Fewer and fewer pupils are learning Latin and Greek.
A regrettable loss when we know that ancient languages contribute to the enrichment of vocabulary and allow us to better understand history.
Julien Soulié, linguist and former professor, insists on the importance of these "humanities".
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THE FIGARO
.
- In 2022, only 772 pupils chose an ancient language as a specialty in the baccalaureate exams.
What do you think explains the decrease in the number of Latinists and Hellenists?
Julien SOULIE.
-
To
In my opinion, two factors are at the origin of this decline.
The first is political;
for years there has been a will, perhaps unofficial but at least unofficial, to ensure that the ancient languages are no longer taught.
And this for a question of budget since, fewer pupils naturally choosing to learn these ancient languages, it is expensive for the National Education.
Successive ministers claim to want to revalue ancient languages by systematically adopting a discourse that claims to defend the culture and civilization inherited from ancient languages but, in reality, this decline in dead languages has been organised.
When the hours of Greek or Latin are placed at lunch break, early in the morning or after one or even two hours permanently, the pupils are naturally discouraged.
The second factor explaining the decrease in the number of Latinists and Hellenists lies in the fact that these are quite demanding languages.
And this linguistic requirement is more difficult to apply today, at a time when pupils are already encountering difficulties in their mother tongue, especially in grammar.
When some pupils no longer know how to recognize a COD or a circumstantial complement in French, they cannot be taught Latin the “old method”, that is to say by making them learn declensions.
And this linguistic requirement, making the ancient languages a little off-putting, also explains the disaffection for these languages.
"When you don't know a word, with Latin or Greek knowledge, you guess its spelling"
What are we depriving ourselves of by forgetting ancient languages?
The ancient languages allow a very precious opening on a whole range of other languages.
The more we study linguistic structures, the easier it is to discover other languages since our brain is no longer confined solely to French structures and mechanisms.
There are relationships between languages;
for example, learning Latin declensions makes learning German easier.
We can then better analyze our own language and realize that some of our structures come from Latin.
Finally, we also deprive ourselves of an enrichment of our vocabulary, our linguistic skills, but also of ourselves.
What still makes learning ancient languages unique, compared to other languages?
Greek and Latin are dead languages and when it comes to options, we are no match for living languages.
We have the impression that it is more useful, concretely, to learn English or Italian than Latin, which is no longer spoken except in the Vatican.
I think that all young college students should have an hour of initiation to Latin per week, hooking it up to French in order to insist on lexicon and etymologies, the roots of French words - and not do grammar.
This hour of Latin and this new learning would make the students much better at spelling since they will acquire an almost unconscious perception of the French language.
When you don't know a word, with Latin or Greek knowledge, you will probably guess its spelling.
gunê
” in Greek means “woman” and knowing that we can guess the spelling and the meaning of “gynecologist” (“the one who treats women”), but also of “misogynist”.
In medicine, students have to ingest an astronomical amount of complicated words that would be much easier to remember if they did or had done some Greek beforehand.
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The lexical aspect is then to be valued.
Doesn't it also help to arouse a cultural and historical interest in the students?
Absolutely, ancient languages are real bridges to other cultures and to history.
It is interesting for a pupil for example to discover that the Latin word "
kaisar
" gave "
kaiser
" in German and "
tsar
" in Russian.
From a historical point of view, this links the Caesars of antiquity to the German or Russian emperors.
Learning an ancient language allows us to take a step back from our contemporary societies.
Whether it is philosophy, geography, mathematics or history, all were invented by the Greeks.
These influences continue to irrigate all our societies.
The political systems, like democracy, which they invented, or the literature, which they produced, still find resonance in our current society and their characters are inexhaustibly rich.
In the light of characters like Antigone or Oedipus we can approach psychoanalysis or even the status of women;
and thus, studying ancient languages allows us to think about the world of today by enlightening ourselves with the world of yesterday,
“Nearly 80% of our vocabulary is Latin.
French is a Latin language with a few layers of Greek on top of it.
How does visualizing Greek and Latin roots shed light on the world?
The roots create our lexicon, the one we use every day.
All scientific terms since the 19th century, at the time of the Industrial Revolution and the great technological developments, are constructed from Greek.
The Greek "
oikos
" means "house", and he gave the terms "ecology", "economy"... And this Greek root therefore makes it possible to spin a metaphor offering a certain vision of the world: ecology is the study , the science of our house, and economics is the administration of our house.
With these keys in hand, we can better understand the world and its dynamics.
Also, in the new words that appear every year in the dictionary, a certain number of them are formed from Greek roots.
For example, the terms "
doxocracy
» and «
ochlocracy
» have recently entered the dictionary and at first glance, we do not understand them.
But if we look at the roots we can see that "
cracy
" means "power" and "
okhlos
" means "crowd", so ochlocracy is the power that the crowd can exercise.
Is it because Latin is more accessible than Greek, that it is taught more by teachers and learned from students?
It is certain that the richness and complexity of Greek makes it a less studied language.
But above all, nearly 80% of our vocabulary is Latin and French is a Latin language with, on top of that, a few layers of Greek.
But these layers are only small strata without being the base, this base of the French lexicon and syntax being Latin, from which we inherit directly.
Greek has a more Baroque, more Rococo impulse than Latin, which has a somewhat rigid structure.
Greek has a capacity to create, a bit like German, long words, an almost inexhaustible capacity.
We find this in Homer with the "Homeric epithets" ("the goddess with the eyes of cows" or "Achilles with light feet" for example) which oblige us in French to use heavy periphrases,
contrasting with the almost disconcerting Greek fluidity.
But I have the impression that Greek brings together all the qualities of flexibility: there are also, as in German, a number of prefixes and particles, which with a single verb can indicate a myriad of meanings.
Whereas we in French are more limited and have to use a different verb each time.
Latin sentences are much less stretched than Greek sentences, Latin is concise and requires few words while Greek is abundant.
we are more limited and have to use a different verb each time.
Latin sentences are much less stretched than Greek sentences, Latin is concise and requires few words while Greek is abundant.
we are more limited and have to use a different verb each time.
Latin sentences are much less stretched than Greek sentences, Latin is concise and requires few words while Greek is abundant.
So what can be done to make these languages attractive?
Many teachers no longer speak Latin but Languages and Cultures of Antiquity (LCA).
It is no longer a question of making only versions or themes but of focusing a lot on etymology, on culture and in particular mythology and this in a playful way.
To attract the attention of the students, you have to choose an axis of attack that is pleasant, and not start directly with a text by Caesar!
For example, one might be interested in the spells and mythology of
Harry Potter
.
JK Rowling has drawn heavily on ancient languages.
Similarly in
Hunger Games
where a character is called Seneca and where the image of the Capitol, which is above all a Roman hill, is taken up.
They could also be shown the use of ancient languages in advertising: "
nivea
” means “snow” in Latin, and therefore, Nivea cream is “
snow-white cream
”.
In short, we must show students what, in languages considered dead, continues to irrigate our culture and our living languages.