The government’s promise to fund a pilot scheme promoting the teaching of Latin in secondary schools is music to the ears of the charity Classics for All, which has introduced classical subjects into more than 1,000 state schools. Latin has been taken up with especial enthusiasm in primary schools, where word derivations have proved very popular. The ancients loved them too.
The Roman Varro (116-27 bc) wrote a 25-volume de lingua Latina (‘On the Latin Language’). Six survive, three discussing etymology, all full of interest because Varro, ignorant of scientific etymology (it developed only from the 17th century onwards), produced total nonsense.
For example, he thought canis ‘dog’ was related to cano ‘I sound, sing’ because barking gave a signal. Likewise, latratus ‘barking’ derived from lateo (‘I lie hidden’, cf. our ‘latent’) because, by barking, dogs revealed what was ‘hidden’ during the night.
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