Is Latin a waste of time?

Addendum,

What: =Old English hwæt. Ultimately from an Indo-European word that also produced Latin 'quot'

You can't count "indirect Latin words". They didn't come from Latin.

<<You can't count "indirect Latin words". They didn't come from Latin.>>

Thank you. Everything you said, Aldvs, was such a stretch, it's not funny. "What" is of Latin origin because it came from Indo-European which also spawned the Latin "quot"? You are too funny. Apparently, all Indo-European languages are Romance then. Or maybe we have to discount things coming from Latin in all languages, since they all ultimately came from Indo-European first...

However, even with your little reach for 18 "Latinate" words, that paragraph is still not 50-60% Latin. If I break up words too, such as you did, there are still at least 25 words left (by your count) of non-Latin orgin. By my count, there a hell of a lot more words of non-Latin origin.

Don't be so desperate to be right, that you have to stoop to this. I challenged your statement, spelled out my meaning, and showed that you were wrong. You could just admit that you thought I meant all English vocabulary - as in all the words in the dictionary, many of which are of Latin origin. I could understand that, perhaps I was not clear enough in the first place.

However, we don't use most of them in ordinary speech. Our ordinary vocabulary is mostly Germanic - and yes, Indo-European was ALSO an ancestor of this.

Tiffany, why don't you try to speak without using latin origin words now on ? I'm sure everybody would love to see that.

And why would I want to do that? I am not denying the words of Latin origin in English. I tell it like it is though, and these words are not used as frequently in everyday speech as words of Germanic origin. Simple as that.

Here's the thing= If you're learning like 5 languages, then Latin will become useful. but if you're learning, lets say only spanish than it would not be useful.
I think it's useful

I think knowing latin makes you a more educated person, because it's almost rare to see people now, taking latin courses. Also it's amazing in being able to read old literature. Also knowing a dead ancient language is seen in people who are very knowlegeable, like the pope.

I think it's useful in rising your reputation, whatever that is.

"And why would I want to do that? I am not denying the words of Latin origin in English. I tell it like it is though, and these words are not used as frequently in everyday speech as words of Germanic origin. Simple as that. "

Just for fun and to see if what you say is true, of course assuming that you know which ones they are, do you ?

Since I never said that anyone could speak without using words of Latin origin, I fail to see what you're trying to get at. Either clarify, or read my post again. You've obviously missed something somewhere.

What type of latin do they teach in schools? classical or vulgar?

There was a survey, showing 100 most commonly used words in English. All of them are of Anglo-Saxon origin. If we count 1,000 most commonly used words, then about 830 of which are of Anglo-Saxon origin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language#Word_origins

So, what Tiffany was trying to explain, the speakers tend to prefer to use Anglo-Saxon (or Germanic at least) in their everyday speaking. I would agree with her since oftentimes I always find myself using more Anglo-Saxon/Germanic words over Latin words.


(To prove my case: 60 words of 85 are Anglo-Saxon words = 70%)

"Latin" ("Classical Latin" or "Vulgar Latin"), one of the dead languages, is now only used on "Catholicism" or spoken in "Vatican city", and in modern times, the Romance languages, such as Italian, Spanish, French, and Romanian, have completely replaced "Latin" almost in all respects, except for the only fields of Western medicine, historical literature, or Catholicism.
If a person is neither a doctor, nor a historian, nor a Catholic, then what does he try to learn "Latin" for? Just like "Classical Greek", they're already both dead. But for a Protestant, it would be of some help to learn "Koine Greek" , because the "New Testament" was just written in "Koine Greek".

In brief, you could benefit little from learning difficult "Latin" in modern ages.

Lol well first of all, the Catholic church does not conduct its services in Latin anymore, that's all gone now. However, the Church *is* an ancient one and many Church documents and books have been written in Latin, just like documents of any other kind during those times.

And all Christians (or at least Catholics and Protestants) use the same New Testament (or translations based on the same New Testament in Greek), so I would say its of little difference wether one is Protestant or not.

I personally think that taking a course in Latin is a waste of time. Like It's been said, you really only need to know the vocabulary. Modern Romance languages use only a portion of original Latin grammar, and even that has been slowly changed over time.

I would say the same for Greek, but to a much lesser extent.

If you want to learn a language, I recommend you focus on that language rather than taking Latin. Even if you do plan on learning many romance languages, I do not recommend taking Latin. You can use what you learned in THOSE languages as a reference to the language you're going to be learning next.

And Greek I think is just completely irrelevant.

Don't take Latin and Greek unless you're going to be a historian of some sort. I agree with ZhongGR, they're not very relevant in the modern world, regardless of how much I would like them to...

There is beautiful literature written in Latin - reason enough to learn Latin, is simply to be able to read it in the original.

You can listen to a lot of spoken Latin on the Latinum podcast http://latinum.mypodcast.com

Why learn Latin when you can learn Spanish and use it for great success?