Long Live Latin: The Pleasures of a Useless Language

Long Live Latin: The Pleasures of a Useless Language is a love letter to the author’s beloved: the Latin language. The whole book is a meditation on a critical question: what use is Latin?

While Latin might seem to be a dead language, so much of our experience and identity is still filtered through the lens of this originally obscure language once particular to a relatively small population in a particular region. It rose through a myriad of contemporary languages and variations to become as much art as language, as well as the language of law and science, to preserve the prayers and ideas of the church, and bring the ribald and insightful poems and epigrams of Catullus to schoolboys everywhere. The author’s insights into the language are thoughtful, heartfelt, comical in places, and overall uplifting. Even readers without any Latin education can share his passion for this sometimes enigmatic, often difficult, language. If language shapes how we think, then understanding the impact and consequences of Latin grants us a deeper understanding of ourselves.