Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Latin lovers

When Virginia's all-star team of young scholars competes in a national quiz bowl, a dead language is very much alive.

I don't think there was much impact around here when, a few weeks ago, John Timpane and I weighed in on Latin (Seize the Latin, or fun with a dead language and The epic, and relevant, story of the Latin language), but maybe now that the Washington Post has noticed something similar to what I mentioned, that " 'there's a bit of a revival going on.' In 1977, only 6,000 students took the National Latin Exam. By 2005 that number had soared to 134,873" - well, who knows?

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