I live among the dead. Or really, we all do.
Every night, from the day I was born until nearly twelve years later, my father and I had a routine. After playing me the fiddle (always ending with “Danny Boy” and “Ashokan Farewell”, which I still refer to fondly as “the Night-Night song”), Dad would bring me upstairs to sit next to him as he told me a story. Each night was different: sometimes we would tell a story about our day, or something from our own past. Sometimes he would explain how the world worked. To my young mind, I had every faith he knew Everything. But my favorite stories, the ones I would ask for over and over, were not recent. They weren’t new, or about someone still alive. They were the stories passed down through the generations, parent to child, stretching back, back to before anyone can remember.
These stories, myths, and legends were the foundation of my childhood. Want to play make-believe with me? I am the Monkey King, Sun Wukong, here to slay the mighty demons! Want to read a book? My trusty D’Aulaires Book of Norse Myths was a likely candidate. Why did I become vegetarian? It was after a particular passage in Ovid’s Metamorphosis–if you’ve read it, you know the one. As I got older, my interests in mythology only grew. But as my fascination with mythology flourished, so too did my love for all literature, and by extent, language.
How else was I to understand what my favorite authors and poets were truly trying to convey? Each version of the Odyssey I got my hands on seemed like a completely different book, though it was advertised as being the same. It only followed that something was lost in translation.
For an example, I remember seeing a meme somewhere in the vast expanses of the Internet that read somewhere along the lines of, “Synonyms are weird because if you invite someone to your cottage in the forest that just sounds nice and cozy, but if I invite you to my cabin in the woods you’re going to die.” At the time, I laughed and set it aside, just another little grammar joke in my repertoire. I didn’t think much of it, until the next time I sat down with a copy of some old musty book or another and thought to myself, “Huh, I wonder if any of this book is translated with the wrong connotations? If so, wouldn’t I be getting a completely different message than the one intended by the author? What if he’s just telling me about a cute cottage in the forest, and I think there’s going to be murder involved–or worse, vice versa?”
Clearly, the next logical step to avoid confusion would be to learn as many languages as possible, so as to read each of my favorite texts in their original tongue.
I started with Latin. This was due to the easy accessibility of the course, as well as the absolute joy that was my first Latin teacher, whom we called Magistra. It was under her tutelage that my love for languages blossomed, and my ambitions only grew. I was eleven when she mentioned offhandedly during class that those students who wished to learn Attic Greek from her must have completed Latin II and be enrolled in Latin III. My next objective was secured.
Poor Magistra was surprised, on the first day of Latin III (almost three years after her innocent comment) when the first thing I asked her was not, “Hodie quid agitabimus?” (What will we be doing today?) but instead, “Can I take Greek now, please??”
Having pestered enough of my friends into starting an independent study (not that they were interested in actually studying), I finally had Greek within my grasp. After only a few weeks, I was one of only two students still regularly coming to meetings, and yet I couldn’t be happier. I was learning Greek, the language of Sappho, of Ovid, of Homer and much of the New Testament! Who wouldn’t be thrilled? (Don’t answer that.)
Due to unfortunate timing, my foray into the Greek language was waylaid by the arrival of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Though I tried to keep up with it, the truth was that the amount of stress and other coursework I was shouldering left little time or motivation for an independent study I didn’t need to graduate. I managed to cram Latin in, however, and (for reasons unknown) introduced French to the picture as well. French… was not my favorite. I wanted to read Descartes and Rousseau in French, though why I ever thought that was a good idea is beyond me. I do plan to take two more years, however, probably due to my fatal flaws: stubbornness and spite.
As for the languages I’ve studied without formal instruction, I hesitate to count them. I’ve spent a little time trying to learn traditional Chinese characters in order to write to my Grandmother (whose native language is Cantonese). I’ve attempted to learn phrases in German, Swiss German, Japanese, and Italian for traveling purposes, but those, I think, are just common courtesy and self-preservation–I’d rather not be trapped in a foreign country without being able to ask where the bathroom is, or being able to order food. I’ve continued being tutored in Latin and Greek, and will be taking every chance offered to keep up these skills.
In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit to having learned bits and pieces of Klingon (wo’ batlhvaD!) and Vulcan (dif-tor heh smusma). Despite being conlangs (constructed languages), and Vulcan not even being fully developed, I have found myself falling into the clutches of artificial languages. My friend and I would share our made-up alphabets growing up, which we would use to write letters back and forth. Though we started as young as six or seven, we do occasionally pull one out when bored, or when one of us wants to challenge the other with a code. In my several attempts to jump into worldbuilding and novel writing, one of my favorite parts is language construction– figuring out how geography, available goods, trade, travel, religion, and values factor into a language’s creation and usage.
As of right now, I am going into a classics and philosophy major, with the goal of becoming a teacher of languages and literature. Although I’ve taken several languages, and am interested in several more, my true passion is the ones that are gone, perished, nothing but a trace of times long past. But why? What is the purpose of teaching students a language no one speaks? I don’t imagine there are enough other young, budding linguists and nerds to fill all the classes I would want to teach, on Old English and Attic Greek, Latin and Roman history, ancient philosophy and the lives of the Great Thinkers. Maybe in a college course, but that’s not what I want. I want to get children and high schoolers as excited about this as I am.
So how should I excite them? What could I possibly say that would be compelling enough to convince teenagers to put their phones down and pick up a book–in a dead language?
I can only tell the truth.
Each sentence on this page, each word, each letter, is a precious glimpse at the lives of those who came before us. There is no other replication of this– art is up for so much interpretation, music changes as it’s passed down, plays depend on the vision of the director and performers. A book, a language no longer spoken, is a moment in time untouched by biases and agendas outside those of the original author. To read a book in the original language is to see through a window into that time, that place, through the eyes of someone long gone.
It isn’t a question of if it’s “useful” or “pointless,” rather a question of if you’re willing to put in the effort. It’ll be worth it–but are you willing to try?
One of the most disheartening things about the modern education system is the emphasis on immediate “usefulness.” Students predisposed to the scientific or mathematical sides of education are encouraged to take as many STEM classes as possible, at the expense of their humanities schooling. While the sciences are important for a truly well-rounded education, it is not only upsetting to skip over the humanities, but detrimental to the growth of the mind. The humanities are called ‘humanities’ for a reason–what are they but a way to connect to our shared humanity?
By reading a book, I am listening to the voice of the author. By writing a book, I am giving a voice to the reader. By learning a history, I am putting myself in the past. By learning a social science, I am becoming familiar with the parts of mankind that make me human. To learn of and from humanity is to become familiar with my own. Everyone has a story, and as fellow humans it is up to us to listen for them. Choosing to read Catullus in Latin, or Beowulf in Old English, or Gilgamesh in Sumerian Cuneiform, learning these stories, sharing them and keeping them alive, creating your own, I am upholding the traditions that make me human. I am making myself human.
Learning a dead language isn’t about whether or not you’ll need Attic Greek after becoming a math teacher. Though being able to read Euclid’s Elements is a definite draw, the main reason to take Greek or Latin or Old English is to be connected to humanity– to not just learn from our past, but learn about ourselves in the process.
When people ask why I have studied Latin for six years and Attic Greek for three, why I’ve made it a life goal to learn Old English and Old French, why I study Cantonese despite the prevalence of Mandarin and simplified characters, I just smile. “Why wouldn’t I?” I want to ask. “These are my ancestors, my predecessors. Why wouldn’t I want to understand?”