Languages

Here is a great article from the New York Times. It talks about the study of Latin in general, and it touches on the study of Latin among politicians. Naturally Latin and Greek were popular among the early presidents and politicians. Most likely they were required classes. But as time passed, fewer politicians studied Latin and Greek. It did, however, mention that George W. Bush studied Latin. Somehow I can't imagine him doing that well considering he can barely put together a sentence in English.

But on the bright side, the article says that there is a slight revival in Latin. Even though ancient Greek is less popular, probably due to the fact that people assume that it is more difficult, I always hope that there will be a revival in ancient Greek, too. You always have to wonder where this comes from and how this happens. Maybe movies like Gladiator or Troy or 300 inspire kids (and many adults) to learn Latin and Greek or to study ancient history or literature. As the author of the article says, reading a translation of something like the Odyssey or the Aeneid can be beautiful, but to read those works in their original languages is an entirely different experience. And I agree.

Greek and Latin just sound beautiful. But when you are forced to translate them, you are met with so many structures and rules. Ancient Greek and Latin are inflected languages. People get overwhelmed with the number of conjugations and declensions. There are so many cases--nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, and the vocative. You have to think of numbers--singular and plural, and Greek also has the dual. You have to think of genders--masculine, feminine, and neuter. And then there are the verbs with all their conjugations, all their tenses, all their moods, all their voices. You try memorizing the conjugation of a Greek verb when there are seven tenses, three voices, and four moods! But as big and complex as this might sound, it is precise and specific and it makes sense. In fact it is far more precise than English. When you have a language that is this inflected, you rarely have the problems that you have in English. Participles and modifiers never dangle and they are never misplaced. There is little confusion in "who" and "whom." And you will never see something that could be read as "between you and I." The form of the words will tell you what corresponds with what, or what modifies what, or what goes with what. It is so perfect! As I always say (somewhat arrogantly and egotistically), English will seem inadequate after you study Greek and Latin.

But that's just my humble opinion.