memorizing all those long names! For example, Crocodylus niloticus is the Latin name for the Crocodile of the Nile. Pretty easy, right? (Trust me, I didn't have to look up a thing!)
5. English Grammar is easier if you know Latin.
Latin grammar and English grammar (and most of the other romantic languages) are pretty much the same. Both have masculine, feminine and neuter nouns and share most of the tenses that we know today. Other than syntax (or word order), if you understand basic Latin grammar, English is a breeze.
6. You would be really cool.
Lastly, you are really cool if you know Latin. I mean, knowing a language that nobody, and I mean NOBODY, speaks anymore is pretty cool.....maybe Spongebob cool, but hey, I would think you are cool.
So hopefully I convinced you to study, or at least appreciate, Latin. If you have no idea what Latin is like, I would definitely give studying it a shot! Just remember, if you decide to study Latin or another language, just remember to try your best, give some effort and have fun!
Valete, lectores!
