Last month, while waiting in the dentist's office to have a crown put on a
tooth, I read the following article in Time:
http://www.time.com/time/education/article/0,8599,90457,00.html

Its premise is that children learn more about the English language by studying
Latin.
An excerpt:

              " Here lies one of the more counterintuitive developments of the
              standardized-testing movement: Though some critics complain that
              teachers are forced to dumb down their lessons and "teach to the
test,"
              some schools are offering more challenging course work as a way of

              engaging students. In the past three years, scores of elementary
              schools in high-stakes testing states such as Texas, Virginia and
              Massachusetts have added Latin programs. Says Allen Griffith, a
              member of the Fairfax City school board: "If we're trying to
improve
              English skills, teaching Latin is an awfully effective, proved
method."   "

Interesting...

Mark Boyd wrote:

> She's learning Latin to learn English.  Because (in my opinion) her
> elementary school is doing a poor job of teaching her English, I've decided
> to teach her Latin (while growing up I found I learned more about English in
> my Spanish classes than in my English class) and sure enough, she's learned
> more about English sentence structure in two weeks of Latin at home than she
> has in three years of English at school.
>
> And to reiterate what others have already said:  Spanish and Mexican came
> from the same root language, but they are very definitely different
> dialects.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Doug Becker [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 11:35 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] ot: Programming languages
>
> >>> Mark Boyd <[log in to unmask]> 01/26 11:08 AM >>>
> >>Could you imagine a classic studies department recommending that a student
> who could speak and write Greek and Latin should take up Spanish?
>
> >Absolutely.  My third grade daughter is currently learning Latin.  When
> she's proficient in that one, She'll move on to Italian, Spanish, Mexican,
> French and then Greek.
> ________________________________________________
> You know, that's just great--more power to people who learn all these
> different languages at an early age, as long as they have a talent for it.
>
> My concern is that, we in the United States, learn to speak English or
> American or whatever you want to call it.
>
> A few years back, I was amused by an ad in "The Computer Shopper" which
> declared proudly:
>
> "Our people speak English as a first language!".
>
> Remembering the survey, reported on MSNBC, that the average 14 year old in
> 1950 had a vocabulary of 25,000 words and today's 14 year old has a
> vocabulary of only 10,000 words, isn't it possible that if we don't start
> putting some effort into learning our own language, might we not be in
> danger of having it go the way of Latin, but perhaps without the persistence
> Latin has had because of its association with Science and Medicine?
>
> Imagine: English--a dead language... Except in England!
>
> Sort of like MARK IV. [Oh, sure, the computer language of choice is
> PowerBuilder!]

--
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  John MacLerran
  IT Systems Analyst                       email:   [log in to unmask]
  Idaho State University                             V(208) 282-2954
  http://www.isu.edu/~macljohn                       F(208) 282-3673
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