Languages

So I take Latin in school, and the kids who take Latin, including myself, always have the same argument with the kids who take Spanish. Which language is better? There are the arguments about the teachers and the workload, but when you boil it down, the real question is which language is a better language itself. 

Of course, being a Latin student, I am slightly biased to think that Latin is better than Spanish. But when I force myself to think from the perspective of a Spanish speaker, I could see the arguments that could (and have) been made. 

Obviously, the most noticeable case in which I have heard why “Latin sucks” is that Latin is (supposedly) a dead language. In some senses of the term, yes, Latin is a dead language because it is not fluently spoken by any group of people anywhere in the world. But really, Latin is even more alive than Spanish, so to speak. Anyone in the world that speaks English, or even any of the romantic languages at all, is actually speaking languages that come from Latin, and sometimes, with phrases like “i.e.” or “e.g.,” they’re in fact speaking abbreviated forms of Latin. So really, Latin is everywhere (not to mention it helps with the SATs), and you see remnants of Latin in English all the time, even if you don’t know that’s what it is. 

Over all, despite my possible bias, I think that Latin is better than Spanish. Just some food for thought.

Love, Holly