One Sunday treat of mine is receiving 'Explorator' by e-mail. I set aside a few minutes (which often extend to half an hour or more) to browse the list of links with helpful summaries, follow up those that look interesting to a Classicist, and perhaps recommend the best here on through the ARLT monthly Newsletter. Thanks, David Meadows! (To subscribe to Explorator, send a blank email message to: mailto:Explorator-subscribe@yahoogroups.com)

Yesterday's Explorator sent me to a long article about what David Meadows as "Roman law and its spinoffs (potential essay crib)." You can find the article here. I pick out of the article this wide-ranging summary of the importance of Latin, which teachers might find useful to pass on to their "Why are we learning Latin anyway?" questioners.

Everything that we mentioned, however, could not contribute to forming the European culture without a formidable tool for penetration: Latin, for centuries the Empire's lingua franca. The Latin language carried out a vital function, allowing Roman policies, laws and public works to be understood and accepted by populations having different origins, languages and cultures.

With the collapse of the Empire, this linguistic unity was also broken. However, Latin gave rise to Italian dialects (one of which, the Florentinian dialect, would subsequently give rise to Italian) and other Neolatin (or Romance) languages: French, Spanish, Portuguese, Rumanian, etc.

Upon reflection, of course, these languages did not stop in Europe, because France, Spain and Portugal brought them wherever they created their colonial empires. Claiming that Latin - under the guise of French, Spanish and Portuguese - has conquered the world from Canada to Mexico, from Latin America to Africa to Indochina, is not unjustified.

Latin never died. Europe continued to study it even after writing and speaking its various national tongues for awhile. In the 16th century, speaking and writing "like Cicero" was compulsory for any educated person, not just for the clergy; as late as the 19th century, university lectures were given in Latin. Thanks to Latin, much more studied than the national languages, the latter would eventually acquire their common syntactic and lexical traits that make them so surprisingly similar to one another. The Catholic Church still uses Latin in its official documents.

Despite the spread of English, which seems to be intent on silencing any other tongue, Latin is so vital that it is being used for some modern mass publications. Since at least 20 years ago it is being used for some of the most famous cartoon characters, enjoying a constant, solid success. In Latin one can read about the Americans Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck (Michael Musculus and Donaldus Anas), Snoopy and Woodstock (Snupius and Veudestocus); the wrathful Gaul Asterix (the name did not change, as it was Latin to begin with); the British Winnie the Pooh (Winnie ille Pooh). These are just examples of a growing production, possibly the most unusual aspect of Rome's legacy to Europe.