The Case for Latin at Central

By Matthew Perault '26

Source for photo above: Shutterstock

Have you ever wanted to become a Latin scholar and know the root of all Romance languages?

If you answered in the Raider News poll, chances are you have not.

According to students at Central Catholic, about 70% of them do not think it is necessary and would not choose to take it, even though 60% of students believe it has many benefits, and 40% of the poll takers say that the benefit most applicable to them is mastering other languages derived from Latin, such as Spanish and French.

The Raider Review Latin Survey: Applicable Benefits

According to The Sompting Abbots blog, benefits of learning Latin include:

• better understanding of English and other Romance languages,
• increased standardized test scores, and
• preparation for careers in science, medicine, or law.

With that many skills and well-paying, respected jobs on the radar, it should be a no brainer to teach Latin in schools.

But, there are reasons Latin isn’t taught in every school.

While learning it is a cool flex, it is spoken as a primary language in only one country, Vatican City, and outside of Vatican City is primarily only used for the Catholic masses. Latin mainly died with the fall of the Roman Empire, as Romance languages evolved such as French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, and Portuguese.

So should Latin be considered for a class in school? Based on the polls and the research, the consensus of the students is no, breaking the hearts of Latin teachers the world over.

However, around 20% of Central students would take it if given the chance.

Around 260 students would take Latin over other offered languages, which is a significant percentage of the Central population. Since so many students show interest in Latin, perhaps Central should consider adding it as a language in the curriculum.

Fun facts about Latin

• Harry Potter is full of it. Lots of spells from the books and movies are Latin words that, when translated to English, mean things that involve the results of the spell. For example Expelliarmus is translated to “I disarm you.” 
• Mark Zuckerberg states that Latin is one of the keys to his success. 
• Latin is the official language of the Catholic Church.
• During the Roman Empire there were two types of Latin language, Classical Latin for those who could afford it, and Vulgar Latin, for regular Roman citizens and inhabitants of conquered lands.
• Latin had seven different cases for nouns, that would appear based on how the noun was used. The cases were called the nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, vocative and locative cases.