Boris calls for a return to teaching latin

[jake-the-peg]

http://news.bbc.co.uk...nd/london/8571662.stm

Boris says it's absurd to leave Latin out of the curricilum.

Is he right? Did you study and Love Latin?Is it any use? or is he absurdly out of touch?

Any chance Cameron will adopt it as an election pledge?

[rockyracoon]

Is there any room in the curriculum for it, so many more lessons are put upon schools now, how would they cope. Unless it was for a choice lesson in the options.

[McMouse]

Herr craft .............sounds like a Fokker.

[naomi24]

I agree with Boris. I still find it useful at times.

[youngmafbog]

I had a private education but did not learn latin, one of my daughters on the otherhand had a grammer education and did. Elitist ? Chew on that lefites

[LoftyLottie]

Hi Yoga. Back took a turn for the worse, but seems to be a bit better again for the last few days. Going to have scans, etc. as soon as I get appointment. Meanwhile just continuing with physio. Thanks for asking.

xxx

With thanks to Jake for letting Yoga and I chat, even though it wasn't in Latin!

[jake-the-peg]

I must admit it would be nice if all educated people still spoke Latin to give us a common language in the way that Arabic is in the muslim world.

But English is getting that way.

Maybe I'll reconsider its use when I see the following Job advert

Wanted Senior Tory politician for economics role
Must speak fluent latin
Greek an advantage
(Maths optional)

[mrs_nordling]

Well I did latin at school, as well as French and German, and out of the three latin has been the most use to me over the last 30 years, as a lot of words derive from latin, so it helps with vocabulary..... can't say I loved studying it at school though, there were so many tenses!

[mike11111]

Thanks for the full script. It doesn't become any less funny with age. I think the point is that Latin is not to be learnt as a medium of communication in the present (that is restricted to the Vatican), but more as a means of understanding the past, and thereby the present. Until at least the 18th century all learned works published in the Western world were written in Latin, so that they could be understood by scholars unfamiliar with the author's own tongue (it was the lingua franca of the intelligentsia). Newton published in Latin, to name but one. Without an understanding of the classics true scholarship would wither and die.

[mike11111]

Latin has far fewer verb forms than English. It's only because we are native speakers that we fail to recognise the complexity of our own language.

[jake-the-peg]

I find it strange that people think Latin more use than French and site Rnglish derived from Latin

http://upload.wikimed..._English_PieChart.svg

Would make it a pretty even match

And I've yet to an equivilent of this for Latin

http://www.hobotravel...honie-2006-712973.jpg

Maybe it would just show the Vatican