"As of February 2007, I broadened my horizons from Student of Life to Student of Living Latin. This was a culmination of a niggling desire that had been working its way up my metaphorical spine since way back at the end of 1987 and into early 1988. If I was to become a master of another tongue, I wanted it to be Latin. But I had to wait another 20 years before I reached the right state of educational development and financial capability to make this nascent dream a reality. In fact, until those factors aligned, I'm not even sure I realized how much the goal had remained with me.

     "Those who know me are well-aware that I tend to be somewhat eccentric in my interests and always fascinated by words. But even still, the reaction to my choice to learn Latin was generally one of "Why Latin?" It was deemed a waste of time, because this elegant ancestor language has long been relegated to the status "dead language." My colleagues and social contacts insistently pushed me to pursue a more "useful" language, which basically meant Spanish. But Spanish, no pun intended, just didn't speak to me, nor, for that matter, did any particular other language that still has native users. Why? I gave a great deal of thought to that question and I decided to put those thoughts into cogent form in this essay. In it, I will debunk the idea of Latin as a dead language, and I'll show that there is more to being "useful" than just being able to ask for extra butter on my pancakes when I eat in a foreign country.

     So here we go. Six good reasons to learn Latin:

Reason #1: A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Lose.

     There is no absolute protection from physical and mental health problems that develop as a function of age. There are some maladies whose possibility is hardwired into our genetics and whose manifestation is geared to the laws of probability. Yes, it is entirely possible to live a virtuous and healthy lifestyle and still later be afflicted with the same deteriorative health condition as a debauch hedonist who lives a life of self indulgence. But life is about probabilities, not certainties, and I must believe that a more often than not, living better means keeping my health for longer.

     Dementia is a condition that runs in my genetic line. One of the ways that recent research has shown for staving off this horrible condition, or at least minimizing its impact, is to keep one's neurons exercised and challenged. Crossword puzzles, brain teasers and Sudoku are some of the strategies identified in the literature. But those activities just aren't fun for me. I like words, not just pieces of words or abstract numbers with no immediate artistic, philosophical or cultural context. Ergo, in my third decade, I chose to master a second language instead.

     Certainly one could argue that learning any language could offer the health benefit, and that choosing a more "useful" language would still be preferable. Ergo, we go to the rest of my reasons for choosing Latin specifically.

Reason #2: Beauty, the Beholder and so on.

     Is a harpsichord "outdated?" What about theatrical productions? Classical music? Calligraphy?

     Unless one is being facetious or antagonistic, the general response would be "no." Despite the advent of the piano, the movie cinema, electronic sound and more widespread use of computer keyboards, no one can realistically say that the predecessors of each of these phenomena have lost their appeal or their right to exist.

     Why?

     Because they remain aesthetic. They still retain some sense of artistic beauty that can be appreciated, even if that appreciation has gone "underground" to a minority of people. Under the right circumstances, the more esoteric harpsichord still has an elegant sound, while live theater has an intensity that is still respected today, "classical training" in music will often bring awe in even the most jaded non-academic types and most of us would turn our noses up at a laser-printed wedding invitation if offered the choice of one in a calligraphic hand.

     Latin is a beautiful language. In its own way, it can capture one's artistic appreciation as much as French, Spanish or Italian. Why then, will the same person who can appreciate archaic instruments, theater, classical concertos and calligraphy still shake their head and declare a beautiful language "dead?" I like listening to it and I like speaking it.

Reason #3: History, Culture and Context.

     In addition to being beautiful, Latin has a longer history than almost any other Western language. Despite the many changes it has undergone, as well as the distinction between Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin, as a whole, it has some of the oldest roots of European history, second to only a handful of predecessors (such as the Indo-European and Greek tongues). It touches every field from music to theology, to religion to academics to law. Through it, one gets not only a cross section of so many areas of human experience, but also a longitudinal one; a window into time, so to speak, and a way to understand how people of long ago lived and possibly thought. Few other "living" languages offer opportunity for such a breadth and depth of learning.

Reason #4: The Spirit of Our Ancestor.

     Latin is certainly not the oldest language in the world, but it is still an ancestor or grandparent language to the host of languages we now call the Romance Languages. Many of these languages retain enough continuity with their venerable ancestor that native speakers of two different branches can actually communicate reasonably well with no fluent training in each other's tongues! Ergo, to know Latin is to have at least some grasp into all of these other languages. If you have the root, it becomes easier to understand the shape and trajectory of the tree.

     I was a bit greedy in this respect. You see, I'm of the opinion that to learn the language of a society, one has to have some vested love or respect specifically for that society and its culture. I didn't have that sort of specific love and respect...so I decided to give my regard to them all!

Reason #5: Know Thyself and How Thy Speaketh.

     Studying any other language forces one to think about grammar rules and word choices in a way that has become so familiar in their own language that they quite overlook it. It has become automatic, taken for granted. In keeping with Socrates' admonition that the unexamined life is not worth living, I believe that learning Latin has given me a chance to examine my use of English with new eyes of wonder. Who considers, for example, that English establishes most of its relationships between nouns depicted through spatial arrangement? That is, where something appears in the sentence is often the determinate of how it relates to other concepts in that sentence. But in Latin, word order is actually of secondary importance. Rather, a chain of affixes to nouns and verbs (a process known as declension in the former and conjugation in the later), establishes words relationships for each other.

     An examination of structure isn't the only benefit to studying specifically Latin; there is content to consider. Most of us are not aware that 60% of English words are stolen from Latin. For that reason, we get words in Latin that appear exotic, yet intimately familiar. We understand our own language's history as much as that of the Romance languages.

Reason #6: Because It's Plain ol' Fun, Dammit!

     The title says it all. Latin is just a fun language to speak! It has a neat lilting cadence that just feels exotic and tickly on the tongue, plus there is a certain exhilirating audacity to trying to master the language of such figures as Cicero and Seneca. Unfortunately, it is this last reason that I simply cannot defend beyond that I find a joy in it. I may as well attempt to persuade someone to start enjoying spicy food when they don't enjoy it already. But in the end, this reason is still one of the most salient ones for my decision to choose a venerable language with more history than all of its children combined. Vested in a Student of Life such as myself, one who seeks to preserve and maintain ideas we believe are far from past their prime, the Latin language is vibrant enough that it will never be considered "dead."