The Importance of Latin in the Curriculum Essay -- Latin Language Educ

The Importance of Latin in the political platformMy memories of Latin in high school are less(prenominal) than fond. I remember slouching in my chair, staring blankly at my desk as I tried to remember the form of the word agricola (farmer) in the ablative plural. practically of the class consisted of mundane activities like this. We translated endless Bible passages from Latin, translated what seemed like the inbuilt body of Grecian mythological literature, and read hundreds of lines from The Aneid, The Odyssey, and The Iliad. I signed up for Latin beca utilisation I was considering going into medicine, and I had heard that doctors need to admit Latin. As high school progressed, though, a medical career seemed less and less likely so it appeared I had no real use for Latin, except that I knew the meaning of phrases like carpe diem and semper ubi sub ubi (always wear underwear). When mortal would ask me why I took Latin, I would either mumble something around how Latin is the foundation on which all modern languages are based, or I would laugh and agree with them that it was a waste of my time, and that its a dead language. And it is a dead language, at least in talk form. Regardless of what Dan Quayle thinks, Latin is not the official language of Latin America. Latin has dropped from being the language spoken by almost the entire cognize Western world to an obscure language known mainly in scholarly circles. After the fall of the Roman Empire to Germanic invaders in 476 AD, Latin began a shift from being the common tongue to a language used mainly by upper-class and learned flock (Hammond 243). Because the Church used Latin extensively, it became, along with ancient Greek, the sheath in which the sword of the Spirit is lodged, as Martin Luth... ...s managed to escape from the wrath of the approaching Greek army.Works CitedAmo, Amas, Latin How Schools Are Using the Ancient Tongue to tutor English. Time 11 December, 2000 61.Culham, Phyll is, and Edmunds, Lowell, ed. Classics A Discipline and Profession In Crisis. Lanham University public press of America, 1989.Davis, Sally. Latin in American Schools Teaching the Ancient World. Atlanta Scholars Press, 1991.Hammond, Mason. Latin A Historical and Linguistic Handbook. Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard University Press, 1976.Kopff, E. Christian. The Devil Knows Latin why America Needs the Classical Tradition. Wilmington ISI Books, 1999.Smith, Sharwood. On Teaching Classics. London, Henley and Boston Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977.Waquet, Francoise. Latin Or The Empire Of A Sign. Trans. John Howe. New York Verso, 2001