Latin is a dead language.
Or at least that’s what I’d heard growing up. As a kid, the only time I was confronted with the language was in church, singing hymns I couldn’t hope to translate.
But as a classics student, Latin or Greek is required for the major.
So, I signed up for Latin 1: Elementary Latin in the fall. At first, I viewed the class as a box to check, one more step to completing my degree. However, after a full year of Latin, I can admit that it’s more than a dead language used during Mass.
Latin is a central foundation for subjects like medicine and law. Learning the language teaches valuable skills that all students should have.
As a subject that lays the groundwork for career success, UCLA should promote Latin to a broader range of students – including by allowing Latin courses to fulfill certain General Education requirements.
Students are required to complete GE courses before graduating, including a Philosophical and Linguistic Analysis course for the Foundations of the Arts and Humanities subcategory. These classes teach students how to examine the world around them and their place in it, according to the UCLA Registrar’s Office.
What could help you understand the world around you more than a Latin class?
I first noticed this quality of Latin in a non-academic setting. It was just after midterms, and I was lounging in my dorm, finishing off a season of Supernatural.
The CW show is not necessarily peak television. But it’s entertaining: two flannel-clad brothers driving across the country in their old car, fighting ghosts. The brothers investigate deaths in a tiny town, and if it’s the work of the supernatural, they kill the monster.
In this episode, it was a demon. So, as one does with demons, they started performing a Latin exorcism.
To my surprise, I understood what they were saying.
It wasn’t difficult stuff. “Glory to God,” that sort of thing. But I was intrigued by what I knew.
I then began to notice Latin in more academic settings.
In a political theory class, my professor asked what the word benevolent actually meant – not just the standard definition, but what the word means when broken down.
Well, “bene” was on my vocabulary list, and I knew it meant “well” or “rightly.” I recognized “volent” as a form of “velle,” the verb “to wish.”
My professor confirmed my line of thinking. The word means “to wish to do good.”
I don’t remember why that was important to the lecture, but I do remember the feeling of satisfaction I had that Latin was a skill I could use in real life.
My peers have the same line of thinking. Many of my classmates are pre-med or pre-law students, hoping to use Latin on graduate school entrance exams.
Students who major or double major in classics have higher medical school acceptance rates than those who only focus on science, according to The Princeton Review. Classics students tend to score the highest on the Graduate Record Examination, according to the same article. A 2014 analysis of law school admissions data found that classics students scored highest on the Law School Admissions Test as well, according to The National Jurist.
Those scores make sense. Jargon like “habeas corpus” is easier to break down if students know the Latin translation – in this case, “you should have the body.” If you forget the definition, you can think through the meaning. Latin teaches students to think critically and analytically.
Nearly half of UCLA undergraduates go on to pursue higher degrees, according to data released by the University of California. Students would benefit from learning Latin in preparation for these endeavors. Fitting Latin courses into GE requirements would make them more accessible to students outside of the classics department who otherwise may not be able to fit such classes into their schedules.
While Latin can go toward fulfilling UCLA’s language requirement, students may overlook the option as it is no longer used conversationally. Latin’s value instead lies in its ability to provide context and teach students logical reasoning. These benefits are why the university should create more opportunities for Latin to fulfill more course requirements.
Now that I’ve taken Latin, when I’m approached by a concept I don’t know, my first instinct is to see if I can glean something from the words themselves.
Once students understand that Latin is more than a dead language, they can gain the critical thinking and analytical skills it provides.
Or, more importantly, they can translate exorcisms while watching television.
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