The only ‘dead language’ taught at Dulaney High School (DHS) is Latin. Unlike Spanish, French and Chinese, which are currently used in other parts of the world, Latin is no longer spoken as a primary language.

Although generally no longer in use, Latin exposes many things about modern learning and how languages have become what they are today. 

“Latin was not just for the Ancient Romans; it’s threaded itself all the way to today and has taken all the history with it,” said Dawn Mitchell, DHS Latin teacher. 

All of the modern romance languages, including Spanish, French and English, stem from Latin. 

“Latin is already here. 60% of our vocabulary stems from Latin,” said Mitchell.

Because of this, vocabulary is one of the easiest aspects of learning Latin as an English speaker. Latin students pick up on these connections and use them to facilitate their Latin learning experience.

“Finding connections between Latin words and English words makes finding the meanings easy,” said AP Latin 5 student Chris Williams.

Brady Patterson, another AP Latin 5 student, also recognized these connections by completing etymology assignments, where students have to find derivatives from Latin to English.

Benefits of learning Latin are often prevalent across other school subjects.

“Learning Latin helps with harder English words, which is why they say Latin learners do better on the SAT,” said Mitchell.

Williams finds that Latin doesn’t only help with English standardized tests but also in their other school subjects.

“It’s actually helped me in AP United States History  with all the enlightenment terms,” said Williams.

As for Patterson, Latin helps him in his English class.

“There’s a lot of English literary devices that we learn,” said Patterson.

Overall, learning Latin has significant benefits for its students and teachers, and students agree that it is a helpful world language to learn in high school.

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