I speak English, unfortunately American English. I have fallen into many of the slurred traps and slang pitfalls that my language is prone too. Though I may not speak the language as well as I could hope, I have a great grasp for the vocabulary.
Words, I use them every day. I use them to communicate meaning. And today many of our words have more than one meaning, in context, slang, or connotation. I’ll tell you, in my short time studying Latin; I have largely increased my understanding of the meanings of many words and found synonyms to help me with others.
Synonyms, antonyms, definitions have become far easier for me since Latin. In high school it was a boon to have such an understanding. The vocabulary in my SAT and ACT was a breeze. Too bad it didn’t help me more in math. Later in my GKT the understanding of Latinate words helped me again. Latinate are words derived from Latin, they are most of our polysyllabic words.
Undulate, to ripple, oscillate, roll from the Latin word unda, meaning wave. (ocean wave)
Laudatory, complimentary, commendatory from the Latin word laudare meaning to praise.
Accident, from the Latin word accidit meaning it happens.
Another English vocabulary helper is learning the prefixes and suffixes. In Latin they are mostly prepositions. Things like pre-, post-, anti-, pro-, -s, -est, and –er are all from Latin.
In a Latin forum (Latin word forum meeting place, town square) I frequent I found this from a student, "Maulrus", who didn’t know if they wanted to take a course in Latin. They posted this about half way through their course.
I have to say, I am astounded by how my budding knowledge of Latin has improved my English grammar. I've always considered myself quite proficient with English, but the amount of translation I've been doing has opened my eyes to shady areas such as relative clauses. My essay writing has improved thanks to what I perceive as better constructed sentences, and naturally my vocabulary has increased as well. Latin really is astounding.
He found that taking Latin is worth while. He's received benefits from Latin and he isn't even done with the whole course. An increase in his vocabulary at the very least. What is the typical size of an American's vocabulary?
I didn't think that the typical size of an American's vocabulary was very big, considering the newspaper which is written at a fifth grade reading level. Still I searched. When I stumbled across several pages which had an Utne Reader article “Like Whatever.” It argues that the typical American teenager of the 50’s had a vocabulary of 25,000 words; the teenager of today 10,000. I acknowledge the diminishment of our vocabulary but wow that's huge. In further research I’ve found it’s a little different than that. Reading is a big issue, if you don’t read you don’t increase your vocabulary. There is an average amount of words we use every day and it is only a percentage of what we know. We use variations of the same words as well. Are they counted as new words? Sebastian Wren, PhD. has studied vocabulary and its use. He calls these clusters of words, like dance, dancing, dancer, and danced, “word families.” In his studies he has found:
I didn't think that the typical size of an American's vocabulary was very big, considering the newspaper which is written at a fifth grade reading level. Still I searched. When I stumbled across several pages which had an Utne Reader article “Like Whatever.” It argues that the typical American teenager of the 50’s had a vocabulary of 25,000 words; the teenager of today 10,000. I acknowledge the diminishment of our vocabulary but wow that's huge. In further research I’ve found it’s a little different than that. Reading is a big issue, if you don’t read you don’t increase your vocabulary. There is an average amount of words we use every day and it is only a percentage of what we know. We use variations of the same words as well. Are they counted as new words? Sebastian Wren, PhD. has studied vocabulary and its use. He calls these clusters of words, like dance, dancing, dancer, and danced, “word families.” In his studies he has found:
Somebody who dropped out of high school and does not read may only know 5,000 or 6,000 word families.
Somebody who finished high school and is able to read, but doesn't really make a habit of it may know closer to 10,000 word families.
Somebody who went to college and can read well, and makes a habit of reading popular books and magazines may know 15,000 word families.
A college graduate with a more "white collar" job may have a vocabulary of 20,000 word families -- almost 4 times as large as the unfortunate soul who dropped out of high school.
And of course, somebody with an advanced degree and an academic job could be familiar with 25,000 word families or more.
Somebody who finished high school and is able to read, but doesn't really make a habit of it may know closer to 10,000 word families.
Somebody who went to college and can read well, and makes a habit of reading popular books and magazines may know 15,000 word families.
A college graduate with a more "white collar" job may have a vocabulary of 20,000 word families -- almost 4 times as large as the unfortunate soul who dropped out of high school.
And of course, somebody with an advanced degree and an academic job could be familiar with 25,000 word families or more.
This is just how Latin can help with your vocabulary.
There was a fun article I found by Xander Becket called “How Norman Invaders Wrecked Your Writing.” Becket advocates against Latinate words, he says that short succinct sentences are the best. he feels that shorter words have clearer meanings and that all his favourite authors hate "big words" too. When the Normans invaded England they ruined our language by giving us Latinate words. Maybe they have ruined our writing, quick, concise sentences get points across better in writing and there is less misinterpretation. In speech, it can be important to have a broader vocabulary. Abstract thoughts and some ideas can only be expresses in certain terms. M. Birch states that “[the] Latinate counterparts [to Germanic words] are longer, more abstract and are regarded as more elegant or educated." And many times they help us express fine variations in our speech.
Learn some Latin, become more educated. I think in many ways that is true. I advocate that Latin should become a vital part of the school curriculum. Latin vocabulary has many benefits, and if students aren’t reading as much as they should, it can still help them increase their vocabulary.
It's almost shocking to learn that the English vocabulary in America has depleted so significantly since the 1950's. I knew that most of our language does derive form Latin, but I had no idea that taking a class would actually help with our vocabulary. I would like to attribute our diminished vocabulary to our lack of studying in schools, as the book Academically Adrift points out. I think that teachers today are too worried about students passing for their own sake, that they don't want to rock the boat and in turn this hurts students intellectually. most students couldn't tell you the meaning of esoteric, (which is ironic to this post) tandentios, or even credulous to name a few. I agree that the study of Latin will bring us back to our roots and maybe even help with the crisis American students face.
ReplyDeleteI haven't even started into our grammar system yet. We use a mainly Germanic language with a Latin grammar system. Both overlap from time to time but grammar is more "esoteric" than the vocabulary. I hope that more English teachers might be interested in bringing a little Latin into our classes. At least enough to supply a foundation in understanding and at the very least enough for better standardized testing vocabulary scores, if they are worried about such things.
ReplyDelete