Why is it important to learn Latin

Learning Latin may not seem like an important or interesting choice at first, especially in today’s world where Latin is even considered a dead language by some. The truth is that Latin is an excellent base for learning other languages and if one is familiar with Latin, he/she is likely to learn another language like Italian or Spanish much more quickly and easily. In fact, Latin is a good base to sharpen your English grammar skills as both the languages share common rules of grammar. Latin grammar is much harder to master than the English grammar and that naturally makes a student of Latin be more accurate while writing in English than he would otherwise be. A person, who knows the Latin language well, is more likely to decipher the meaning of an unknown word as he/she is already aware of the roots and the prefixes from studying Latin. Apart from raising the levels of one’s writing in English, Latin also may be an ideal subject to take up even for students of Law or Medicine because both Law books and the books of anatomy contain numerous Latin terms. The scientific names for most living beings are also termed in Latin, thus it is considered to be a universal language among scientists and doctors around the world.

Latin is perhaps of the most use to the students of religion because it is during the study of Christianity that one’s knowledge in Latin is tested the most. The ancient texts like the Latin Vulgate used to be written only in Latin, therefore in order to read these important parts of the religious history, learning Latin is quite important. The Catholic Churches especially are still dependent on Latin to perform a lot of their Church services, so it would be ideal if a person knew the what he is reciting. Overall, Latin is important to learn because it creates the basic grammatical structure for languages like English, Spanish and Italian, but it also is required at times to read ancient texts, especially religious ones. Archeologists may also find use for Latin because they deal with ancient artifacts and manuscripts that were written in Latin all the time.