How Latin Has Helped Me

How Latin Has Helped Me

I see Latin everywhere in my life, and taking Latin as a class opens my eyes to so much more Latin influence than I ever knew existed! In Global Cultures around October, we learned about many statistics and what they mean. One example is Gross Domestic Product. When ever you see GDP, it is usually followed by the Latin phrase per capita. I had no idea what this meant, and then I realized that it is Latin for "by head," meaning that whenever you see GDP, the number is per person, or per capita. I also saw Latin in Harry Potter when I read the series in 2017. One particular spell that was used by many characters was accio. This word means "I summon" in Latin. I also experienced Latin when I learned about the element gallium back in 2019 in science class. Gallium comes from the Latin word Gallia, meaning France. Since the founder of this element is French, it was fitting to name the element after his home country. When I first started reading the Odyssey for English in November, we were supposed to annotate for piety. Turns out that piety comes from the Latin word pius, meaning religious. Piety also means religiousness, so it was a fitting name. The last Latin example that I found was from the song Gloria by U2 when I heard the song last week. One of the lines is in te domine, meaning in you lord. It was a nice addition to the song and it makes it more unique. Though Latin is not the most popular language choice in high school, I think it should be more appreciated. I see Latin absolutely everywhere. It is one of the defining factors of life in this country today. English stems from Latin, and when you learn the language, you can find Latin everywhere and in popular sayings. It is a very unique language that opens your eyes to so many possibilities and knowledge in many fields. I highly recommend Latin for anyone that wants to learn about influences that you never would have recognized.

Grace Ramsey