Ancient Paths: Studying Ancient Languages
Why the ancient languages?
We have never lived in a more global time. With the click of a button, I can experience cultures that are thousands of miles away from me. I can watch foreign customs and listen to a variety of different languages. Why, then, is Ancient Paths so interested in the dead languages? Why not teach one of the many modern languages that can help connect students to our modern world? I take seriously such a weighty question. Below I begin with some observations on modern languages and the usefulness of Latin, after which you will see substantive reasons why Ancient Paths is focusing on the dead (ancient) languages over the modern languages.
Comments on Modern Language Learning:
First of all, Ancient Paths does see the value of learning modern languages, and our hope is that students will be able to learn a modern language by high school (likely Spanish). Learning Latin in the younger years will lay a foundation for learning many of the modern languages, like Spanish, which initially developed as a dialect of Latin. Latin is a part of the so-called Romance languages (Spanish, Italian, French, etc.), of which there are over 900 million native speakers today. Once one has a solid foundation in Latin, they are given the tools to learn many modern languages, especially those of the Romance languages.
Likewise, if students want to learn other languages that are not Romance languages, exposure to Latin at a young age introduces a highly inflected language (that is, the nouns and verbs change their endings based on how they function in the sentence) that again gives tools in one’s toolbelt to acquiring other modern languages. Unlike Latin, both Spanish and French do not inflect their nouns, so if students were to learn either of these two languages, they would not understand the case system that is essential to many other modern languages (i.e. Russian, Sanskrit, Turkish, Arabic, German, etc.). While technically a “dead language,” Latin provides multiple springboards, not to mention an extensive Indo-European vocabulary, to learn the modern languages.
Dorothy Sayers makes this case in her essay, “The Lost Tools of Learning,” (an essay which inspired the classical Christian education movement):
[Students must learn] an inflected language. The Grammatical structure of an uninflected language is far too analytical to be tackled by anyone without previous practice in dialectic. Moreover, the inflected languages interpret the uninflected, whereas the uninflected are of little use in interpreting the inflected. I will say at once, quite firmly, that the best grounding for education is the Latin grammar. I say this, not because Latin is traditional and medieval, but simply because even a rudimentary knowledge of Latin cuts down the labor and pains of learning almost any other subject by at least fifty percent. It is the key to the vocabulary and structure of all the Romance languages and to the structure of the Teutonic [Germanic] languages, as well as to the technical vocabulary of all the sciences and to the literature of the entire Mediterranean civilization, together with all its historical documents. (23, emphasis mine)
So here at Ancient Paths, we are not against modern languages! Au contraire, our hope is to equip our students in language generally so that they may excel in any language they go on to study in high school (at Ancient Paths) or later in life.
So, why the dead languages?
But, one may argue, why Latin? Why not Italian or German, which both have noun cases and extensive vocabulary that is related to English? If learning a language is about equipping students with linguistic tools, why not teach a modern language that can both equip and serve a practical function?
Jeremiah 6:16 is the inspiration for our school’s name: “Thus says the LORD: Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls” (ESV, emphasis mine). Latin is now a dead language, but at one point it was a living language. Latin was used extensively in the Roman empire at the time of Christ (both Luke and John report that Latin appeared on Jesus’ cross). It was the language of many of the early church fathers (Augustine, Jerome, Tertullian, etc.) and formed the basis for one of the earliest translations of the Hebrew and Greek Bible (Jerome’s Vulgate). Latin is also the language of some of the greatest works of Western Civilization (Virgil’s Aeneid; the works of Cicero, Ovid, or Horace; the Summa of Aquinas; etc.).
Teaching students Latin guides them down the ancient linguistic paths which some of the greatest minds in history have explored. Latin not only equips them with linguistic tools, this foundational language exposes them to great literature and history that is ignored at our peril. Since there are many Latin phrases that are still in English today, in my Latin class at Ancient Paths, we begin every week with a common Latin phrase of the week that we break down grammatically. This week we learned that “anno domini” means “from the year of the Lord,” and is comprised of the two Latin cases ablative and genitive (the students were able to figure the meaning out on their own, since we have already learned the case system for these nouns). We have covered other Latin phrases such as “E Pluribus Unum,” “Creatio ex nihilo,” and the five Solae of the Reformation. I have also introduced them briefly to some Latin from the Vulgate (my hope is that our students can start reading the Vulgate within a few years). Latin is yet another way to introduce students to the classical world and ground them in a tradition that has been the foundation for so much of the Western world.
Likewise, Latin shares much in common with Greek, a language which makes up all of the New Testament and also makes up the earliest translation of the Hebrew scriptures (the Greek translation of the Old Testament is called the Septuagint). Our hope at Ancient Paths is to introduce Greek to our students in high school, or earlier, with the aim of reading and studying the Bible. There is no greater argument for studying the dead languages than the fact that the Bible itself is written in dead languages. One would never presume to be an expert in French poetry if one did not know French. Why, then, would we ignore the fact that the most important book to the Christian faith is written in three languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek) that are different than our own? Here at Ancient Paths we want to challenge ourselves to study the great works of Western civilization, since we recognize that those works make up the foundation of what we stand upon today.
Conclusion
In the same way that Ancient Paths does not neglect modern history by only teaching ancient history, Ancient Paths does not plan on neglecting the modern languages and only teaching the ancient languages. However, in the same way that modern history can be understood better in light of ancient history, a student can appreciate and understand the modern languages and cultures by being immersed in the languages and cultures of the past. The ancient languages, such as Latin, not only present the tools of language to the modern student, they also offer doors into the past where students can walk down the paths of the ancients, read their actual words, and learn to more fully engage in the world which has made us who we are today.
Brittany Zimmerman - Latin Teacher