Is Latin too hard?

Research at Durham University claims to show kids are put off taking Latin GCSE because it is too hard – about a grade harder than other supposedly “hard” subjects. That is to say, if you can get a grade C at Latin, you’d be in the running for a B in Physics or German. And teachers, it’s said, have too much of an eye on the league tables to persuade their pupils to take the risk.

At  least this is a change from the usual story about Latin. More than a third of all takers get the top A* grade (compared with less than 4% in Business Studies and around 6% in German – or, going the other way, 55% in Greek). And 60% in Latin get A* and A combined. How easy it must be, some wonder.

Actually these stories are easily compatible. Latin is an extremely self-selecting subject, chosen by some of our very brightest kids. No wonder they do extremely well -- and, as I see when they apply to us, often get a string of other very high grades. The question is should Latin be the subject of choice for the less bright too?

People – we classicists included – sometimes get in a muddle here. There is no question at all that Latin and Greek should be available to the talented of whatever wealth and class. The erosion of classics in the maintained sector is a disgrace in Britain and elsewhere. (If you are so minded, it can’t do any harm to  sign the on-line petition against the demolition of Classics in Portugal – the latest country to take a short-sighted decision about the provision of Classics.) But is it actually a sensible educational goal to try spread Latin and Greek right across the ability range?

There’s a baby-and-bathwater problem here. At the moment Latin and Greek are the only foreign language GCSEs where you still read some literature in the original language. Thank heavens that OCR, the only exam board now offering Classical languages, has valiantly kept on the “set books”, so some 16 year olds still get more than a taste of real Virgil, Catullus or Homer. Sure, it’s difficult  -- but interesting too, and it’s keeping some of our brightest and best engaged and on-message. You could notch it all down a level, but only at a cost. A simplified GCSE (with simplified Virgil) would not offer the same stimulus at all.

But there is in fact a bigger point here. What do we think that studying any of these subjects at GSCE is FOR? In modern languages, the repetitive, multiple-choice tests on how to find the cathedral from the car park, or how to order a pizza in Bologna are mind-numbing for the bright; but they do fulfil a function. Any one might need to order a meal or ask directions in a foreign city. If GCSE promotes that skill, so much the better – despite the doom-laden prophets of dumbing down.

Why then learn Latin? Certainly not for conversation. And not – at GCSE level at least – just to learn about the ancient world (there’s an excellent Classical Civilization exam for that). Nor to learn formal grammar (which can be taught more economically in a myriad of other ways). The central point of learning Latin is to be able to read some of the extraordinary literature written a couple of millennia ago. It can be formidably hard. Asking a school student to read Tacitus is a bit like asking an English learner to go off and read Finnegan’s Wake. But it is what makes the whole enterprise intellectually worthwhile. Make the whole thing easier (up the multiple choice and down play the real literature) and you’ve removed the very point of learning the language in the first place.

And that’s what’s going to kill the subject.

Comments

[Sara]

Oh gosh, this is really interesting. I'm sophomore high school student taking Latin -- I started it this semester and two years are required so I'll probably be taking it for at least another year.

It's hard; that's true, and I've had an hour to two hours of homework every night and more than half the time I don't much know what I'm doing until I've finished a lesson weeks later but I'm also an unbelievably slow learner and I've managed an A-.

Most of the students either get really high or really low grades because you have to focus constantly. But it's a challenge and I have a good teacher so most people either work hard or they don't.

[Lisbeth Jardine]

I had four years of Latin (from my mother, who was the only Latin teacher around) in high school and about another nearly four as an undergraduate. But in the end, I pretty much more or less taught myself Latin. I can stumble through bits of Greek and Russian. What I have tried and never have been able to teach myself is Japanese kanji. Have never been able to make head nor tails on my own of Sanskrit and all the other script or pictorial languages. Eventually, I learned how to more or less read mathematical formulae. So, here's the point, on that basis Asian languages must be a heck of a lot more difficult than rocket science!

The real problem, especially here in America, is that knowing all that much Latin makes one a total social isolate. No one else one ever meets has studied Latin (although since there do still exist Classics departments at universities, someone must be learning Latin and Greek). So, here I've got this great big vocabulary, and no one to talk to. If I should open my mouth and utter words I think of as pretty ordinary, I get accused of "showing off".

[Will Griffiths]

It's a pity few seem to have taken time to read the original research by Robert Coe at Durham (it's here: http://www.cemcentre.org/). What it shows is an inconsistency of grading across subjects. An 'A*' average student will typically be awarded an 'A' in Latin, and a 'C' average student will typically be given an 'E' in Latin. This is not an issue about whether Latin is too hard or too easy - the content of the exam is not a factor. It's an issue about the relative worth of grades in different subjects and the central question is whether or not it is right that students opting for Latin should always be marked down.

[Stephen Glass]

Evelyn Waugh once weighed in on this matter:

"My knowledge of English literature derived chiefly from my home. Most of my hours in the form room for ten years had been spent on Latin and Greek, HIstory, and Mathematics. Today I remember no Greek. I have never read Latin for pleasure and should now be hard put to it to compose a simple epitaph. But I do not regret my superficial classical studies. I believe that the conventional defence of them is valid: that only by them can a boy fully understand that a sentence is a logical construction and that words have basic inalienable meanings, departure from which is either conscious metaphor or inexcusable vulgarity. Those who have not been so taught ... unless they are guided by some rare genius, betray their deprivation."

[Monica]

To Edmund Burke:

Yikes, by your argument, English is too hard! People today are constantly dropping things from the English language such that it is no longer capable of expressing many of the nuances we had just a few decades ago.

Latin is not "too hard" to learn, but people are often lazy and like to simplify (I fully admit to being guilty of that!). What they don't realize, though, is how much they lose when they try to simplify too much.

[Edmund Burke]

Even the keenest Latinist has to accept the fact that the French, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Italians and the Romanians all found classical Latin a bit too hard, so they adapted it to suit themselves by dropping all those intricate endings for verbs, nouns and adjectives. (The Vikings, fortunately, provided the Brits with a good excuse for opting out of GCSE Latin altogether.)

[Bob Birks]

Sorry I logged into this discussion late, but as one who came to the serious study of early medieval European history later in life, I thank heaven for four years of secondary Latin in a rough Australian school that was only available by the accidental presence of a qualified teacher. Without that base on which to build, much source material of the period would have remained a closed book. It ain't all Tacitus and Cicero, folks.

[James Stanhope]

This is just a quick response to Stephen Francis's comment on the "redundancy" of Latin. You may as well categorize all study as "redundant" that doesn't lead, in and of itself, to a guaranteed increase in income. Besides, learning is not a zero-sum game. It's not as though studying Latin prevented you from studying pension accounting or whatever it is you need read up on at the moment. Learning shouldn't stop with the end of exams.

[Brian Taylor]

Latin is a beautiful language.

[d.l.]

To say the central point of learning Latin is reading extraordinary literature from millennia ago is short-sighted. Yes, fantastic literature is facilitated by a knowledge of Latin - from antiquity well into the recent centuries - so would it by a knowledge of Sanskrit or Russian.

What will kill the subject, as with spirit, is denying its inherent value. Few disciplines are so applicable to as great a range of subjects. What will kill the subject is thinking Latin less economically valuable to learn formal grammar. What will kill the subject is denying that Latin in itself is intellectually worthwhile and that's why we need and want it.

[Peter Athey]

Latin is anything but a 'dead language'. For several decades Finnish radio has been broadcasting the news in Latin (see details below). They have even recorded Elvis Presley songs in the language.

Nuntii Latini - News in Latin - is a weekly review of world news in Classical Latin, the only international broadcast of its kind in the world, produced by YLE, the Finnish Broadcasting Company.

Nuntii Latini is heard around the world on short or medium wave and via satellite on Radio Finland, the external service of the company. Nuntii Latini is now also available on the Internet, on RealAudio, at http://www.yleradio1.fi/nuntii. In Finland it is broadcast on the national FM network YLE Radio 1.

Launched in September 1989 by producer Hannu Taanila at the Finnish Broadcasting Company, Nuntii Latini is edited by Professor Emeritus Tuomo Pekkanen and Docent Reijo Pitkäranta of Helsinki University. For thirteen years they have taken it in turns to put together the five-minute weekly bulletin, which consists of the main international news headlines of the week and includes Finnish news of international interest, and arts, science and sports topics as appropriate.

Nuntii Latini Timetable - see chart

Nuntii Latini team:

Reijo Pitkäranta, editor,
Tuomo Pekkanen, editor,
Virpi Seppälä-Pekkanen, news reader,
Laura Nissinen, news reader, e-mail correspondent,
Outi Kaltio, news reader, e-mail correspondent.

Nuntii Latini is pleased to discuss any issues concerned with the news and answer listeners' queries through the Latin-language e-mail service at nuntii.latini@yle.fi.

More than 10 years of Nuntii Latini

As the YLE international news review in Latin completed 10 years of broadcasting in 1999, the YLE Annual Report in 1999 was also published in Latin. This is an offer to all schools and universities: send us your postal address and you will receive this unique document by return of post.

Jazz in Latin

At the observance of the 2000th anniversary of the death of Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus), a collection of traditional jazz was released, sung in Latin to texts adapted from Horace and translated by Professor Pekkanen. More details:

CD: "Variationes Horatianae Iazzicae"
pap@dighoe.pp.fi
www.digelius.com

So you see, Tacitus rides on ..... the airwaves. Just tune in and listen and learn.

[rogueclassicist]

Personally, I think the primary benefit of Latin is the 'brain rewiring' which seems to accompany it along with the spinoff effects thereof. Chief of these, of course, is the effect on English grammar (especially here across the pond where such things may not be taught with as much rigour as in the mother country). But there are also effects -- I firmly believe -- on other subjects. Various sciences and their terminology suddenly 'makes sense', math appears to be rather less confusing, and on and on. No, we shouldn't study Latin just for Latin's sake, or just for conversation's sake, or just for reading-ancient-lit's sake. We should study it for OUR sake.

[Maria Hayward]

My daughter is in her 3rd year of Latin. It is her favourite subject & she plans to take it all the way through school to University. English has taken a lot of Latin-sourced words into its vocabulary in the last 50 years. I've always enjoyed searching for the derivations of words- maybe my family are just word-geeks. Latin may sound clumsy to speak, but it can convey so much more with brevity than English ever could.

[Peeter Gruner]

I am glad now that in my high school days back in the early 50., I took Latin, even though at the time I did it only because my parents 'suggested' I take it as an elective. It has helped me considerably in understanding English, French, Italian and Spanish better, and yes, I think it did actually improve my thinking process. In all honesty, I haven't read any of the old Latin classics in the original, and I doubt that after more than 50 years I can still put together a coherent sentence, but the foundation it laid is still strong. I counsel everybody who will listen to me to take at least two years of Latin in High School.

[stephen francis]

latin is not too hard, but it is totally redundant. I got a grade 3 for Latin 'O' level in the late 60s (or was it the early 70's), because my Latin master was a sadist. I got a grade 5 at maths, and two 9s (I think) at chemistry and Physics). I have not used any of my Latin to this day, but an understanding of the modern world would have been, shall we say 'bonum et gloriosum'. And I would have been able to understand my new employer's pension AND how to use the video recorder.

[John Bulwer]

I can't agree that the best thing for Latin at GCSE is to demand a higher level of achievement than for other subjects. This is plainly unfair to those who take the exam, although in the profession it is well known that the grades in Latin are worth more than in other subjects. Surely it would better to bring other subjects up to the level demanded by Latin. I'm just back from the ACL conference in Philadelphia where I contributed to a panel outlining European Classics to the Americans. In this panel I with colleagues from other European countries showed that Classics can flourish (see the latest figures from Germany, as well as France, Italy and the Netherlands)and at the same demand high standards of achievement. In the UK we are in danger of both lowering our espectations in many subjects and squeezing Latin (let alone Greek) out of the picture entirely. The experience of other countries (including the USA) shows that this need not necessarily be the case.

[Monica]

Most recently: You learn Latin so when you're writing a paper for a Classical Civ class, you catch that the translator you're reading *completely* made up an agent that didn't exist in the orginal passive verb thus thwarting half of your argument.

But I think there are still merits to teaching everyone Latin. It's a way of training and disciplining your mind. And since it *is* more complex than many other languages, it is more effective.

But I'm also not entirely sure taking Latin is all that much harder. Certainly, any Roman could speak the language (and I doubt they were all the brightest of the bright). And yes, we read harder literature for the most part, but that's because we usually do away with the conversational bits. We translate and try to interpret harder lit, but we don't work so much on the speedy skills required for actually conversing IN Latin. If I dug up a dead Roman and re-animated him, I doubt very much I could hold a conversation with him. Granted, I haven't been taking Latin as long as many others have, but I can read Tacitus.

I really think it's more of a trade-off. I actually think speaking in another language would be more difficult for me than reading and interpreting high literature. But then, I started off as an English major, so literary interpretation comes more easily to me.