Is there a point to studying Latin?

[MisterM2402]

I read an article today about "pushy parents", mothers and fathers who want their children to be superstars by making them do 9001 different extra-curricular activites (violin, science clubs, football, etc.). It was the format of several different columns written by several different mothers detailing their opinions on the matter and how they act with their own kids. One mother who was making her kids take part in all kinds of things said she was bribing one of her daughters to take GCSE Latin (that's Standard Grade for us Scots, high school level for everyone else, I think).

My question is this: in this day and age, when Latin isn't a widely-spoken language anymore, why would anyone want to study it? There are literally 100+ more useful languages out there to learn (including, but not limited to, Mandarin, Spanish, Russian and Arabic). Can someone enlighten me as to the uses for studying such a redundant language?

I'm all for kids learning languages - I really wish my parents had pushed me to do more of that sort of thing - but surely the time is better spent on languages that will actually be of use. On a related note, I watched this programme tonight that featured a young girl (possibly 10 or 11) who spoke fluently Vietnamese, English, Hindi, Arabic, Mandarin, Spanish, Japanese and Russian - pretty astonishing (though not as much as the guy who spoke 64 languages fluently back in the 1800s; can't remember the name).

TL;DR Why doesn't Latin suck? Tell me.

[br]Pic Related: "Pushy Parent"​

Edit: Please don't assume I'm a philistine - I like learning for the sake of learning (studying Japanese atm); still doesn't seem reason enough to learn Latin, though.

Edit again: So the most common answer people are giving is that learning Latin helps learning other Romance languages - does anyone have any actual experience of this or are you just assuming things? This poster would beg to differ:

I studied some Latin (not much, but enough to have an idea of the language). My native language is Portuguese and I speak French, Spanish and Italian with varying levels of ability.

This thing about knowing Latin helping to learn romance languages is mostly bullshit. It does not help much beyond the basic roots and one or two things about syntax (verb tenses, a few things). Maybe if you know Latin really really well it does help to understand why some piece of syntax in the current romance languages is the way it is, but I doubt it. The romance languages have evolved for millenia after branching off from Latin, there is a lot of stuff there that is due to independent language evolution. The romance languages themselves are similar because of common roots and because they evolved in geographic proximity. Even so, French for instance is quite different from Portuguese, and Romanian has a lot of words with slavic roots.

So I don't think studying Latin is very useful today, in most cases. Not even to learn the romance languages. It may be useful if you want to study classic literature or the history of the Roman Empire or something like this. If someone want to study because they think it is cool, no problem with that. But it's not terribly useful, no.

 

[FinalHeart95]

Latin is the base for a lot of languages. Learn latin and it will be much easier to learn said languages.

At least, that's the explanation given to me by friends I have who take Latin.

 

[Worgen]

for the most part all you can do with latin is teach latin

 

[Wierdguy]

For doctors, biologists, historians and theologists latin is quite usefull. Otherwise there is no real need to studdy it beyond that its quite a beautifull language.

 

[MindBullets]

'Cos it sounds cool?

Spoiler: ''Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.''

''Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.''
Translation: ''Anything said in Latin seems profound.'' [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AltumVidetur]

 

[Aidinthel]

A lot of old texts were written in Latin, even through the Renaissance. So for a historian a working knowledge of Latin could be very useful.

 

[Canid117]

Because it makes learning Romance languages much easier. And also it sounds bamf.

 

[Darken12]

Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Romanian (to name a few) are directly based on Latin. Learning Latin has proven to greatly increase the ease and speed of learning all of these languages.

Also, someone has to write the lyrics of those Ominous Latin Choirs we hear so often.

 

[YawningAngel]

I did a GCSE in Latin, and I can't say it helped me much in French (taken to A level)

 

[Yvl9921]

You'll never spell Necessary wrong ever again.

 

[1066]

It's a root language. Many languages today can trace at least part of their roots back to latin. As a result the structure and syntax, as well as the origins of words, can be found there.

Sad truth though is that though I can't speak it, I am mostly bilingual and have taken German and Spanish besides, and I've never had a problem. I'm pretty sure it's old use was

A) To be used as a universal language, and I can think of a few times in history where that happened.

B) To be able to read Bible as it was available then.

 

[Zantos]

If you want to go into the history of a subject, for most of them the original books are in latin. Lets you analyze them directly.

Also as it's been said it makes it easier to learn a lot of other languages.

 

[Custard_Angel]

Yeah no...

It's a dead language. It is not useful at all.

 

[Knife]

Can you summon dark elder gods by chanting in any of those languages : Mandarin, Spanish, Russian, Arabic? No? Didn't think so.

Now chanting in Latin...

 

[Aur0ra145]

University will be exponentially easier if you have a good understanding of Latin and its roots. A lot of languages are derived from Latin.

Let me put it this way, you're taking a test and there is a huge word in a problem you don't know. Well fuck. But you do know what some of the roots in the word mean b/c you took Latin. Ding ding ding, mucho help with answering the question.

That is just one of MANY different times Latin will really help you with higher education. Additionally, the usage of Latin is not just confined to history and medicine, it spans across everything.

 

[balanovich]

Latin is the base for a lot of languages. Learn latin and it will be much easier to learn said languages.

At least, that's the explanation given to me by friends I have who take Latin.

And do you friends learn those other languages ?

Seriously, i don't think it's useful. It might be a small foot in the door of Latin languages but nothing more. And if you want to learn ... Spanish, don't learn Latin first, start with Spanish it's going to be a lot easier! And Spanish will be a much grater help to learn French and Italian.
I think Spanish is the easiest latin language.(And it might be the most useful one.)

 

[Gladiateher]

Ever since 1952 when Cornelius Pantzrocket first though of having one language for all citizens of the world people have argued that they shouldn't have to learn a new language "you can learn my language" they always say. Latin was invented because the only way for us all to have the same language was to make up a new one so EVERYONE had to learn a new language and thus couldn't argue their way out of it. It didn't take however because of a little historical event you may have heard of called World War One which made everyone on Earth, especially those on the internet into racists who don't want to talk to eachother.

 

[poppabaggins]

I studied latin for four years. It serves no purpose, but latin poetry is bawdy as hell.

 

[KingofallCosmos]

Latin is the base for a lot of languages. Learn latin and it will be much easier to learn said languages.

At least, that's the explanation given to me by friends I have who take Latin.

And do you friends learn those other languages ?

Seriously, i don't think it's useful. It might be a small foot in the door of Latin languages but nothing more. And if you want to learn ... Spanish, don't learn Latin first, start with Spanish it's going to be a lot easier! And Spanish will be a much grater help to learn French and Italian.
I think Spanish is the easiest latin language.(And it might be the most useful one.)

I can read spanish and italian without having studied the language. It's also a lot about the origin of roman language. If you really learn latin (like in school/college) you'll understand a lot about languages in general. This gives you a big advantage.