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 #2 (permalink) Mon Jul 06, 2009 13:26 pm ENGLISH X LATIN |
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As late as the 1950s, Latin was considered an indispensable part of a good education in English-speaking countries. This was because learning Latin enormously enlarges children's English vocabulary, but also because it teaches them grammatical logic and history. Besides, once you've learned Latin, it's easy to learn almost any other language you want to.
Today most people involved in the educational systems of various English-speaking countries think Latin is "not useful", and so it's not taught in most places anymore. In my opinion this is evidence of degradation in our educational system.
In the United States, when I was growing up they had dispensed with early Latin and made us start learning French at age 9. The choice of French was apparently motivated by the idea, then still current, that every civilized person should know French, and by the fact that French thinkers had such a large influence on the development of American society. Now they have replaced French with Spanish, for no other noticeable reason other than that it's useful for speaking to Hispanics. This is a little stupid, in my opinion, because Hispanics who come to the US learn English as fast as anyone else does, and Hispanic culture has had little influence on the development of US society and institutions, other than serving as a negative example, perhaps.
They still do not teach Portuguese in our schools, even though Brazil is now a larger economic power than France. |
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Jamie (K)
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| #3 (permalink) Mon Jul 06, 2009 13:55 pm english x latin |
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Hi dear professor,
thanks for your comments. your wrote something that makes sense, once in my job building heard a Brazilian woman a an american guy speaking in French, and guess what ?! i did not understand but I could understant what they were talking about, I mean I got the whole meaning even though i didn't' get some words, and for sure is because I now some latin, by the time I was in a year and half of latin study. that is kind of mystery don't you think so.
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 Joao Fonseca
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| #4 (permalink) Mon Jul 06, 2009 15:59 pm ENGLISH X LATIN |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: |
| Besides, once you've learned Latin, it's easy to learn almost any other language you want to. |
What about Chinese, Japanese, Indian languages? What you've said applies just to the so called roman group of languages.
| Quote: |
| They still do not teach Portuguese in our schools, even though Brazil is now a larger economic power than France. |
Let me disagree with you on that topic too. In the human development report issued in 2006 France is listed on the 16th place by the development level with GDP per capita 29,300 US$. Brazil is located at 69th position with GDP per capita 8,195. Even taking into account that France has population of "just" 60 millions and Brasil is nearing the 200 million Brazil has still a lot to do.
Besides there are large French speaking communities in Canada and Africa.
By the way, in Soviet Union the foreign language taught in the school was the language of the most probable enemy. So after the WW2 soviet people learnt German which than was superseded with English 
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| #5 (permalink) Mon Jul 06, 2009 16:36 pm ENGLISH X LATIN |
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| Someone wrote: |
| Jamie (K) wrote: |
| Besides, once you've learned Latin, it's easy to learn almost any other language you want to. |
What about Chinese, Japanese, Indian languages? What you've said applies just to the so called roman group of languages. |
Knowledge of Latin makes those languages easier to learn too, and it makes Slavic and Germanic languages much easier to learn also. The vocabulary has nothing to do with that, but the understanding of language theory and structure necessary to learn Latin can be applied to other languages.
| Someone wrote: |
| Quote: |
| They still do not teach Portuguese in our schools, even though Brazil is now a larger economic power than France. |
Let me disagree with you on that topic too. In the human development report issued in 2006 France is listed on the 16th place by the development level with GDP per capita 29,300 US$. Brazil is located at 69th position with GDP per capita 8,195. Even taking into account that France has population of "just" 60 millions and Brasil is nearing the 200 million Brazil has still a lot to do. |
The figures have changed since the data you looked at, but you're right that France has a larger GDP, both gross and per capita. However, per capita GDP can be deceptive, because countries can be very influential economically while still having a low per capita GDP. In fact, a country can have a GDP that dwarfs those of other countries while still having a low per capita GDP.
And Brazil leads in some domains. It is ahead of the US in certain agricultural exports, and its industrial base is growing a lot.
| Someone wrote: |
| Besides there are large French speaking communities in Canada and Africa. |
The French-speaking communities in Africa are generally of no economic importance to the US. Canada is a bilingual country, and having worked in an industry that serves clients all over Canada, I can tell you that the use of French for dealing with them is more a matter of complying with Canadian law than with any actual need for the language. |
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Jamie (K)
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| #6 (permalink) Tue Jul 07, 2009 9:21 am ENGLISH X LATIN |
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You know, I wonder why we still don't learn Chinese as a second language. It complies all criteria: a lot of people speaks Chinese, China is becoming more and more influential in the world both in economy and politics. Do you have any clue?
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| #7 (permalink) Tue Jul 07, 2009 11:40 am ENGLISH X LATIN |
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| Someone wrote: |
| You know, I wonder why we still don't learn Chinese as a second language. It complies all criteria: a lot of people speaks Chinese, China is becoming more and more influential in the world both in economy and politics. Do you have any clue? |
One reason people in most countries didn't learn Chinese was that, while many people speak the language, they are almost all concentrated in one place. When the Chinese economy wasn't influential, people in my country didn't learn Chinese. However, over the past ten years, at least where I live, schools and universities have been adding Mandarin Chinese, until now almost all of them offer it. |
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Jamie (K)
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