Latin in Everyday Life

This example is from a popular game called League of Legends. The game itself has 148 characters to pick from and each has its own character background or “lore”. However two of these champions resemble ideas from Greek/Roman mythology. One of the characters, Cassiopeia, resembles Medusa in her character design and abilities. She has a snake’s body as her lower half and snakes for hair much like Medusa. Her main ability is an attack that turns everyone in front of her to stone. However if you don’t look at her then it doesn’t work on you. Knowing the mythology of Medusa and how her “ability” works helped me learn how to play against her ability to turn people to stone. In addition to this, there is a character who resembles a gladiator in the weapons and armor he wears. He has a Pilum for a weapon and a circular greek shield. In chemistry, we’re learning about ions and ionic properties of elements. Recently, he gave us an example of how to classify the different ions of different elements. One of these examples was using roman numerals to identify ions of elements such as titanium. Knowing the Roman numerals helped me when identifying the different ionic properties of the elements. Recently, I saw a meme involving the roman testudo formation. Knowing the context of the formation from my project about roman military helped me understand and relate to the meme more than I would be able to. It helped me find actual humor in the meme instead of not as a non-latin student would have. The meme was a direct reference to the Roman testudo shield formation. The Romans would link their shields to form a shield from all sides including above them. They would also use spears in between the gaps of the shield. During my Christmas break, I had to go to church on Christmas eve. In the service, they hand out a congregation handout where it has everything you’re supposed to say. In the handout, there were several sections that were written in latin. Being able to recognize the vocabulary in the handbook allowed me to read the latin and translate it (even though it was already translated below) I was watching a show called Gravity Falls when I saw that an episode where the name was “Carpet Diem”. The whole premise of the episode was about a body switching carpet that turned you into another person for a day. Knowing the definition of the motto, “seize the day”, helped me recognize a deeper meaning in the show which was to make your day worth the time. The characters had an entire day to live as another person so they had to “seize the day” because they would never be able to do it again. Carpet Diem is a direct reference to the latin motto “Carpe Diem” which means “Seize the day”.

Aside from the normal “Latin helps your vocabulary”, knowing latin vocabulary and greek/roman history lets me see and understand references to both in everyday things. Taking latin helps you learn about Roman and Greek history which had a very big impact on the history of the world. In addition to this, knowing vocabulary and grammar can help you read latin that you would see in church of on a coin for example.

-Jonas Pearson