Why Latin?

Latin is the mother tongue for over 50% of all English words, so the study of Latin greatly enhances one’s English vocabulary. Just one Latin word can be responsible for several English words. For example the Latin word porto (I carry) yields 10 English words: port, portal, porter, porch, airport, import, important, transport, export, report and portable – a pretty good investment.

Latin also helps students understand grammar. Our own way of labeling and analyzing English grammar evolved from the study of Latin grammar – all those “grammatical” words such as verb, noun, adjective, adverb – are all Latin words developed to understand Latin grammar!

Latin is also the mother tongue of the so-called “Romance languages” of Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Romanian. Latin makes up 90% of the words in these languages.

Student’s SAT and GRE (Graduate Record Exam) scores rise. In fact students scoring the highest on the verbal section of the GRE are Classic majors! For hard, statistical facts demonstrating the value of Latin study please visit the website of the National Committee for the Study of Latin and Greek (www.promotelatin.org).