Certainly it is much more valuable to teach kids language early on, beginning in primary school. Dual immersion schools seem to be very successful at teaching bilingualism. The problem is that in the US, the status quo is instead minimal classroom language education very late.
Arguably, you could say that about many bodies of knowledge as much as Latin. The question is really: What percentage of people take that mandatory one year minimum of high school language and really build it into something valuable? I think it's pretty low. And,
bad German < bad Latin < good Latin < good German
U.S. school systems generally are simply unwilling to invest the resources needed to get kids really bilingual.
That's fair. I think I agree with your ordering. Our language education really is abysmal. Only Spanish really has a good chance of catching on outside of the classroom since it is gaining prominence in American culture (in my observation).
I do think that if all language programs are bad at a school then bad-Spanish would still have a higher utility than bad-Latin.
Re:Esperanto is finding new life online
by jejones3141 on Saturday May 30, 2015 @03:23AM
(#9629383)
Knowing some of the changes Latin went through on its way to Spanish helped me at least once. I would use (inflict?) my Spanish on the kind folks at a nearby Mexican restaurant, and when I ordered a fajita quesadilla, the server asked me if I wanted "hongo". I thought for a second, recalled the "f" -> "h" transition (e.g. ferrum -> hierro, facere -> hacer) and "u" to "o"... aha! fungus! Why yes, I do want mushrooms on my fajita quesadilla.
There's this common argument that prescribes utility to studying Latin via the value you gain by understanding biological, legal, and religious terminology.
I think that the net utility that you gain through this mechanism is approximately zero. Or rather, the net utility over other, more direct methods of acquiring this knowledge is zero. I think you could gain the requisite understanding of Latin to gain 99% of this utility in a few weeks of study, and that if understanding these roots is so important it should be material in our English classes, not in a long-term study of the Latin language itself.
Besides the "it helps you to know roots" argument, the study of a language gains utility largely in being able to speak the language, make do when traveling to places where the language is spoken, or consume the literature and media in the language. Moreover, the utility you gain from the language increases exponentially - a year of (half-assed, high-school-level) study is pretty useless, but after a few years of it, especially with higher (college-level?) standards, it's immensely useful because it opens you up to whole new worlds.
I think the best argument for teaching languages in high school is that this exponential growth starts earlier and is more likely to ever happen (especially for people who don't go to college or don't study languages there) if we start earlier.
Granted, there's utility gained from appreciating the culture of the language even as you learn the beginnings of it in high school, but I think that's dwarfed by the long-term potential for useful bilingualism and having the ability to more more easily experience new cultures.
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also, anecdotally, my bad Latin has given me essentially 0 utility in my entire life since high school. Perhaps I got a few novelty realizations here and there, like identifying that "tractor" came from "trahere" and "et" means "and" in "et cetera", but those are trivial. Maybe my experience was unusual and others gained more from it. Also, admittedly, I can't really quantify or remember whether it improved my SAT scores or whatnot, but my overall assessment is that my Latin study was negligible.