The prolific French lyricist, Albert Willemetz is renowned to have said:
If Romans had to learn Latin to begin with, they would never have conquered the world.
If the expansion of the Roman Empire had not occurred in the way that it did, the languages of Europe would have been so different today.
As the Roman legions marched and conquered all in sight, so the Latin language spread. Because the Romans were so effective at enforcing Latin and Roman culture on the vanquished populations, numerous existing dialects died out.
Even after the Roman Empire had fallen, Latin became the vernacular of most of the European population, because it had by then been firmly established in the conquered territories.
There was one exception, however: Britannia, the remote province that consisted of the British Isles and extended to the Hadrian Wall in the north.
Here Latin got its comeuppance. After the Roman occupation, numerous successive invasions of the British Isles took place. Foremost amongst these, as relates to the evolution of Latin on the island, was the invasion by the Germanic Anglo-Saxon tribes which occurred around the 6th century.
Latin was overtaken by the Anglo-Saxon language and, by the next century (7th), Old English had become the common language (lingua franca).
Latin did, however, make a marked impression on the English language. According to linguists, 70% of English vocabulary (words) derive, directly or indirectly, from vulgar Latin which was spoken throughout the Roman Empire.
Today, the Romance languages (languages than have grown directly out of Latin) are spoken by more than a billion people around the globe, from Canada to South America and from New Caledonia (east of Australia) to Portugal.
Additionally, the Latin alphabet is used by more than 3 billion people, almost 40% of the world’s population. Countries, like Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey or Philippines, whose languages do not have anything to with Latin, use the same alphabet as England does.
For all of the above reasons and more, we will prove to you that learning Latin will, in a very real way, improve your English. You will be amazed to find how close Latin and English words are.
Click on Superprof.co.za and search for Latin classes near me.
Make Sense of the English Alphabet
A knowledge of Latin has been shown to enhance the overall results of high-achieving students. This has at least proven to be true in the United States where the SATs results reflect that learners of Latin achieve higher grades in all their other subjects as well. These learners will have found how easy it is to translate Latin into English, since they know its vocabulary, the basis for many English words.
To learn a language, you must know its alphabet.
There is no real issue here, since the Latin and English alphabet is (virtually) the same. The archaic version of the Roman alphabet only contained 20 letters, missing G. J.U.W, X and Z.
Many Greek alphabet letters were actually incorporated into the Latin alphabet, without any change to the way they were written, including A, B, E, I, K, M, N, O, T and X. K was not commonly used and C was generally favoured. The way certain other letters were written changed somewhat, especially in the case of C, D, L, P, R and S, when adopted by the Romans. The Romans also adopted the letters F, Q and V, which the Greeks discontinued using.
G, Y and Z, were all taken from the Greek alphabet, around 300 BC, to aid in the transcription of foreign words.
The letters W, J and U, which only appeared during the Middle Ages, aided in the transcription of certain words and helped to distinguish between vowels and consonants (U and J were, until that time, used as both vowel and consonant).
The Latin alphabet was to a large degree borrowed from the Etruscan alphabet, which had largely adapted and copied the Greek alphabet, which itself had been developed from the Phoenician alphabet.
Become an Etymology Champ
As a scientific field, etymology is “the history of a word or phrase by tracing its development and relationships”. (Merriam-Webster.com)
As Britain was, at some point, occupied by the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Norse, the Danes and eventually the French (the Normans), English contains numerous words which have the same meaning and represent the same idea, but have a totally different origin.
For example, in English, a number of Germanic-Latin doublets exist.
Additionally, in excess of 80% of French words derive from Latin and about 29% of English verbs, adjectives and nouns come from French.
Some common examples of these are:
- et voilà!(eh vwah-lah): a combination of ‘to see’ and ‘there’. You are essentially instructing people to ‘look there’.
- déjà vu (deh-zhah vew): the feeling that you have already experienced something (“already seen”).
- liaison (lyay-soh(n): means ‘bond’ in French; can refer to an affair, a relationship or a
- Cul-de-sac: (kew-duh-sahk): literally means ‘bottom of the sac’ and refers to a dead-end street.
To make things even easier, a large number of words that we use daily have not changed from their original Latin versions:
- Acumen: someone’s sharp spirit and quick perception stems from the Latin for “sharp point”.
- Alibi: “elsewhere” in Latin. A claim that you were elsewhere when a crime was committed.
- Ego: In Latin this meant “I”. Today it refers to your self-esteem.
- Gratis: kindness in Latin. In English it means at no cost, free of charge.
- Ultimatum: from the Latin ultimus (final)
- Vice versa: In Latin this meant “the position being reversed”. In English, this describes a situation where two people or things have been reversed.
- Visa: the Latin expression, charta visa, referred to “a paper that has been seen”. Today it is a document that will be “seen” at a border.
Here, we can clearly see that the Latin and English words are exactly the same and thus, there is no real need to translate from Latin into English.
All of the above examples show that learning Latin will both boost your confidence when spelling English words and greatly expand your knowledge of the English language.
Standard word order in English is subject, verb and object (SVO). However, in written Latin, the word order is of lesser importance. The way the words are declined (the declension thereof) will provide the Subject, Verb and Object.
For this reason, the same sentence can be written in several ways in Latin. The following sentence can only be written in one way in English, maybe two: “The legate sent the servant.” It can be written in, no fewer than, five ways in Latin:
- Legatus servum mittit,
- Mittit legatus servum,
- Mittit servum legatus.
- Servum legatus mittit,
- Servum mittit legatus,
To avoid any confusion, when reading Latin texts, you must ensure that you have a thorough knowledge of Latin declensions.
Almost every Latin word has six different declensions:
- Nominative case: from the word nomen meaning name. This refers to the form which the noun takes when it is the subject of the sentence, performing the action of a verb.
- Accusative case: the accusative will often end in -m. This is the form that the noun takes when it is the DIRECT OBJECT of the sentence, receiving the action of the verb.
- Vocative case: from the Latin voco; vocare (to call). This case identifies who is addressed (the addressee).
- Genitive case: this marks possession in Latin and can be equated to the word “of” in English.
- Dative case: this relates to the recipient of an action, where the receiver is the indirect object of the verb.
- Locative case: this locates where an action has taken place. Used widely during the early Latin period, it was later dropped in favour of the ablative case.
So, is Latin Still Useful Today?
Learning Latin will open up a whole new world for you, particularly the Greco-Roman world.
A knowledge of Latin will cast a greater light on the lives, hopes and struggles of Roman citizens when you come to grips with the great works of Titus Livius, Cicero, Ovid, Pliny the Younger or Seneca.
When you study Latin, you will also gain knowledge of:
- Classical literature and its history
- Ancient Roman Civilisation
- Everyday lives of Roman citizens
- Greco-Roman mythology
- The geography and history of Europe
- The institutions of the Roman Empire and Republic
Having all of this knowledge lurking just below the surface can make you the best team-mate for your church or club’s Trivial Evening and also place you in a wonderful position to pursue a study of any of the romance languages.
So, if you’re contemplating learning French, Italian or Spanish, put yourself in the pound seat by starting with Latin. You’ll be the top student, without a doubt!
Go to Superprof.co.za and, without delay, click on Latin classes near me!
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