![]() But European civilisation is just one thing there are so many things you can study.” Tricky translations “Classics does suffer a bit sometimes because some in the field imagine it's more important than everybody else because it's the foundations of European civilisation. “I don't think Latin is more important than any other language,” Bishop says. There are great texts in many languages and the benefits gained from learning Latin – connecting to the past, making your brain more nimble – can be achieved from studying other languages too. While Bishop loves Latin, he doesn’t promote it to the exclusion of other languages. Latin poetry is just so, so beautiful and you won't understand it in translation.” He cites stoic philosopher Seneca, early histories by Suetonius and Tacitus, and some of the best rhetoric and oratory in the world by Cicero. “It doesn't matter how good a translation is, you'll never understand the actual nuance of what somebody is saying – in any language – without reading it in the original,” he says. And we need people with appropriate skills to interpret that heritage.”īishop, who was a student of Minchin’s in the 1980s, says learning Latin will help people enjoy some literary masterpieces in their original language. We should never lose touch with that if we are to maintain a connection with that thread of our Australian cultural heritage. “So much of Western cultural tradition – extending over 2,000 years to include works from the Renaissance too – has come to us in Latin or via Latin. “But I believe very strongly that some people in our community should learn Latin and be proficient in reading and understanding the language,” she says. But now we say you have an alibi.”Įmeritus Professor Elizabeth Minchin, who taught Latin at ANU for almost four decades and also taught Bahasa Indonesia and French to secondary students, says learning Latin isn’t for everyone. “So you were 'alibī' – you were elsewhere. “Now it means you were somewhere else and you can claim to be somewhere else at the time,” Bishop says. But while the original term, pronounced with an emphasis on the first i rather than the second, is a non-comparable adverb meaning ‘somewhere else’, alibi is a noun. The word ‘alibi’, for instance, is Latin. “In fact, it could prove a disadvantage, because some words have taken on a different meaning in English to those they originally had in Latin,” Bishop says. Useful, but how necessary is it to know? Are doctors, scientists, and lawyers who have a background in Latin better at their professions? Bishop says some law and medicine students at ANU had found it useful to study the language. It can also be helpful for people working in the fields of medicine, science and law, where a lot of terminology is in Latin. Knowing Latin can make it easier to learn Romance languages such as French and Italian, given it was their basis. “English grammar was actually contorted in the 19th century to make it fit to Latin grammar,” says Dr Chris Bishop, convener of the Latin program at ANU where the language has been taught since 1960. Its advocates say learning Latin can improve one’s grasp of English grammar. So what’s the utility and value of learning a language that isn’t widely spoken or used? And like the Australian census, the Roman census was also carried out every five years.) (The word ‘census’, by the way, is in itself Latin, from ‘censere’ meaning estimate. In the ACT, seven people reported to the 2016 census that they speak Latin at home – out of 309 people nationwide. Caesar’s phrase has been quoted and adapted well into modern times, including by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, rapper Jay-Z, and in the original Ghostbusters film. A few centuries later it was barely spoken and became a ‘dead language’. It was the language of government, the law and the military, and became widely spoken across their lands.Īs the Empire crumbled, so too did the use of Latin. “I came, I saw, I conquered.”Īs the Romans expanded their rule across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, they spread not only their ancient empire, but also their language, Latin. “Veni vidi vici,” Julius Caesar is said to have written after victory in a five-day battle in hilly terrain in what we now know as northern Turkey. ![]()
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