I’ve recently gotten the idea in my head of taking a twelve-week course in introductory Latin, mostly for nerdy linguistic reasons. It occurs to me that learning an idiosyncratic dead language is archetypal signalling behaviour, and this fits in with my observations. The only people I know with any substantial knowledge of the language either come from privileged backgrounds and private education, or studied Classics at university (which also seems to correlate with a privileged background).
A lot of the bonding that takes place over Latin doesn’t even seem to involve being able to actually use it. A shared experience of the horrors of conjugate forms and declension tables seems to be enough. While a twelve-week introductory course isn’t going to equip someone with much in the way of usable skills, it will certainly satisfy this criteria.
It seems odd that it’s possible to just acquire an elite status marker like this.
Some, usually. But there is (almost) no chance that if status is your goal that learning latin is a sane approach for gaining it. Learn something social.
Would learning Latin confer status benefits?
I’ve recently gotten the idea in my head of taking a twelve-week course in introductory Latin, mostly for nerdy linguistic reasons. It occurs to me that learning an idiosyncratic dead language is archetypal signalling behaviour, and this fits in with my observations. The only people I know with any substantial knowledge of the language either come from privileged backgrounds and private education, or studied Classics at university (which also seems to correlate with a privileged background).
A lot of the bonding that takes place over Latin doesn’t even seem to involve being able to actually use it. A shared experience of the horrors of conjugate forms and declension tables seems to be enough. While a twelve-week introductory course isn’t going to equip someone with much in the way of usable skills, it will certainly satisfy this criteria.
It seems odd that it’s possible to just acquire an elite status marker like this.
Some, usually. But there is (almost) no chance that if status is your goal that learning latin is a sane approach for gaining it. Learn something social.
Taboo “status.” Who do you want to impress?
It probably depends on where you are, how old you are, and what your social circle is like.