Classical Languages
“The mother tongue is the innermost sanctuary of the soul.” – Gustav Stresemann
What would it be like to read Homer in classical Greek or Virgil in Latin? Certainly, reading English translations of these works is an important journey itself, but reading great works, like those of Plato, in the language in which they were written can also shed light on the complexities of human thought and the languages that give birth to them. Technically, this is one way to consider what a classical education actually was.
Students of the middle ages would learn Latin and Greek, which comprised the Grammar stage of the classical Trivium, in order to study the great books in those languages. Today, we read those great works, translated into English, with the full recognition that many of our English words have their roots in Latin and Greek. Why? Because many of the concepts upon which our culture is built have their grammatical origin in languages that allowed those concepts expression. Ideas like democracy and republic.
It’s interesting to consider the depth of insight of George Orwell’s “newspeak” in his book “1984,” as the mother tongue of a culture is stripped from its citizens for the purposes of the state. In such a society, certain concepts lose their ability for expression and the population regresses to a new more manageable place.
“Languages bring values with them” writes Thomas Cahill in “How the Irish Saved Civilization.” Classical schools prioritize Latin and classical or biblical Greek over modern spoken languages like Spanish, French or German because these ancient languages, in particular, represent windows into the soul of our culture. Our culture cannot truly be separated from the Greeks and Romans without some level of “newspeak” being applied. Concepts that have built our greatness first found their expression in languages long ago, and those concepts, concepts like logic and rhetoric, are best bolstered and studied alongside the languages by which they were first developed.
Knox Academy celebrates Western culture and the languages that made and sustain it. Events like this month’s Spelling Bee, students taking the National Latin Exam later this Spring, and book discussions about formative great works (like the upcoming discussion of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”) are all ways that the institution gives us opportunity to circumvent modernity and consider great languages and thoughts to which we are indebted and responsible to carry into the future. This, ultimately, is the task of classical Christian education; as it was in the past, so it is for us.
"What is it about ancient Rome that still speaks to us? Why has everybody heard of Nero, Julius Caesar and Marcus Aurelius? Why do we all still know, two millennia later, about Roman baths, gladiators, straight roads, centurions, Vestal virgins and the Colosseum? It’s a fascinating question, and while I was in Rome, I developed my own theory about it. I like to spend my holidays developing spurious and lightly-evidenced theories about human culture while I drink my espresso. It’s my idea of fun. This time around, my theory was simple and unoriginal: the Roman empire never actually ended." – Paul Kingsnorth
