How Latin Has Helped Me

Latin is the basis for most of the english language, has a strong presence in pop culture, and is recognized in most of the world. Without it, I wouldn't be able to fully understand certain books or references in tv shows.

1) First of all, Latin helps me recognize the roots of some English vocabulary. A couple weeks ago during soccer practice, the coach had set up a relatively complicated drill to run, where depending on your position there was a series of movements you had to do. In response to it, one of my captains said "I don't think we have the cognitive ability for that, coach". Cognitive comes from the Latin word cogito, which means to think.

2) Last year, I went to the state Latin competition in Austin. While I was there, Dr. Morgan decided to take me and the other people who were there on a tour through the UT campus. We did a ton of sight seeing, among which was the littlefield fountain. On the back of the fountain, there was Latin inscribed, and me and the group I was with had to translate it. The translation went as follows: “Short life hath been given by Nature unto man; but the remembrance of a life laid down in a good cause endureth forever.”                                                                          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littlefield_Fountain


3) I play a lot of modded minecraft, and one of my favorite mods is Thaumcraft. Within this mod, it assigns different "aspects" to each item, terra being one of the most commonly found aspect. Terra actually comes from the Latin word terra, which means land or earth. Some other aspects are iter (journey), lux (light), and mortuus (death).

4) Me and my family are all big Harry Potter fans, and I even play the mobile app for it on my phone. It puts you in hogwarts, and has you learn different spells and potions you can use for dueling. One of my personal favorite spells is incendio (to burn), which throws a giant ball of fire at your opponent.

5) Finally, Latin not only helps me translate words I see everyday, but also with mythology. We are currently reading the Odyssey in school, and it has a ton of greek gods and monsters such as Hermes, Poseidon, Athena, Zeus, and even Polyphemos. Before the text told me, I already knew that Polyphemos was the son of Poseidon because I did a research project on his dad in 8th grade.