Does Latin "train the brain"?

Spurred on by Eric Dickens’s comments on my last blog, I return to the topic of the moment, or at least to one currently exercising correspondents to the Times: the value of a “classical education”.

Eric suspects that the “bureaucratic spirit” of the modern university has “swept aside <my> enthusiasm” for proselytizing the study of the ancient world among the young. Boris Johnson, he hints, is doing a better job in this respect.

So let’s see if I can (enthusiastically) hit the nail more firmly on the head. What IS the point of learning Latin?

There are several reasons often touted that seem to me wide of the mark. (Sorry – a typically academic way to kick off; but these do have to be disposed of first.)

You do NOT learn Latin because it helps you to understand the spells in Harry Potter, or to read the slogans on pound coins. That may be a side benefit, but frankly you’re not missing much in life if you don’t get all of Harry’s wizardry.

You do NOT learn Latin because it helps you learn other languages. Again that may be a knock on effect. But if you want to learn (say) Spanish, it’s better to get on with it, not learn Latin first to make it easier. (Besides, I always feel that any subject that tries to justify itself by claiming that it helps you learn something else is on the way out.)

You do NOT learn Latin because it hones your critical and logical thinking. True I rather like S.H. R. James’s jingle that “Latin trains the brain” (just as I am touched by Stephen Dalzell’s plaudit for the sheer uselessness of the language). But Latin is only one of many subjects that does this. If we gave our kids three lessons in formal logic each week, we’d probably soon notice a difference in their critical power.

No, you learn Latin because of what was written in it – and because of the direct access that Latin gives you to a literary tradition that lies at the very heart (not just at the root) of Western culture.

Virgil’s Aeneid and Tacitus’ Annals (to name only two) are as mind-opening and life-changing works of literature as Hamlet, Paradise Lost or Anna Karenina. It is worth learning Latin just to be able to read them.

But more than that, the Latin Classics are so embedded in the Western literary tradition, that as a culture (I’m not necessarily talking about individual readers here) we would be lost in our own world if we could not access them. What would we make of Dante or Milton, for example, if we could not read them side by side with Virgil? (For that matter, I’m always amazed that moderns historians seem happy to work on figures such as Gladstone when they don’t know a word of the classical languages that were his daily bread and butter.)

Won’t translations do? Up to a point, yes. And let’s be honest, most people in this country for the last 500 years or so have consumed their Latin literature in the vernacular. Like it or not, Latin has always been an elite subject. But translations aren’t a complete substitute for two reasons.

First, if we let Latin drop entirely, who is going to be able to understand all the “new” Latin that continues to be discovered by the page, if not the volume-full – much of it (like the Vindolanda letters) from Britain? Or are we going to keep a handful of boffins on the job, translating the new stuff as it appears?

Second,  translations never quite get you to the real thing. They are always versions, recast for whatever audience, time or place they have in mind. Try picking up any Victorian translation of Virgil and ask yourself if the Aeneid would still be read today if that was the only version we had. Literature can’t survive in translation alone.

Comments

[kpli]

interesting post bout Latin here..nice job lol

[Jo]

I have recently completed my first year studying Latin at school (I am in Year 9 - aged 14) and I am going to study it at GCSE too. At this stage, the 'point' for me studying it, like the other people in my Latin class, is simply that I enjoy it. This is for two reasons. Firstly I am interested in the Roman world and culture (our lessons cover not only Latin language but classical civilisation too) and because I am fascinated with etymology and the details and histories of languages.

We have not yet started studying Latin literature (not until GCSE) so I cannot comment on whether studying it helps you understand English literature better, but even if it did not I am sure I would still persist with it.

It is true that Latin is an elitist subject (at my school you have to be identified as having an aptitude for languages in order to be placed in one of the two Latin classes), but there are some state schools that teach Latin, such as mine, but they are unfortunately rather rare.

As for whether it helps you learn other languages more easily and understand English grammar better, I think it does. Now I understand why we say things such as 'who' and 'whom', as does everyone in my Latin class. Also, learning Latin has helped me more accurately guess the meanings of words from French (the other language I am studying), but I would not say that this has made a vast difference to my ability to learn the language.

[A]

The classical languages of Latin and Greek do provide interesting and stimulating learning, but it the culture, the literature, the philosophy and the lifestyles of the ancient civilisations that really enhance our studies. I study both classical languages and the teaching, at school level, predominantly focuses on grammer and syntax...Plato and Sacrotes - Virgil and Tactitus. These are the real gems that should be explored.

[Iazik]

I studied Latin up to GCSE level and then studied sciences at A level and beyond.

Knowledge and practice of the underlying Latin grammar allowed me to master a difficult Slavic language with relative ease later in adult life.

[Brennus]

I have read the responses to the 'Times article on Latin, which contain many cogent arguments.

However, we do Latin a serious disservice to relate it only to classical times or to infer it is "dead". This discredits famous post-classical British Latin authors including Bede, More, Milton, Buchanan, Newton and present-day Latin writers and speakers (about which see: www.alcuinus.net).

Someone has queried who Mary Beard is addressing with the question "Why do you learn Latin?" It is from the unadorned, hard-nosed, down-to-earth replies to this question from our present customers that we can hope to find some of the answers to attract further customers, as well as to persuade the otherwise ignorant people in authority that there in Latin learning lies some profit.

Examples of what I have in mind, which might offend the more idealist in our numbers, are:
Advertising manager: "Classics graduates are probably better than any other disciplines; they think the pants off issues", and
Ross Leckie: John Paul Getty employed only Latinists to manage his oil empire, 'because they sell more oil'"
We must speak their language, however barbarous, for them to listen.

[Susan]

One of my professors told us that one of his professors (if you'll follow me) had speculated that Latin ceased to be taught widely once schools became co-educational: one property of Latin is that it can be taught through beatings and educators were uneasy about beating girls. I myself am largely self-taught.

[Peter Athey]

We mustn't forget that although great emphasis is put on the classics when referring to Latin, it was the international Lingua Franca of Science right up to the 19th century. Newton wrote his Principia in Latin and this allowed it to be understood and disseminated throughout the western world, much to the benefit of Global science in general and England's scientific reputation in particular.

Here is the first paragraph of the presentation to this earthshaking work that I have taken from the main Principia website:

Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy

The birth of the Principia may be traced back to a discussion in 1684 at the Royal Society. Astronomer Edmund Halley and architect Sir Christopher Wren suspected that there was an inverse square relation governing celestial motions based on Kepler's Third Law of elliptical orbits, but no one could prove it. They brought the question before Newton's arch rival Robert Hooke, who claimed that he could prove the inverse square law and all three of Kepler's laws. His claim was met with scepticism, and Wren offered a forty-shilling book as a prize for the correct proof within a two-month limit. Hooke failed to produce the calculation, and Halley travelled to Cambridge to ask for Newton's opinion. Newton responded with a typical lack of interest in work that he had already completed, that he had already solved the problem years before. He could not find the calculation among his papers and promised to send Halley a proof. Halley, suspecting the same bogus claim he had received from Hooke, left frustrated and returned to London. Three months later he received a nine page treatise from Newton, written in Latin, De Motu Corporum, or On the Motions of Bodies in Orbit. In it, Newton offers the correct proof of Kepler's laws in terms of an inverse square law of gravitation and his three laws of motion. Halley suggested publication, but Newton, reluctant to appear in print, refused. At Halley's insistence, Newton finally began writing and, with typical thoroughness, worked for 18 months revising and rewriting the short paper until it grew into three volumes. The Royal Society, having exhausted available funds on an extravagant edition of De Historia Piscium, or The History of Fishes, could not pay for the publication and so it was at Edmund Halley's expense that Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica was finally published.

So for those who think of latin as being nothing more than a irritant or irrelevance at school, the same could be said of virtually any other subject ... starting with history. The exception to this would of course be mathematics (and physics) both of which underpin everything of importance that happens in our universe. In my opinion, Latin just happens to be a mighty structuring tool for the brain that allows one to absorb all the other subjects with greater ease.

[Ralph Blumenau]

Mary Beard says you do NOT learn Latin because it helps with other languages. But it should teach one to write English more grammatically. Because Latin is such a strongly inflected language, in order to be able to read or write it, you have to learn concepts like cases, subjunctives, the difference between adverbs and adjectives, gerunds and gerundives etc. When I was at school some 70 years ago, we were taught both Latin grammar and English grammar: the English grammar was much easier to understand after first having had to master the grammatical concepts in Latin. Today not only is Latin hardly ever taught, but English grammar, too, is rarely taught formally, either, with the result that even some writers for The Times don't seem to know the difference between, for example, 'who' and 'whom'. Worse, there is the notion that writing grammatically correct English is elitist or pedantic and is not really important.

[Michael Gilmore]

Yes I thoroughly agree with your comments. Though I had to drop Latin and Greek for pure science in order to get a Veterinary Degree, I have maintained my knowledge (reenhanced by the Open University courses in both languages.)

Yes, you read it for pleasure, I don't translate it more than I translate my mother tongue. It's a feeling, which makes 'The Georgics' so magical, but look at Dryden's translation, fairly accurate but monotonous and lacking pentameters etc. very dull!
Dr. Mike Gilmore BA,BSc,BVetMed,MRCVS

[Katharine Edgar]

I'm perplexed as to why Mary Beard is so determined to fix on 'the' reason why you learn Latin - who is this 'you', anyway?
Reading ancient literature may indeed be pre-eminent in Latin learning at degree level (the level at which Mary teaches), but it is important to remember that people have enjoyed and benefited from learning the language at all levels (beginners', GCSE, A Level).

When I look back at my own experience of the subject, I seem to have run through various motivations. I was mad keen to start because as a precocious thirteen year old I was obsessed by sixteenth century history (the argument about the importance of Latin to Western culture stands here) but I ended up loving it at school because it was difficult, in an age of dumbed-down GCSEs, and felt (to my teenage self, at least) somehow subversive - dirty poems are OK in Latin?

At university I had the chance to appreciate the literature, but since then I've been more grateful for the kickstart it gave me in languages: when I came back to German, post-Classical education, all that horrendous grammar (never properly explained by the trendy GCSE modern language textbooks) was a doddle, and the precision you can achieve when you really know how to take apart a complex sentence stands you in good stead in any kind of argument. And I'm probably not uncommon among former Classics students today in not having picked up Horace for years but getting the odd kick out of the Latin bits in Harry Potter.

My point is not that these things, rather than ancient literature, are 'the point' of Latin learning, but that the point is something which varies between eras, between individuals, and even for the same individual at different times. Through history some people will have found it an entry into an exclusive club. Some will have found the composition of Latin odes an outlet for creativity. Others might even have dipped into the literature not for its own sake but for useful information on how to manage an empire.

Of course, as educators we find it useful to be able to justify our subjects in instrumentalist terms, something which is not only all about attracting students or answering government demands for relevance: perceiving a subject as 'for' something very specific might well give clarity and focus to the degree courses like those for which Mary Beard is responsible. But we don't have to buy into the idea that there is one great big essential point to the subject _in itself_.

[Monica]

"For that matter, I’m always amazed that moderns historians seem happy to work on figures such as Gladstone when they don’t know a word of the classical languages that were his daily bread and butter."

Actually, you'd be surprised how many professors in the English department (at my school, anyway, but I've heard of such in many other departments in the U.S.) have no clue when you point out a glaring Classical allusion in English literature. I've even had an incident with an otherwise brilliant professor (and I don't use "brilliant" lightly) who missed that Poe's "Mellonta Tauta" was, in fact, a title in Greek.

Some of them understand on a superficial level that the Classics were important to the authors they study, but they don't seem to truly comprehend what that means.

I mean, yes, Poe was probably being a pretentious prat when he titled his story "Mellonta Tauta," but that must have meant something to him when he wrote it anyway.

Certainly, you can study other aspects of English literature without knowing Latin and Greek, but I wonder how much people miss when they don't know these works of literature that have influenced European writers for centuries. Classical literature is a really big part of the context of most European authors. That's not something you should be able to brush aside easily.