Lingua Romanōrum: heri, hodie, et cras -- The language of the Romans: for yesterday, today, and tomorrow

GRADES 4-6

Studying Latin at Covenant prepares students to study other foreign languages.

While it has passed into the annuals of history, Latin reverberates through many modern languages. The five Romance languages (Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian, and Portuguese) resemble their Latin mother in vocabulary and grammar, which makes it easy for students of Latin to continue their language studies in one of these languages.

Latin students can also transition easily to any language in the Germanic and Slavic families because of experience with complex grammatical notions such as the dative cause for nouns; this appears in both language families but English has only vestiges of it.

The classical languages embody a more precise grammar and so develop in the student a level of analysis of structure that modern languages merely echo. Due to their prolonged foray into Latin, Covenant students grasp the difficult notions of subject-verb agreement and noun-adjective agreement present in most languages. These are concepts some college students in first semester language classes don't easily comprehend.

Studying Latin at Covenant improves English Grammar.

Generally speaking, students worldwide find overt explanations of their native grammar dry, tedious, and burdensome. Yet, as adults, they will cringe when someone in the spotlight makes a huge grammar error. The study of Latin lends itself to the development of clear and correct grammar.

Covenant students begin Latin in fourth grade after two years of Shurley Grammar in the Language Arts curriculum. Structure specific jingles (the hallmark of Shurley Grammar) encourage both parsing of sentences and understanding of English sentence structure. These same jingles are incorporated into the teaching of Latin to explain verbs, nouns, adverbs, and adjectives. The integration of the jingles provides a connection from English to Latin and reinforces the parsing of sentences.

Studying Latin at Covenant develops an analytical mind.

From the earliest lessons, students begin to see that Latin sentence structure flows differently than English. In Latin, words may appear in any order yet communicate the same meaning due to the inflected nature of the Latin language. Hunting for the subject and the verb within a sentence stretches the student's level of analysis. They become detectives, having to use their powers of deduction to answer who, what, when, where, why, and how. There is a logical quality to Latin that causes young minds to analyze words and sentences. This practice pays off when students correctly deduce an answer. The rigor of Latin, then, extends, develops, and hones a student's ability to think and reason correctly, and Biblically, about the world around them.

Studying Latin provides a window into the ancient world; the world of Caesar, Augustine, and the Early Christian Church.

Studying Latin at Covenant reinforces a student's connection to Christians of the early church. Koinea Greek and Latin were the predominant languages of the early church; a treasure trove of writings illustrating Christian life under Roman persecution. These Christians had to live against the flow of culture, just as young Christian students choose to do today. As students learn songs of praise first written in Latin, they forge a connection with the followers of Jesus who went before them.