<p>Your son should stick with Latin because top colleges want to see at three years of study in the same language. FWIW our sons' Latin teacher regularly trots out studies that Latin students do better on the CR section of the SAT. If he likes language study now he could add Greek. It would be something that's a bit unusual, but only if he likes the idea.</p>
<p>I'm one who thinks the study of modern languages is more useful - however both my kids only took/are taking Latin.</p>
<p>Both my daughters take Latin and Greek. In their school, Greek is a half-credit course that meets twice weekly.</p>
<p>I think Latin is more useful than Greek for students in any field -- not just classicists -- because it helps students understand the rules of grammar. In addition, there are two years of AP Latin in which the students learn to translate great works of Latin literature (one year of Vergil, a second year of the Latin poets such as Catallus and Ovid). Because there is a set AP curriculum schools know what goals they have to meet and students of Latin graduate with a strong foundation in Latin. </p>
<p>For most high schools, ancient Greek is relatively new and schools are just now working out their respective curricula. It is not clear to me that a student who studies Greek in high school will accomplish as much as a student who studies Latin -- at least, not until Greek programs have been in place for a few years and have been tried and tested. For this reason, I would recommend Greek as an accompaniment to Latin rather in lieu of Latin. If that is not possible, there is no reason why the student can't just take Greek in college. It is readily available on many college campuses; I have friends whose children are now taking Greek who had studied Latin in high school.</p>
<p>In addition, I think you need to find out what Greek is being offered at your son's school. It is my understanding that there are two kinds of ancient Greek -- Attic and Homeric and it is only with the latter that the student is prepared to translate works such as The Iliad.</p>
<p>What about finding out your son's actual preferences?</p>
<p>If he is at all interested in Greek, I'd consider encouraging him to find out a little more about it for himself.</p>
<p>For example:</p>
<p>No doubt there are many such resources available from his school and online.</p>
<p>I found learning the basics of Homeric Greek to be both beautiful and satisfying. His mileage may vary.</p>
<p>Having studied both languages for quite a few years, I would recommend mastering Latin first. It is not accidental that historically Latin has been taught before Greek. </p>
<p>Your question reminded me of Churchill's quip: "Naturally I am biased in favour of boys learning English; and then I would let the clever learn Latin as an honour and Greek as a treat. But the only thing I would whip them for is not knowing English. I would whip them hard for that.</p>
<p>OK, quareidfaciam, I'll take the bait: WHAT does your screenname mean? And don't let Churchill whip me; I'm good at English :)</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think Latin is more useful than Greek for students in any field -- not just classicists -- because it helps students understand the rules of grammar.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Okay, I have to jump in here because my college studies were in linguistics and various foreign languages, ancient and modern*. Each language has its own rules of grammar. Hardly any rules that are apparent to a high school student studying a particular language are universal. (Universal grammar rules, such as they are, are very abstract and little known even to most college-educated persons who majored in a language.) English, Latin, and Greek are from three distinct branches of the Indo-European language family. Both Latin and Greek have many grammatical features that don't fit English at all. Most of the grammatical terminology taught in schools in the English-speaking world best fits the problem of a Latin speaker learning Greek, because that was the original practical problem faced by western grammarians. (By contrast, traditional Sanskrit grammatical description, dealing with another Indo-European language, treats very different problems, and traditional Chinese grammatical description and traditional Semitic grammatical description treat issues that don't come up in Latin or Greek at all.) </p>
<p>Learning ANY other language is good for developing a sense of how wonderfully ordered--and how amazingly arbitrary--the grammatical rules of any language are. Studying linguistics is especially valuable for learning about features of language that were wholly ignored in traditional grammatical description, which in any one cultural area focused on too few issues with too few materials. A very readable book on linguistics that is still in print is Word Play by Peter Farb </p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Word-Play-What-Happens-People/dp/0679734082/%5B/url%5D">http://www.amazon.com/Word-Play-What-Happens-People/dp/0679734082/</a> </p>
<p>which I read for fun to my great learning benefit the summer before I started my college studies. Some parts of this book are laugh-out-loud funny, and almost all of it is thought-provoking about human speech behavior. </p>
<p>English grammar is far, far, far more complicated than the rudimentary, half-fitting rules one would learn by studying the different grammatical rules of Latin. The tour de force in modern books on English grammar is The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language edited by by Rodney D. Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum, </p>
<p><a href="http://www.cambridge.org/uk/linguistics/cgel/%5B/url%5D">http://www.cambridge.org/uk/linguistics/cgel/</a> </p>
<p>which amply serves to illustrate the huge number of grammatical rules of English known to any native speaker that have no counterpart in Latin or Greek. </p>
<p>If the issue is just studying a language available in American high schools to learn a better sense of English grammar, one might do well to study German, which like English is part of the Teutonic branch of the Indo-European language family, and thus has many features shared with English that neither language shares with Latin. But the high school student mentioned in this thread can make up his own mind, based on such local conditions as which teacher in his high school teaches which class, and which lessons appear to be the most fun. </p>
<ul>
<li>Basis of knowledge for statements above: I studied German beginning in elementary school (it was mandatory in my very unusual public school district in Minnesota), Russian in high school, continuing Russian in college but eventually majoring in Chinese (studying both the modern and the literary language), taking elective courses in Cantonese, various subjects in linguistics, reading German, Biblical Hebrew, Attic Greek, and English etymology. Overseas, I studied Japanese, Taiwanese, and Hakka with Mandarin-speaking instructors. I have self-studied a great variety of languages from multiple language families in varying degrees of depth, and worked for most of my early married life as a Chinese-English interpreter or language teacher. </li>
</ul>
<p>Good luck to the young man figuring out what to put on his high school schedule. My son would load up his schedule almost entirely with math and computer languages, including Malbolge, </p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malbolge%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malbolge</a> </p>
<p>if I would let him.</p>
<p>Google is your friend: </p>
<p><a href="http://blog.quareidfaciam.net/%5B/url%5D">http://blog.quareidfaciam.net/</a> </p>
<p>
[quote]
'Quare id faciam' is a bit I snagged, without much thought, from 2 lines of verse likely known to anyone who's had a little Latin in school. I borrowed it years ago, looking for a username no one else would want. — And it grew on me. Taken out of its context, it's altered: the tense blurs & its sense may allow, Why will I do it, or, Why will I make it? — suggestive and intertwining questions, as I take them.
[/quote]
</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bartleby.com/245/93.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.bartleby.com/245/93.html</a></p>
<p>Continue with Latin. You'll need to take several years of a single language, as has been noted. He can always take ancient Greek as a senior if he so chooses. There are lots of reasons to take Latin -</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Latin is the root of the romance languages. Mastering Latin makes learning those other languages much easier.</p></li>
<li><p>Latin, especially advanced Latin, will significantly raise his SAT scores.</p></li>
<li><p>If he is very interested in history, he may choose to major in it and go to grad school. Some fields, such as classics, medieval, and early modern require several languages upon application to the program. It's difficult to master three or four languages in college on top of the regular major requirements. Mastery of Latin in high school will make all of that go more smoothly.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>tokenadult, you know way too much.</p>
<p>What the more ignorant among us know is that, by tradition, not necessity, Latin is taught highly systematically, with tremendous emphasis on grammar. Ancient Greek, too, I think, although I never took it. Other languages -- modern ones, at least -- are taught (by tradition, not necessity) in a hooky-crooky jumbled way because of an emphasis on conversation. As a practical matter, Latin students learn much more grammar in their first couple of years than students of most other languages do, at least at the high school level. I took Latin for two years, and learned more grammar than I got in an entire education's worth of English (and this was in the old days when English grammar WAS taught), five years of Spanish, five of Hebrew, four of French, and a semester each of Catalan and Russian. Combined. Having a traditional Latin course helped me immensely with other languages, because I could just pretend they were Latin and figure out the system. (But I have no idea whether that works for any form of Chinese, since I've never tried. It obviously works really well for Romance languages.)</p>
<p>^^^Today's language instruction does emphasize ready conversation, but that was not the case in the ancient world when I took Russian and German in high school. We were buried in grammar. Spanish, which I also took in hs was conversational, even then. Stupid conversation, but conversation.</p>
<p>haha. JHS said what I was going to say but said it better.</p>
<p>So all that's left for me is, token adult: wow!</p>
<p>As coureur pointed out, Latin is a dead language. And that's why teachers of Latin can confidently proclaim "rules" of grammar that fit the limited corpus of texts that have survived via hand-copying from the ancient world (but even then with many exceptions to the rules). Latin teachers don't have to deal with native speakers of a language making up new idiomatic sentences that don't fit school rules.</p>
<p>You would think from what I wrote before that I am a Latin buff. I'm not, really. (My son is. He took it for five years and won his school's Latin prize twice.) I like Renaissance poetry (for which some Latin is very helpful) and post-1800 European literature. And Latin American hip-hop, and rai. I'm definitely a living-language fan. But I'm glad I took Laint in middle school.</p>
<p>I was a Comp Lit major. French and Italian. Took one year of Latin in college. Found Latin literature, i.e. Aeneid etc. to be way more boring in translation than Greek literature. I first read the Illiad in a kid's translation when I was 10 or 11 and never forgot it. Wished I could have read it in Greek.</p>
<p>When we say, more useful, the question is, "Useful for what?"</p>
<p>Useful for meeting college admissions requirements - ask your GC
Useful for learning systematic grammar - OK maybe Latin
Useful for reading moving literature from over 2000 years ago - I say Greek
Useful for impressing people that you must be smart - Again, I say Greek, just for the weirdness factor:)</p>
<p>At the end of the day, if your GC says it's OK for colleges that he switched, just let the kid decide....I mean, maybe there are cuter girls in the Honors Greek?</p>
<p>Alu-</p>
<p>You said EXACTLY what my kiddos said (wrote about it somewhere in all those other posts) about Greek vs. Latin:</p>
<p>"Useful for reading moving literature from over 2000 years ago - I say Greek"</p>
<p>As far as kiddos thinking about the "usefulness" of either, honestly they didn't even consider it. They just were so excited! Granted they get just as excited about hot chocolate-chip cookies.........</p>
<p>Both son and daughter and sometimes their not as excitable/enthusiastic/sponge-like siblings act as though they have discovered the world's best treasure chest, each and every semester of college. After watching son, the college sophomore save up to buy some of the old used books at his college bookstore (they just opened a new bookstore at a different location and needed to sell-off a bunch to move them) and show me his "treasure trove" made me realize how he chose so wisely for his school.</p>
<p>He had always been such a math/science guy (MIT/CalTech his 1st choice) and when he was accepted to both and turned them down for his current school I was worried. But he knew and he loves his ability to take some (what I consider) "out there" classes. Greek being an "out there" class for me.</p>
<p>Do I think he sees it as useful? Knowing my son, NO. He is just thrilled there is so much more "out there" he didn't even dream of. He's like a really, really hungry guy at an all-you-can-eat knowledge buffet. Always relate him to food!</p>
<p>OP-
I, like the other posters, would see what he would be interested in. If he's not crazy about Latin or Greek does he have any other options? Anything that might appeal to him? </p>
<p>Kat</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>As coureur pointed out, Latin is a dead language.<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Latin is not dead! It's immortal!</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>And that's why teachers of Latin can confidently proclaim "rules" of grammar that fit the limited corpus of texts that have survived via hand-copying from the ancient world (but even then with many exceptions to the rules).<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Well the main Rule appears to be "Cicero Always Gets an A in Latin Composition." However Cicero said it or wrote it is taken to be correct. He's the gold standard.</p>
<p>Anyone who thinks Latin literature is boring and inferior to Greek has never read Catullus.</p>
<p>Catullus is great, but so is Ovid. And I must say, I do love Virgil (as well as Homer, Sappho, Aeschylus et al.)</p>
<p>DS had a teacher who was really into Latin pronunciation. When he called a villa a willa my stomach lurched. And when Julius Caesar said Weni, Widi, Wici, it lurched again.</p>
<p>However, when she explained that she had published an article that proved that "carpe diem" meant "pluck the day," not "seize the day" I felt Herricks and other Renaissance writers had been re-explained. Her point was really fascinating to me, so I am glad DS took Latin. </p>
<p>He wants to take Greek, but it was a fiasco for DD so he is tentative. Drat those GPA's. </p>
<p>His Latin teacher did teach them the Greek alphabet.</p>
<p>I have a South African friend who opined: Britain is my Greece, America my Rome."</p>
<p>Ask the boy himself? Revolutionary idea. Comic relief: At age 85, my widower grandfather came to study at an elderhostel on a campus where my folks were professors. A local reporter interviewed my grandpa, asking why he dropped out of Literature and into Astronomy. He said all the pretty girls took Astronomy.</p>
<p>So yes, ask the lad.</p>
<br>
<p>I agree with you on that. I believe that the notion that the ancient Latin speakers pronounced V as W is based on a single document in which a passage of Latin was transliterated into ancient Greek, and the Vs were rendered as "OU." Since Greek has no V, this is an approximation at best. And more telling, in my opinion, is the fact that all the modern romance languages pronounce the V as a V and not as W (although some Spanish dialects render it more as a B). If the mother tongue said it as a W, it's highly unlikely that all the daughter languages would have separately and independently transformed it into the modern V sound.</p>
<br> [QUOTE=""]
<blockquote> <p>However, when she explained that she had published an article that proved that "carpe diem" meant "pluck the day,"<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>On this point I agree with the teacher. Carpe means to grasp with the hand. You can see the same root words at work in the naming of the carpals and metacarpals - the bones of the hand. You would use carpe to describe picking flowers in your garden or fruit off your tree.</p>
<p>A better Latin word for "seize" would be rapere, which means literally to vigorously take hold of - to seize. It's the root word for our words raptor, rape, rapture, rapacious, rapt, etc.</p>
<p>Rapere diem.</p>
<p>Oh coureur, you've made me so happy. I can now continue to say villa.</p>
<p>I actually like the connotation pluck because it reminds me of a rose, as you say, a flower, -- something that is prized and cared for rather than just seized (and perhaps mangled or discarded.)</p>