Latin. Call it pretentious. Call it confusing. But don’t call it dead.
The original language of pre-exam sweats appeared headed for the back of the stacks just a few years ago, disappearing like the Roman Empire of Virgil’s day. If students were going to study languages, the thinking went, why would they choose one that no one speaks? But the word from Academia is that Latin lives, again. This time around, the Classics department is a bit harder to classify. Don’t expect the stooped, snarling masters of memorization who once prowled the prep school common room in their patched tweed jackets.
Students today, we’re told, are embracing Latin, happily turning the pages of the Aeneid. But today’s Latin isn’t what it used to be. It’s been to the spa. It’s had a makeover. It’s alive.
(Hosted by Dick Gordon)
Guests:
Tom Sienkewicz, Minnie Billings Capron Professor of Classics at Monmouth College and Chair of the Committee for the Promotion of Latin
Peter Cohee, Classics Department Program Director at Boston Latin School
and Barbara Bell, creator of Minimus, a Latin curriculum for grade school children.