The Autodidact, New Series I: Why Latin Matters, Part A

Anyone interested in the study of the ancient Greeks and Romans--the languages, the literature, history, philosophy, etc--may wish to visit the Autodidact on Fleming.Foundation. I have decided to create a section, open to all subscribers including free subscribers. Some of the material will come from a large backlog of archived posts on the classics; much will be new; and Mr. Autodidact will answer, to the extent that he can, questions about teaching and learning the languages, writers, and historical events. Subscribing takes only a minute or two.

Let us begin with an old piece on the importance of Latin.

Why Latin Matters

When people ask me, “Why should anyone study the classics,” I give the same answer that has been given for the past 2500 years or more:  So as not to end up a barbarian. “Barbarian,” is a Greek word that was originally applied to someone who did not speak Greek.  Adopted by the Romans it came to mean those who were ignorant of Latin and Greek and, therefore, beyond the pale of civilization.  Barbarians might be decent people, kind to the poor, and hard-working mothers and fathers, but in a pinch they could not be relied upon to maintain the standards of civilization.  Anyone who knows something of the horrors that followed the collapse of the Roman Empire will know what I am talking about:  the civilized world sank into violence, poverty, and ignorance.  Large buildings could not be built, life-spans were dramatically shortened, and everyday life was dominated by violent bullies, much as in modern cities.

All was not lost, however, since Latin was still used by what learned men there were, and the level of civility and humane learning rose steadily for 500 years, culminating in the brilliant Christian civilization of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.  This classical learning taught in schools and universities over the centuries, while methods have changed and standards varied, is the foundation of all that is best in our culture. As the Christian writer G.K. Chesterton remarked nearly 100 years ago, in any generation those who count will be talking of Troy, and since today few know of the Trojan War except through a very bad film, either Chesterton was wrong or there are fewer people today who count than there were in his time.

Down to the end of WWI, civilized people were expected to be familiar with ancient history and literature and to know at least some Latin.  Superior students could write Latin, in prose and verse, fluently, and they could read the masterpieces of Greek literature in the original language.  I know that this sounds elitist and unfair, but the same is true of educated people today. 

Those who have not studied classical languages, literature, and history are cut off from the roots of our civilization and incapable of understanding English literature from Chaucer to T.S. Eliot.  This explains why so few students today, including English majors at prestigious institutions, can read Milton or Dryden or A.E. Housman with pleasure and understanding.  Housman, by the way, was one of the greatest Latin scholars of the last century, and his poems pay tribute to the Latin masters he studied.  If you have read his beautiful version of an Horatian ode, you will discover how difficult this simple poem can be for someone without a classical background. What, for example, can such a reader make of his allusions to Ancus and Tullus (Roman Kings), Hippolytus and Pirithous (figures from Greek mythology), and what in the world does he mean by "the prime" (a word for Spring derived from the Latin word for "first")?

But Housman is only one example.  Nearly every great poet, philosopher, historian, and essayist in our language was trained in the classics, and many were deeply read.  The very few exceptions got their classicism second hand from the English and French writers they imitated.  A.E. Housman, although a great Latin scholar, wrote very direct English, rooted in the plain speech of the Anglo-Saxon peasantry, but even he relies on Latin words words like prime, descend, and alter.  In fact, something like 60-70% of English words come from Latin either directly or by way of French.  Our native English words, we learn without difficulty at our mother's knee.  These are ordinary words like sky, field, tree, man, monkey, which come from our Germanic ancestors, but the more complex words of science and law and theology require the Latinate derivatives: we speak of celestial navigation or arborists or agriculture, while a chimpanzee may be defined as an arboreal hominid.

Many people are aware of what English vocabulary owes to Latin, but they may not realize that much of English grammar, when there still was such a thing, was modeled on Latin grammar during the Renaissance and the 18^th century, and it is very hard for modern English teachers and even brilliant linguists to understand how a traditional English sentence works, because they lack the necessary classical background. 

Ignorance of Latin causes equally serious problems in the study of foreign languages.  It is very difficult to teach French or Spanish or Italian to people who do not know what the subjunctive is or Russian to students who have never heard that nouns have cases or that verbs have aspect.  Hence the collapse of English in the later 20th century. The evidence is all around us—gross mistakes in dictionaries, the inability of all but the select few to use shall and will correctly, the disappearance of the past perfect tense, the false idea that the English infinitive is the dictionary form of the verb prefixed by „to“.  How does one explain such constructions as „I watched him go“ or „I must go.“  One very alarming sign can be found in the bad grammar even Latin textbooks: The most recent edition of Jenney’s Latin thinks this sentence correct: I have never had a friend better than he.  (Who can tell me what is wrong?).  Then there is the whole question of style and rhetoric, of balanced and parallel constructions, periodic sentences, euphony—all the hard-learned tricks that make writers as diverse as Dr. Johnson and Evelyn Waugh a joy to read, a literary art that is as gone with the wind as the art of making stained glass or Greek fire.