By Eric Rogness

Latin was the language spoken by the ancient Romans two thousand years ago. Why, then, study it today? Because Latin is the key to many aspects of the modern world. It helps us:

• to understand more English words and spell them correctly; 
• to succeed in many careers involving technical language;
• to learn French, Italian, and Spanish; 
• to find out about the origins of our civilization; 
• and to make more sense of the world today.

The Key to English Recent studies in Britain and America have confirmed that a knowledge of Latin dramatically improves pupils' range of vocabulary, accuracy of spelling, clarity of expression... in other words, their language. This is hardly surprising when you consider that over 50% of common English words come from Latin.

The Key to Modern Languages Latin is sometimes referred to as a "dead" language, but it would be more accurate to say that it has evolved into the modern languages of France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Latin America.

The Key to the Professions It is well known that Latin expressions are still used in Medicine and the Law, but its influence is in fact much wider. We have taken thousands of new, specialized words from Latin (or Greek) to name and describe the inventions of our industrial society. Learning Latin helps us to make sense of the terminology of science and technology. Indeed, in the United States there is alarm that many people fail to make progress in their careers because they are literally lost for words! Crash courses in Latin have now been introduced to remedy the weakness.