One of the most frequently touted reasons for studying Latin is the ease it brings to the study of other, especially Romance, languages. As a high schooler, this rationale always seemed a bit counter-intuitive to me. Surely the most efficient way to gain fluency in one language is to spend time with it rather than wasting time acquiring another. Yet my experience as both a language student and educator suggests that a rigorous study of Latin develops a unique skill set (both linguistic and otherwise) that, when applied to the study of other languages, greatly enhances the depth of engagement with, ease of acquisition, and appreciation of the target language.
Having spent most of my early education immersed in a study of Latin, I decided in my last year of university to finally try my hand at a modern, spoken language. I was moving to Rome for a post-graduate fellowship imminently, so Italian was a natural choice. It took but a few months to achieve functional fluency in the language which I, enthralled by the possibilities opened up by acquiring a new language, quickly followed up with Portuguese. The process of studying and using now two Romance languages has led me to reflect on the benefit my study of classical languages afforded throughout the process and the value of setting my language acquisition foundation with a solid study of Latin.
Romance languages are defined by their proximity to the Roman world, giving them their most obvious point of connection to the Latin language (hence the name “Romance,” not to be confused with the heart-fluttering emotions commonly associated with the languages). The segmentation of the Roman empire isolated groups of Latin speakers and brought their language more significantly under the influence of Germanic, Slavic, and Celtic languages. The language adapted to its new constraints, causing a gradual fragmentation of what once was a cohesive, Latin language. The result? Modern-day Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Romanian, along with other, though less common, Latin derivatives. The languages are distinct from each other, yet maintain structural elements of their ancestral tongue. Speakers of one Romance language cannot necessarily speak the others but will be able to recognize and understand commonalities among them. Students of Latin occupy the unique position of not speaking a single Romance language but understanding large portions of all. This dynamic greatly increases the ease with which students of Latin can gain fluency in one, two, or all of the Romance languages in a short amount of time.
Italian is perhaps the easiest Latinate language for a student of classical languages to pick up. Due to its geographical proximity to the center of the Roman world, it is perhaps the least affected by other linguistic influences, giving it a remarkable similarity to the Latin language. While Italian shed the same grammatical trappings that the other Romance languages lost (i.e. declensions, Subject/Object/Verb word order, etc.), many Latin words exist unadapted, such as “salve”, my personal favorite Italian salutation. When I first started my study of Italian, I slid through the early weeks of my first Italian class by placing Latin words where I wasn’t sure of the Italian one. My professor, more times than not, thought I was operating at a far more advanced level of Italian than my peers but just couldn’t quite get the hang of the pronunciation. My familiarity with Latin gave me an immense advantage when learning its closest offspring. Because I was so intimately familiar with the Latin language, I was able to gain fluency in Italian quickly by relying on my prior knowledge of the grammatical structure and vocabulary of its ancient counterpart. It was my study of Portuguese that best revealed how my study of Latin had more fundamentally affected even my approach to language acquisition.
Anybody who has had the pleasure (misfortune?) of exposure to Portuguese knows that it is a force to be reckoned with. Combining the nasal sounds of French with the dialect variation of Italian and an accentuation system that would put Ancient Greek to shame, it is a hydra, revealing two new challenges the second you think you’ve mastered one. Yet to the student of Latin, it is merely a new mutation of our old friend. Os may be pronounced like u’s (except when they’re not), and heaven forbid you have the unfortunate task of determining the plural of a noun ending in a consonant, but Portuguese is at the end of the day another attempt to adapt the quirks of Latin to the modern world. Yet beyond providing me with just another example of how Latin is still alive and well, merely hidden inside of many modern languages, my study of Portuguese revealed just how much my study of Latin had altered my fundamental approach to language.
Highly inflected languages like Latin, perhaps more so than any other category of language, train your brain to seek out patterns and give diligent attention to their nuanced differences. There is little margin for error in Latin when it comes to recognizing details. If you mix up a single syllable, your indicative verb becomes subjunctive, your subject becomes your object, and the meaning is entirely lost. I found in my study of Portuguese that few patterns, no matter how foreign, slipped my attention. I was able to quickly process large amounts of language input with ease because of the diligent attention to detail I had developed in my study of Latin. The amount of vigilance necessary to master the complexity of Latin applied to any other language (no matter how difficult), makes for a manageable and even enjoyable experience of language acquisition.
My advice to students wanting to learn foreign languages? Start with Latin. To students who want to develop a linguistic skill-set applicable in an increasingly globalized world? Start with Latin. While studying an ancient language may not seem like the fast-track to operating comfortably in a variety of modern languages, the mindset and diligence you develop through a thorough study of Latin is certainly the most versatile investment you can make into your language studies.
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