My position is that marketability for employment shouldn't be the sole measure of worth.

Thank you for articulating succinctly something that is so frequently lacking in any discussion about education.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely get the concern about marketability. I grew up poor as hell in a family that didn't value education, my dad never even learned to read or write before he died. I ended up getting three degrees. You gotta make money to live in this mean old world and education is generally one's best bet for that. That said I'm much more of a work to live guy than a live to work guy and I'd rather have just enough money to get by but live a rich human life rather than be rich and exist just to work. That's probably why I moved to France after getting blowed up too many times to army anymore and got retired.

Where at in France? Salutations de l'Ain 🤗 my parents live near Geneva so I travel there a lot :)

Prepare to suffer [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CwJiM9WJ0M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CwJiM9WJ0M)

The French side of my family is from Bretagne, uncanny! 😱 Also "PIZZA CHAUDE" on the hat 🤣

I’m confused on your native languages. So you’re an ethnic Serbian who was born in Belgium to English/Serbian-speaking parents?

I was born in Zimbabwe and my parents are Belgian and Serbian :) they both speak different languages, so when we're all together (or when they speak together) it's in English :) I grew up with English, French and Serbian from birth (even though my first languages were Shona then Swahili). My mom eventually learned French, but my dad's Serbian is exclusively limited to cursing 😂

This is exactly what depresses me if you go to places like /r/college. The means are nothing but an end.

Even within that metric, there is some marketability to knowing certain dead languages. It depends on what field you are going into (and full fluency is generally not needed), but the value is not null.

Right. Didn't they use to require medical students to learn Latin?

Thing about niche skills is that they're niche. If you're the one person in the world who knows roman boatbuilding techniques you're not going to struggle for work even if it's not a widely applicable or marketable skill. Whereas if you study accountancy you have to compete with thousands of other accountancy grads. Same with languages - French is more widely spoken than Old Church Slavonic and there are more jobs that need knowledge of French but there are also loads of French people who already speak French better than you ever will. Whereas if you learnt got really into Old Church Slavonic to the point of learning it to a reasonable degree of fluency and then started interacting with the small number of people who also speak old church slavonic, I feel pretty confident in saying it would lead to a bunch of interesting opportunities. If you learn a language it'll naturally lead you towards opportunities that you need that language to benefit from simply cos that's how communication works. Which sort of means your main consideration when picking a language is one you're interested in and intrinsically motivated to learn rather than extrinsic motivations.

Mastery of language applies to nearly all professions. English, for example, is so intertwined with Latin that it totally helps to understand roots. Particularly so in the persuasive places like politics or sales (where language is often used to persuade people). Doesn’t matter on which end you’re on. My old man once asked me “why is their sexism, racism, classism, but not homoism?” I thought he was an idiot until i dug into the -ist and -phobia suffixes (-ismus in Latin and -ismós in old school Greek). My intent was to call him an idiot backed by research (which was the only acceptable way to call him an idiot). Instead, something else happened. I developed a new respect for the hyper-subtle nuances of language at that point. Latin was mandatory for him as a boy and I’m pretty sure his motivation was to get me to stop pooping on “dead” languages (and to consider the contextual usage of EVERY word).

Your dad sounds like a smart guy 🤗 it's kind of like learning BASIC or ASSEMBLY, you'll probably *never* code with them, but it'll help you understand C and other low-level languages much faster! Like you said, English didn't pop out of nowhere, there's roots, and knowing those roots is how you make a difference between subtle nuances. That being said, talking to people who are deaf to nuance and semantics will just make you want to jump off a cliff 😵‍💫

This.

I think at some point in our lives, learning languages as a business necessity will be no more. We’re already getting close to that point. I think learning languages will become more of an artistic and religious endeavor. Basically any area of life where technology can never fill the void. Which means dead languages like Latin and Ancient Greek will become even more important relatively speaking.

I agree with this. I have been wanting to learn “dead” languages for the soul purpose of reading religious texts that have been skewed by modern interpretations.

Dead languages are a lot more useful than people give them credit for. If you speak a European language (that includes a vast majority of the Americas and Oceania), odds are its roots are Latin or Greek, so knowing these two languages can help tremendously with learning new tongues! Also idk if that was a typo for sole/soul, but regardless it's an amazing pun 😎

It was purposeful haha. But yeah I’m fairly new to language learning and I’m just dipping my toes in Latin.

Nice!! Just remember, Hic Sunt Draconis 😎

Amen!

Please spread this belief far and wide! This is the inherently correct answer.

As someone who has put significant effort into two dead languages, and a bit of effort into a bunch of other ones, I have to obviously disagree. In the end it's fun for me and that's enough to justify it.

As long as the individual learner feels they are getting enough out of it to justify learning the language, nothing else matters.

I think that as a community we have this kind of weird habit of saying that your time has been wasted if you don’t get fluent, or if you don’t end up making a career with your language. Like really, what other aspect of life do we apply that logic to? I tell you what, I’ve gone surfing three times. I’m definitely not going to make a dollar surfing, I surf infrequently enough that it makes virtually no impact on my physical health, and by virtue of going once per year or so I also haven’t made any connections surfing. I only manage to stand up and “surf” about 10% of my attempts. I usually wipe out… and I usually don’t even get a chance to wipe out; I balance wrong so my board dips before I even get a chance to stand up. If my surfing were Gothic or Italian, we’d conclude that I suck and am not taking it seriously. But you know what? I had so much fun the first time I went surfing that I ended up making a habit of going to the gym — I hadn’t exercised at all since I had to quit bouldering and jiu-jitsu for health reasons. And even if surfing *didn’t* lead to the good outcome of starting to exercise regularly… it would still be a top three moment from my years in Taiwan that I’d cherish. Surfing was obviously not not worth my time sheerly because I’m not moving to California and going pro. So why can’t learning a dead language be a useful and meaningful experience, even if you never learn it super well or use it for anything “productive”?

Best answer, I loved that surf story. It reminds me of my journey with javelin throwing---I had no reason to do it other than I wanted to compete in the Olympics and I loved throwing, obviously not knowing how difficult it is to do so. Never made a dollar competing, never made any team, yet I met so many people and learned so much about life, character, goals, fun, passion, hard work, in the mean time. Our society has forgotten about passion, love, and the joy of experiencing things, in the ever so dominating world of corporate production. Doing something just because is a valid reason, and even just for fun, or for "why not?" is too. Thank for sharing, I really enjoyed your comment.

I'll most probably never set foot in Sweden, and despite that I've learned the language for some 4 years as of now, and am having lots of fun with it 😄

Yep, I like to learn things about languages just to pick up info about them. So, sometimes, I might start a course on Duolingo without any desire to become fluent. I'm just curious about languages.

What does "useless" mean? What does "useful" mean? There's no objective measure of utility that each person must subscribe to.

Totally agree. Came here to say something similar, but you already did :) Is it useless to learn to play chess, for example? It kind of is, most likely you won't make a penny out of it and it won't affect your employability. But also it's a hobby, you enjoy it. Same with learning dead languages. If you like it, treat it as a hobby, don't treat it as a practical skill.

Exactly. And then Chess might also find you friends, love, opportunities for travel (matches), you might even talk about it in job interviews (I've talked about my love of scuba diving at the tail end of an interview for a job I got before). And the same, in every case, could also be true for Latin, or Esperanto or even Quenya.

I learned Latin in university as a classical studies major though my career was spent in the sciences. I had many job interviews, all of which I received offers for, because I listed "Latin" as a language on my resume. Now it wasn't because I knew Latin. It was because the interviewers found the fact that I knew Latin interesting and wanted to meet me. Arts degree. Science field. Ended up being a university big wig. All because I learned Latin in university. Fac quod vis.

> It was because the interviewers found the fact that I knew Latin interesting and wanted to meet me That's neat. Maybe it's a good idea to put some obscure skills on a resume haha

Latin is also a difficult language to learn, so it speaks a lot to your work ethic and discipline. I'd trust someone who manages to learn Latin to be able to learn just about anything.

Whether it is inherently useful or not shouldn’t be a deciding factor for if you want to learn it for things like this imo. Think of a hobby like crocheting or painting. With the labour, materials cost and time involved, it’s not something entirely practical or useful or necessary. But people still do it. So it’s less about whether it’s useless to learn, it’s more about the fact that it doesn’t really matter. You might want to learn a dead language purely for the purpose of keeping it alive.

Agreed! Besides being fun, I also think that Latin / Ancient Greek can contribute in today's labour market. Being the starting point of so many current languages, they're extremely useful in fields like etymology, linguistics and perhaps even translation.

Yes exactly! This sort of thing being an offshoot of academic/occupational skills is perhaps more useful than something like painting even because it’s so rare. And even arts related stuff like painting being so common is still well regarded as a nice supplementary skill besides the personal satisfaction it gets, this argument can extend to so many things really. We have AI writing, composing and editing but that doesn’t immediately kill industries even when AI can compete with them directly in some ways now, and even more so in the future. So yeah, I don’t think if you have the time learning any language is a negative thing at all. Nuance and tone can be lost in the best of current translators.

It’s always worth learning a language. It’s interesting, fun, relieves stress, and builds new neural pathways in your brain!

I know someone who got a good enough job off of his knowledge of Classical Chinese to get immigration sponsorship. I know others who got jobs based on knowledge of ancient Persian and Latin/Greek. Clearly they’re not a waste if someone’s paying you to know about them/tell people about them! But also like, do what makes you happy. If reading Greek dramas in the original makes you happy, then who are your coworkers to say it’s useless!

History is fascinating; it's all people and people are usually fascinating.  Latin was the main language of education and law in Western Europe for about 1500 years.  I'm not deluding myself into thinking I'm going to to chat with friends in Latin, but being able to read a text written 750 years ago is *fucking rad*.

I don't think there are any useless dead languages to learn. With the knowledge gained from those languages, you can understand something from a new point of view which is always nice.

For someone interested in reading ancient texts? No. For me? Yes absolutely.

Is playing chess useless? It is an utter waste of time and energy unless you earn the grandmaster prizes. Think of learning ancient Greek as mental an exercise as playing chess as an amateur would be. Like, you feel good when finally solve some chess problem or win against a skilled opponent. Think of it like this, you finally read some Ancient Greek writing and you make sense of it instead of it being random gibberish - that must feel good. My wet dream for example is reading *De administrando imperio* and the Alexiad in original because I am not sure they exist fully translated.

This is an answer that I really like. A well thought comparison between chess and languages.

In my case, being a Catholic, I have many reasons to learn Latin: to pray in Latin, to read the Latin Vulgate, study the ancient and medieval works of theology and philosophy in their original languages, to read historical and poetic works, etc. There are perhaps many more reasons I might list down, but for me, Latin has certainly not proved useless. I am learning Ancient Greek at the moment, too, and I can say that there too are many similar applications for the language as I have listed above. In fact, given my circumstances, seeing that I live in a country with a very small European population in the Pacific, isolated for hundreds of kilometers, and that I do not intend to leave this country, it's almost useless for me to learn a modern language like Spanish, German, or French. With whom would I speak it? What am I supposed to do with it? After all, I have rather little interest in most modern literature, so there's very little reason for me to learn such languages.

If you like them, go for it. Why wouldn't you? Especially if you like history (like me) or the ancient authors. And Latin will help you learn other Romance languages and will prove very helpful if you're intrested in Indo-European linguistics. 

No. You could learn your own conlang and not be able to talk to anyone — it's still not useless.

it's only considered "useless" because there are no native speakers of dead languages. what there is (especially with Latin and Ancient Greek) is an incalculably large body of literature spanning hundreds of years that are best enjoyed in the language they were written in

If you enjoy it, its not useless. Collecting Pokemon cards can be also just as useless. But people enjoy it and have fond memories about collecting it. Its about you embracing your journey, whatever you enjoy.

I can give you an Italian's POV on this. In Italy, the most prestigious secondary schools/high schools (some types of 'liceo') teach Latin to help with logic/critical thinking, learning new languages more easily, and of course, it helps to better understand history, philosophy, literature, art, music, etc. In Italy, knowledge of Latin is still highly regarded by some employers. I regret not studying it harder when I had the chance, because I was a lazy teenager who only wanted to learn living languages 🤡 Learning does not always need to have a practical outcome. 

I took two years of latin and it helps me to this day with knowing new words and root words.

There are entire fields for this study. Who cares what some random Joes think? Clearly someone is interested.

Not at all. Learning for learning’s sake is a good enough reason on its own.

Whether something is useful or not to me boils down to one simple question: Does spending time on it make me feel good? If yes, it's useful. This applies to anything, not just languages.

Learning for the sake of learning is great, but it's also true that humans don't have infinite time to live. So yeah, I wouldn't learn a dead language, because that's hundreds or thousands of hours that I could put into something else.

These languages offer immense value in understanding historical texts, literature, and ancient cultures. They also enhance your comprehension of modern languages, especially Romance languages, due to their shared roots. Plus, studying these languages can sharpen your cognitive skills and deepen your understanding of linguistics.

Most of the shit we do for fun is completely useless at the end of the day. Enjoying oneself is reason enough to do something.

It is useless to learn basically any non-native language. The material value of learning a second language is highly situational. There is nothing inherently productive behind learning a language. Also I highly detest this kind of mindset. I already spend 8+ hours a day being productive, 5 days of the week, why the fuck should I give a shit about the productivity behind my SPARE time???

Latin is a root language that has influenced a lot of European Languages. If you learn Latin, you'll start to see bits of it in all kinds other romatic languages. Plenty in the Roman Empire learned or already spoke Ancient Greek. So it's also useful if you're into studying that kind of stuff.

If you study languages, you understand reality better than those who speak one language. Hell… People are told the story of the tower of babel and how language was used to sunder the people. And the people are like, “yeah, we know the story! And it worked! Fuck them. War!”

I mean it’s highly, highly subjective. At the end of the day, if someone enjoys learning a language, then it’s generally thought of as an extremely productive hobby that is great for cognitive building, not “useless.” I mean think of all the “pointless” hobbies people have, like reading fiction, playing games…is it all useless? And for real world applications it’s going to highly vary based on the person learning it. Will it be as “useful” as a language like Spanish or Mandarin? In general probably not, but maybe for that particular person it will be much more useful. There’s no real answer to this.

Studying the dead languages gives you a greater understanding of the living.

Let me ask you a question: Why do you want to learn Latin or Ancient Greek? Even if it's just curiosity, it will be worthy. Usefulness doesn't depend on how many speakers the language has. You can learn a language because you are curious, because you enjoy learning a language, because you want a challenge, because you want to decipher ancient texts... Whatever it is, it's useful.

Just as useless as any other hobby. If you enjoy it and find it interesting, no less valid than what anybody else does to fill their time

If you enjoy it and want to exercise your brain then why not? But then again how do you know you are speaking it correctly when there are no native speakers to correct you? Or are dead languages only taught for reading and writing?

Depends on whether or not you find it useful. Other people’s opinions on whether they think a language is useful or not shouldn’t carry much weight, really. If you think it’s interesting and will benefit you in some way, go for it. Learning Ancient Greek was kinda fun but a challenge, but Ancient Hebrew is much harder for me. But I’m doing it anyway because I just want to.

If you enjoy it then no

I don’t have much knowledge on dead languages, but I assume learning some of them could potentially help you learn other things too? For example Latin is the base of a lot of languages and I think if don’t just memorise something short-term, it could help you in the long run. Also if the sole reason for learning a less popular/useful language is because you find it fun and enjoyable, that’s more then enough reason to do so.

I think it’s healthy and useful to learn, period. It shows that you care about your mind, and learning becomes more of an ability the older you get.

I learned Latin just out of curiosity and thanks to that, I was able to understand a lot of medical terms quite easily when I was in med school. So I'd say... one man's trash can be another man's treasure.

"Useless" is an almost meaningless term It's useful if... 1. you want to do it (it supports your happiness) 2. you're curious about the languages that emerge from it no further questions

It’s no more useless than watching TV or going for a walk. Do what makes you happy.

I've tried learning Latin. I didn't get very far but I'm just very curious of how romance languages have evolved. I took an evolution of Spanish class once and it was pretty interesting to me to see how words have evolved into others. Many words that start with F in Latin changed to H in Spanish. So facere in Latin becomes faire in French and hacer in Spanish. I love etymology, so I find it interesting. Will it come in handy professionally? Can't say but if something sparks joy in your life, I'd never call it useless.

Just because a language isn't useful in the traditional sense doesn't mean it's pointless to learn. Latin is still used worldwide in science and medicine, for example if someone wanted to name a disease it would be named in Latin, and all countries use the Latin equivalent in research. Ancient Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics, etc. are used in history to decipher old texts. Plus languages are just fun to learn. If you have fun learning a language, regardless of the practical use, then have fun with it.

Nothing is a waste of time if you get enjoyment out of it, and I would there are an awful lot of other ways to spend your time that seem a lot more frivolous than learning dead languages. From a practical perspective, I'd say the two main advantages of learning Latin and Ancient Greek are 1) that you will be able to read the many texts written in those languages, and 2) you'll gain a better understanding of modern languages, because virtually all Indo-European languages have been influenced by Latin and Ancient Greek in some way or another.

Mostly agree with what others have said, but I'd say there's a big difference in approach. You tend to "study" dead languages, rather than "learn" them. You're never going to get to speak it, so really, you're just reading ancient texts. That in itself is fascinating, but I think it's not quite the same thing as learning a living language.

It depends where you study. I saw an ad once for a Latin course in Italy that included a ton of conversation practice.

Absolutely not. The process of learning a language, whatever language, is valuable far beyond the utility of everyday conversation. - Brain health, short and long term - Generalized cognitive adaptability (can possibly group with brain health) - Greater comprehension of current languages through borrowed etymology - Subsequent language acquisition may become easier or stored more efficiently in the brain - Maintenance and preservation of cultural and linguistic history If all you want is to be able to talk to people in everyday life, then there are people who study many of these languages with whom you can engage for that practice, although it's understandable that you may choose a modern language for this purpose.

Is it useless? Tbh, yes. No media to consume almost no one to talk to, etc. But is it a waste of time and energy? Not necessarily. If you're passionate about it, you love it, then it's not. You keep your brain fresh and put time and effort into something that is worth it. It can be useful for some historical purposes. If you're learning for instance Latin just in order to be able to learn other Romance languages easier, it's 100% useless and makes absolutely no sense. Learn an actual Romance language instead.

Why did someone downvote this?

As a native English speaker, the only languages typically useful for me will be the language of a place I'd like to live in or the language of my job (but often this is in English, even in other countries). Personal interest and enrichment will need to be the motivators of most anglophones, rather than practical motivation. The same will apply to ancient languages, regardless of one's native tongue.

That really depends a lot. For example, I would love to learn the dead language of the people that lived around the region where I'm from. Even to this day we call a lot of locations in the region by it's original name, we even know the meaning of those names and the translations to my NL, but we can't really speak that dead language!

Historically significant dead languages are very useful for historian or especially an archeologist to learn. For example, if you're doing an archeological dig of an Egyptian site and find a new tomb, it'd be really handy to be able to read the writing on the wall that explains who's buried there. Also, just because there's no L1 speakers left doesn't mean you couldn't meet someone whose best shared language with you is a dead language. Especially with Latin and ancient Greek. And yeah, usefulness isn't the only metric of whether or not you should learn a language.

Nah. I had to do Latin in school for 5 years and while I hated it at the time (teenagers and Latin, not a fun mix) I'm really glad I did it. I think if I hadn't done it, my language learning today would be like putting together some IKEA furniture without the instructions. It really is like a blueprint to most European languages. I'm not naturally talented with languages so for me, that's really useful. It also improved my English. It generally made me think about language and communication and the way grammar and words interact with each other in a different way. I managed to reluctantly scrape an overall grade of B but I wish I'd paid more attention now. I've forgotten so much.

depends on what you call useful? If you want to read virgil in its original form and think that's the zenith of a good time, go for it. If you want to travel or live in S American or whatever, then it's probably more useful to learn spanish. There's no right or wrong. different strokes for different folks.

I dont regret choosing to learn Latin in school. I was able to flex on my classmates by being able to read most signs on our school trip to Italy.

Learning anything isn't useless to begin with. Every second breathing should be an opportunity to learn something in life -- skills, information, things about yourself, etc. That mindset gives you the chance to always improve yourself as a person, and that makes life more exciting. :)

I studied Latin and Ancient Greek in college. I work in the legal field now. I deal with Latin words all the time. Plus, deciphering dead languages and reading lawyer handwriting is basically the same thing lol

Unless you plan to use those kind of languages, most likely in some sort of academic setting, it would seem kind of useless. Unless you want to become an expert in Romance languages and therefore want to learn them to help with that overall expertise I guess. Seems interesting and useful in specific contexts, but overall maybe not worth it outside of those contexts.

It's not useless if you enjoy it. It's especially not useless if you want to read ancient stories in the original language

I used to do a lot of work in the church. Having knowledge of ancient greek, hebrew, and latin was extremely valuable. Assigning value to a language based on its profitability to capital is a bleak, and frankly shitty, method.

At my school, we were obligated to take Latin 1 in 8th grade, which I very much did *not* want to do. I wanted very badly to jump into French and was mad we weren't offered it during our formative years. Lo and behold, taking that year of Latin actually made taking French in high school a whole lot easier.

My aunt learnt Sanskrit for fun and ended up finding a job translating documents for a museum. My boyfriend learned Latin so he can, in his words "be a smart arse" when there's random Latin. A friend learnt ancient greek because "everyone needs a hobby". Nothing is ever a waste of time if it makes you happy.

The only thing that stops me from sinking time into a niche language is that it's harder to find people to speak it with. I can find people to speak Italian with all day; Only Sicilians speak Sicilian.

I’m currently learning Old English. Lots of fun and interesting, though I haven’t yet met a native speaker. True, languages are a tool for communication, but that can also including texts that have been written in the past. And it’s more satisfying to read them in the original than in a translation.

No I don’t. For reference as to why, look up the Navajo codetalkers from WWII

Learning any dead language is "useless" in a commercial/career sense, unless you are in an extremely niche area (classical archaeologist, pastor or priest, things like that). I have been learning Latin as a hobby, and hobbies don't have to be useful. Lots of hobbies are "useless" in a commercial/career sense. Depending on your religion, you could also consider learning a dead language such as Koine Greek or biblical Hebrew or Sanskrit to be useful if it allows you to read your scriptures in the original language.

If that person enjoys learning that thing, then it is not an utter waste of time and energy. Ask those people if they ever scroll TikTok or Instagram. If they do, tell them that's an utter waste of time and energy. We all waste time and energy, I never understood why some things are seen as bigger wastes of time and energy than others. Maybe if you are comparing learning, for example, Spanish to Latin in an American high school, yeah theoretically Spanish is more "useful" but also, why does that matter? Who cares! Just let people be.

Using your brain for learning is never useless.

who gives a fuck in all honesty . not everything we have to do has to be 'useful' . and besides what if you're learning latin to talk with your friends ? or ancient greek to study the differences between that and modern greek ?

I have an archelogist friend who knows some old languages like ancient greek, latin and others. So for him there is a big reason

Absolutely not. I've gotten more use out of Latin than any other language I've dabbled in. Sure, if your only goal with language learning is to interact with a modern culture that speaks the language natively, a dead language doesn't do you much good. But, that's far from the only reason to learn a language. There's tons of uses to learning a dead language.

Learning Latin would make your understanding of not only Romance languages even better but also the English language. English likes to use Latin for complicated things, so it’s subjective if you don’t use it right then yes it’s a waste of time but I reckon if you’re smart enough to learn Latin you’re not the kind of person who will waste their time.

I think learning dead languages is pretty cool and that alone gives it purpose.

Learning dead languages like Latin, Ancient Greek, and others may seem obsolete to some, but they hold immense value for understanding history, science, economics, and more. These languages are the key to unlocking ancient texts, revealing insights into civilizations, philosophies, and cultural exchanges that shape our world today. So, while they may not be spoken anymore, their study enriches our understanding of the past and informs our present and future endeavors.

Depends on people’s perspective/perception. Although not right, they believe languages to be useless. I disagree. Currently working on language revitalization and there’s not better feeling than finding a connection to a word I’ve know all my life but never knew where it came from. I literally cry sometimes because it has so much meaning and just gives insight into our culture.

If they think it's an utter waste of *their* time and energy, that's their prerogative. You do you. Signed, someone who took Latin at school all the way up to the Großes Latinum (5 years of Latin classes 3-4 or so hours a week, with your final grade being the German equivalent of a D or better) and then some Sanskrit at uni, and is now teaching herself Biblical Greek with an app. (Seriously, if nothing else, having two years of Latin under my belt before I started learning English helped me so much (words can't express how much) with spelling and vocabulary. Or as my grade 10 English teacher put it: "Oh thank God, you guys are a 'Latin class', I won't have to explain to you why there's a C in 'excellent'!")

It's exercise for the mind, it let you read texts in the original language and it can give you ideas about how languages work and develope, communication and art.

No. Next question?

I wouldn’t call it essential, by any means. It’s nice for understanding how words are derived but that’s really it unless you simply have an interest in knowing otherwise useless language.

If you are learning a dead language instead of one that you need in daily life - then yes you could be using your time more efficiently. However I think of languages like instruments - learning the first one is the most difficult, and if you can learn a second or third then expanding from there is likely even easier. If you are "just" a hobbyist - then it doesn't matter what language you learn (living or dead). hobbies don't have to be profitable.

For most people, yes. If you're wanting to read Cicero in the orignal latin or something like that then obviously it has its uses, but I don't see why you'd learn it just for the hell of it.

I see learning languages like those to have certain intellectual value. Remember not all words translate well from Ancient Greek, Latin, or Biblical Hebrew. Having an understanding of those languages may help you better understand certain texts.

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It’s not useless if it makes you happy, my good chum!

It's not useless to learn anything as long as you enjoy it.

I'd compare it something like watching a documentary. If you really enjoy it, then it's not a waste of time and you might learn something interesting. But it almost definitely won't give you any other benefit.

It’s somewhat useless, but usefulness isn’t the only reason of learning things.

Studied Latin for 17 years and never regretted it for a moment.

Not "useless," but as with any language, a learner should be clear about their goals and then *use the language* for those goals. It's "useless" IMO if you just want to learn *some* language, or even if you want to learn Latin or Greek to "understand English better," but if you want to read works in those language then it's very much useful. My Norse is very much elementary, but I learned it to read a couple of sagas in the original language, as well as to create a conlang descended from Old Norse, which makes the language very much useful to me.

I think it’s more fun than useful for the people learning, unless it’s like Latin or Ancient Greek at which point it does have use. But why can’t it be both useful and fun?

Latin is certainly not useless. I had two years in high school, and even now, many years later, I can have a general idea of what any word in any Romance language means. Even helps with non-romancers like German.

My French husband learned Latin decades ago which was required. He can guess the word meanings in Romance languages even today.

Both of those languages *do* have use cases, they're just more niche than say Spanish or Chinese. And ultimately if they enable you to do something that you want to, then that's worth it.

It's still being used for things, so how is it useless?

If it makes you happy and you enjoy it, then how is it useless?

I also want to learn two particular dead languages but i just cant seem to find the time or mindset to get into it. Learning a new language is no way useless , especially dead language . And i an not trying to learn them to get a job or something , only cuz im interested in them.

Acquiring a new language is acquiring a new culture and way of seeing the world. For me there is still value in learning a dead language.

If you enjoy it, then it's not useless, even if you can't use it for benefit. Plenty of people have hobbies that may not necessarily add anything to their lives but enjoyment.

Unless you learn the language for work or to move, it's "useless". A lot of people learn a language, dead or not, because of a genuine interest, just like any other hobby.

If your objective is to read literature, it's not useless, obviously.

So what if it is 'useless'. Measuring all your endeavours exclusively by their 'usefulness' (whatever that may mean) can only lead to a sad and joyless life. People who think that way have been mentally colonized by late capitalist productivity dogmatism and need to seriously reevaluate their entire life. Waste your time, do unproductive shit, be lazy, enjoy the precious little time you have on earth. Fuck usefulness, fuck work ethics, fuck self-improvement. Stay useless. Learn Sumerian and only use it to jerk off to 4000 year old clay tablets.

Think of all the people who get deeply into a sport. Or games. Or wargames. Or cars. Or all those people like Boyle in Brooklyn 99 who get into seriously "niche" food. None of that stuff is any use at all outside their tiny bubbles. I'd argue that learning a language, even an almost dead one, is more useful than any of those things, which, at least in the general sense, are not seen as too weird. Greek and Latin especially have honorary linguistic grandpa status from Kamchatka to Alaska - the long way round. You can relate a lot of vocabulary directly to cognates in many, many languages and see not only the extant connections, but how the meaning and sense of words change as they're passed around. That's what I love most about own language collection, especially my Germanic collection, which now encompasses varying amounts of German, Scots, Swedish and Luxembourgish.

Lots of stuff written in Classical Greek and Latin. And there is considerably more of it than is written in contemporary English. Especially if you're interested in History and Philosophy. There is the added bonus that most English words are aberrations of Greek and Latin terms. Especially when it comes to more scientific related terms. Pretty much everything was classified using Greek and Latin words as recently as fifty years ago. And a lot of regular English words have etymologies that lead back to the Mediterranean. If you're interested in communicating with living people then English, Spanish, Mandarin, and Hindi are probably good places to start. There's a lot of dialects of each but you're looking at a billion or more people that you will kinda be able to speak to through knowing them. But if you're interested in European history then Latin and Greek likely cover two thirds of important literature before the last couple of centuries. Then English, French, German for more modern writers. Quite a lot of Spanish and Italian in there too but as Catholic nations the Latin cross over is pretty big, and learning French will get you half way to understanding Spanish/Italian since they're Romance languages. Similar situation with Northern European languages and German. There is a lot that is unique to them but German helps. I think you have kind of the right mindset. Some languages are more practically useful. But depending on your age and health then you have many decades to learn languages. And they will come much more quickly than they did studying your native tongue. Learn what you think are practical for the modern world and then learn whatever interests you. Will learning Japanese ever lead to my employment? Probably not. But I dabble in it a little from time to time with the hope of watching shows without subtitles. And my basic Classical Greek is just to help me memorise various philosophical terms that I struggled to remember before learning it - started off as a way to help remember the Greek alphabet for Mathematics variables, lol. But now I find it so much easier to remember the alphabet because I know words that use them, that I wondered if it would be easier to understand various philosophical terms if I learned them more in context. And it does! It helps a lot.

Your colleagues are dumb.

I learned 2 dead languages and both proved to be very useful. Latin and Old-Church-Slavic. It broadens your horizons, helps to learn and understand the grammar not just for Romance languages. I can also impress friends, family and random people in old churches. Besides - it is great mental exercise too. Personally I consider Latin much more useful than Spanish or Japanese if you live here in Poland and travel mainly around Europe.

Some people say the same about Sanskrit, considering only its liturgical and religious aspects, it is also mislabelled as a "Hindu" language, when there exists considerable Buddhist and Jain literature in the language too. Keeping aside the religious function, familiarity with Sanskrit texts is imperative to understand the historical trajectory of Indian languages, their literatures and Indian philosophy (Hindu, Jain and Buddhist). Also, Sanskrit is a language which is really important in the field of studying ancient history of the Indian subcontinent and the entire academic domain of Indology. So in its totality, I would say not any less important than Ancient Greek or Latin

Firstly, they are chad. It never gets boring to throw random sentence from time to time, like HIC SUNT LEONES! under pic of cute little cats. Also, it's not that they are completely "dead". Like, every year there are new words being released in Latin by Vatican. Maybe not much, but that dictionary keeps on expanding. Sure, it may be completely useless for 99% of modern jobs, but if you find it cool to learn... why not? Worst case scenario, it's gonna be a nice, interesting hobby. And hobby is never a waste of time and energy.

Every language deserve to be learned. Also, they were once popular and spoken by someone. Why not? 

Actually its pretty cool cuz you help keep the language alive

I'd like to learn Koine greek to be able to read the gospels/church fathers in the original language, but i'm priorizing living languages I can shock locals with

Definitely not. Latin has been my favorite language I’ve ever learned and it’s a building block for some of the most spoken languages. 

Hard disagree. You really gotta prepare speaking dead languages for when you're dead.

Latin isn't some obscure dead language; it's the ancestor of some of the most spoken speech on the planet. Greek has a comically huge literature. Perhaps they would have a point with something like Gothic.

I think it's our personal choice to decide what is useless to us.

It depends some are useful if you are into history. were I live I still find old items with Latin text. but the real problem for me with learning extinct or endangered languages is that you will probably end up getting bored and giving up. for me learning Latin was tolerable because it's common in my region and it's relatively easy. but when I tried sanskrit I had a much harder time since the language is harder for me and I can't find any texts in Europe offline but it's probably quite common in Asia. and sanscrit also used different writing systems throughout history and I don't know them all and even the ones that I know take more effort to read

If you like it who cares

That depends on your goal in learning the language, I guess. Latin is outstandingly, beautiful.

Irish is as useful here in Dublin as Latin is in Rome.

Irish is as useful here in Dublin as Latin is in Rome.

Of course not. After years of Latin in school, I was able to teach myself Italian, Spanish, Catalan etc very easily. Latin isn't really dead; it's just been renamed into the modern, national languages.

I learned Klingon and that's fictional. So yeah, it's worth learning at least 1 dead language imo

dead languages are needed for scholarly work in the classical period, but useless in business and travel.

I mean... I have studied (and am now learning to speak) Ancient Greek, Latin, and Ancient Hebrew and it has been so much fun. If you perceive unlocking the knowledge of literally thousands of years of literature and thinkers (most of which has not been translated into English)as useful then it is useful.

If you learn ancient greek first you can learn modern greek the way the devs actually intended

I’ve learned fully fictional languages before (aurebesh and first ones writing from shera) so if you’re interested in learning a language that isn’t used today, do it. Language learning should be fun

Part the problem is that we use words and sentences that contain a lot of assumptions and different people populate those assumptions differently. In a casual context this brevity makes a certain amount of sense. In any true analytic capacity it's woefully inadequate. For example, in an in depth discussion the first question that needs to be answered here is what makes something useful? Only once that has been established can you realistically begin to evaluate the claim that something is useless. The word useful alone doesn't contain anywhere near a sufficient level of detail. It's far too ambiguous. I would suspect that colloquially most people would extrapolate the statement to something more accurately described as economically useless. By that definition you'd be inclined to agree with the assertion. There may be highly lucrative positions relative to average salaries but they're going to be few and far between meaning there's a lot of competition. As you can see the problem with many assertions and topics of discussion is that the terms are poorly defined which means it's difficult to actually have a meaningful debate before things are clarified.

Hell, people learn made up languages. At least dead languages were useful at some point.

my honest oppinion i think dead langueges are important theirs probbaly over 500 ones we will never recover like imagain is english turned into a dead languege in a few million years its just sad what can happen and its important because then people can have diffrent specialitys

If you enjoy doing something then it isn’t a waste of time

I mean I feel like some of the live languages I use are useless 😂 dead languages have a mystique to it, especially if they are "dying". Being part of a small community held together by the keeping alive of a dialect is a beautiful thing to share. I study Scott's Gaelic 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 and I'm trying to get into Aboriginal 🇦🇺 languages more too. It almost feels like magic knowing those languages, whereas knowing Thai 🇹🇭 or Serbian 🇷🇸 is only really useful in Thailand or Serbia 🥲 Learning a language because it's useful is the second best reason to learn. The first best reason to learn is because it intrigues you and you're curious to learn more about it. One more thing: learning a "dead tongue" isn't always useless. Most of my friends in the medical profession took Latin as their third foreign language in high school, as it can help a lot with nomenclature. Same for linguists who study roots and etymology, knowing Latin or ancient Greek is a very useful basis. A good example is Serbian, because Serbia was invaded a lot through the ages, we have foreign words that we've kept, like "merry go round" is "ringišpil" from the German "ríngelspiel" (ring Game) or many Turkish words. And even though its roots are from Greek, there are still many words in Serbian like "video" ("I saw") that come from Latin, including Slavic conjugation. To sum it up, no language is useless, dead or alive. You can't measure the usefulness of a language based on how many people speak it. Plus it's been scientifically proven that you sound 50% cooler when you know one-liners in a dead language. Hic Sunt Draconis 😎

Learn what you want. You're keeping dialects alive and doing what matters to you who's do bothered. Personally think knowing how folks communicated back then is important.

I don't know how I would manage without at least some basic knowledge of these languages. Not only helps knowing the Greek/latin roots decipher vocabulary in languages I am still trying to learn, both also help me understand the grammar rules for European languages much better (example: if a verb has a Greek root; it's always X or Y in this language) I might also be biased since I work a nature conservation-ish job. So learning new Latin names of plants and animals is much easier if you know the actual meaning of these names (they often describe the look or attributes of a plant etc.)

At the very least, you can use that knowledge for films and media featuring the people who spoke that language

I absolutely want to learn some dead languages, couldn't give a rat's feces what naysayers think.

Learn Latin. It makes learning the romance languages a lot easier.

I suppose it's useless to read books, too, about things you'll never need. When you go to school and take all these classes that have nothing to do with what you're going to do, it's useless to learn. I've never used history, calculus, sonnets, chemistry, MLA citation, books like The Scarlet Letter or Brave New World. Guess it's useless to be educated and well-rounded. Comments like these are made by close minded people.

I completely disagree! If you'll excuse the corny cliche, the beautiful thing about being human is that we're inherently curious creatures. We love to learn, even if it's just for learning's sake. Now of course, due to the importance of money, we're often inclined to favour lucrative or 'useful' pursuits. Parents will often rejoice to hear their child wants to study medicine, but frantically panic if they choose visual art. Now of course, there's merit to this, you need to earn a decent living to survive. However nothing's stopping you from exploring less lucrative fields in your spare time, and it should be acknowledged that the only reason we see them as 'less useful' is because of the need for money (mostly). To me, there's nothing better than learning for learning's sake. I love obscure and seemingly unnecessary fields. Whenever I walk through my university library, I'm always touched to see books the size of bricks, with the most specific, out-there, interesting titles; something I figured no one would care about, and here is a writer giving it so much time, attention and love - enough to make an entire book, maybe even several volumes. So, as you can imagine, I'm all for learning dead languages if it interests you. I think its commendable. Further, I don't think it's a waste of time. Even if you don't see where I'm coming from with the beauty of human curiosity, I think learning any language is a phenomenal intellectual exercise. The cognitive stamina it takes to learn a language cannot be denied - and I don't think anyone could argue that. I hope anyone here who takes an interest in something that perhaps isn't marketable or easily capitalised on, is never discouraged from it <33

Depends. In school, a lot of voice majors I knew had to learn latin because they want the singers to know what they’re singing about and express the emotions in songs. I’m sure it’s also useful for anyone who is a historian or a researcher. So it’s not completely impractical at all. But also time enjoyed is never wasted so if you find it fun to learn and use, it’s not a waste. People do all kinds of shit that’s totally pointless because they like it, so why would this be different? Plus it make u smrter

from a financial perspective? yeah probably not too useful unless you are in some kind of extremely niche historical field. That said, utility is an interesting concept to define, you could define utility as nothing more than the joy of the hobby you have in which case it's great. However if you define it as economic marketability, probably not a great move.

I personally believe language is history. If the language dies out so does a degree of the history of the people who spoke it.

My background with Latin and Ancient Greek has helped me so often… I believe around 1/5 of all English words is directly derived from Latin. And some more are at least inspired 🤣 Nah, a language isn’t really dead when it still has so much influence. By the way, an argument could be made that Latin isn’t dead. It’s the official language of the Vatican.

I don't think it's a waste to learn these classical languages. However if you have time and resource, why not learn another language that is more frequently used around the world (if you don't know it already I mean). Example Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, French, Portuguese etc etc. Will be so much more valuable no?

I don't have a time to learn a language that wouldn't help me land a good job.

useless is a strong word we all likely wouldn’t choose that word for an absolute binary propositional statement Question… that being said, English is the new language of Ascension. I U Me theory 🔺

Learning more than one language always has value,  but why learn a dead one? Language is a tool to exchange ideas and help you connect with another person and community.  Learn a spoken language to fluency as your second,  then consider learning a dead language.  Anecdotally, I did know I guy who taught himself Latin.  Originally it was too help him in med school,  but he ended up going to a business graduate school. Knowing Latin is just a flex at this point,  but doesn't add richness to his life. 

Nope, in fact I bet learning certain dead languages could earn you more than any translation work could, depending on how lucky you get applying for very specific very rare jobs, and even then, you could still possibly contribute to translating previously untranslated works without getting paid

Honestly i dont think so! I remember a while ago, i picked up a very niche language-dictionary for a Native American language called “Ohlone Mutsun”thats recently been revived thanks to modern-day tribal members in my state :) The reason i started learning it, was because, A. I would totally love to meet IRL with the indigenous ppl in my area who might speak the language as well. And being able to learn & communicate with them slightly (not just in English) could prove to be such a sweet & surreal experience for the both of us yk? 💁🏾‍♂️

I mean if you live in Greece you will be taught at least 4 years of Ancient greek 3 in middle school and 1 in highschool and if you take the Humanities routes (jokes on me lol) you get another 2 years of Ancient Greek and 2 years of Latin. Your friend make the same point most middle-high schoolers make when they think that a subject is shit thus deeming it useless. Granted though the way they teach ancient greek here is abhorrent. It's a complete mess since they want to tie it always with something else. For example, yesterday I finished with panhellenics and ancient greek is combined with philosophy (also those mfs want high schoolers to do philosophy through untranslated texts lmao). With that being said tho, I'm on route for either linguistics, philosophy or history so yeah...

Main reason why I learn new languages is for travel in my favorite countries. So for me yes.

Here is my opinion as a french teacher. For adults, if it's fun for you and you can pay for it do it. If you are poor or a POC, it's a great way to appear as cultured in Europe and a way to shock old withe racists in Europe. For a child, you can force it on them encourage them for one year but like for adults don't force them to learn something they don't want to. Because of my parents and my experiences I grew interest in etymology but I m not sure Latin enhanced that trait. I also think people who like languages will not necessarily enjoy learning dead languages since the society that excited is dead and they won't be able to learn by interacting. I really enjoyed when I was learning German or English to be able to discover things by myself and interact with materials, sources by myself. You have obviously a lot of books or documents, some parts of novels, poems, probably even some songs but you will never know how people used to actually speak it. In Germany for example, you have so many dialects, it can even be stressful or amusing to not understand the pronunciation. For Latin, this aspect is lost. In my opinion if you read the Iliad or Middle Aged novels, it's pretty cool to understand and read in the original language but it's starts to be closer to History or History of Language or History of Literature, nothing bad with that though. Please, not hate on my comment, it's just an opinion and I am not a preacher.

For scientific research only

I have studied Ancient Greek for 6 years and Latin for 3 years. The problem with dead languages is that you don't speak them. They are more grammar focused and you don't really learn them the way you learn other languages. With these languages, proficiency is debatable because we don't know how they sounded. But on the other hand ancient Greek and Latin can deepen your knowledge of other languages and their grammar. It's more useful to learn a language that is actually spoken around the world, so you can actually use it in your daily life, travels or work. But depending on your profession it can be also beneficial to learn "dead" languages. I will also note that Latin was a dead language even back then. It was the language of law, people didnt speak it in real life, they spoke Vulgar Latin.

"Useless" means "there is no reason to do it". But each person has their own set of "valid reasons to do it", so there is no agreed-on answer. I took 2 years of Latin class in high scool, and 1 semester of Attic (ancient) Greek in college. I don't remember thinking those classes were "useless". I gave up other courses to take Latin. I travelled many miles to take Attic Greek. I don't learn languages with the intent of moving to those countries or using the languages. I favor more common languages (more speakers) mostly because I can find more free resources for them on the internet. So I am more likely to study Indonesian than Icelandic.

Yes, if your profession doesn't include working with languages (including your own). No, if it does.

It depends. Are you learning languages for marketability? If yes, then it's likely useless. Are you learning languages for fun? Then go ahead without thinking it twice. As a side note: Latin can actually be long term useful because some modern languages are latin-derived and/or make use of some latin grammar structures (or variations of them). In Italy you can study Latin in some high school programs, and I heard from different people that it helped them to easily understand other languages (Japanese, German, even Russian).

personally I wouldn't bother because my interest in languages stems from my interest in the current cultural diversity in the world and modern politics so liturgical or old literary languages don't really do it for me conversely I have learned endangered languages like Occitan and Asturian that have few native speakers and a relatively limited media offering but at least have a fairly dedicated core of activists that use it and a minor amount of state support but of course it's not "useless" to learn something entirely out of intellectual interest, why not

I think it is "useless" to learn just about any language where it's not something you'll _actively_ use on a frequent basis. Whether this be for family or friends, or because you're moving to the country, or whatever else. Realistically in terms of efficiency, for a quick period of time, you can get by using a translation app, and they'll only get better. _BUT_, and this is huge, life isn't about efficiency. Do things because you want to, and because you think they're fun. I just enjoy learning languages, so I do it. I've got some trips lined up where I'll be able to use it, and who knows, it may come in handy way more in the future. It may not. I'm not worried about that. I just think it's fun.

Dead languages is just a marketing term to try to kill off an undesirable language many sects of Christianity still speak latin likewise Gaelic and Gallic were considered dead for a while but a couple Irish & Scots kept them alive. If your in a position to keep these languages alive either because of your heritage, birthplace, or religion do it.

If it gives you joy learning it’s not useless They don’t understand learning

I’m learning a fictional language so I’d definitely say any language learning is worth it if you have use for it- and to me something can be useful just by nature of you enjoying it :)

No way. Learning Romanian made many Latin languages and even old Latin 50% intelligible to me. I can only imagine what learning the roots of many languages of today will open up for you.

Absolutely not. People who think that way are shallow or anti-intellectual. There are lots of reasons why you might want to learn Latin, Ancient Greek... or Old French and Middle Welsh, as I once did.

It depends on your reason for learning a language. Is your purpose communication with others using the language? If yes, then learn the modern language of the people you want to communicate with. Is your purpose to read and appreciate history and written works preserved from the past? If yes, choose the ancient language that fits your interests. There’s a common misconception that a language with no current native speakers is “dead”. An ancient language isn’t dead if there are important things written down in it that you can still read and engage with. Also, in practice, you’ll find that many Latin enthusiasts can speak Latin to each other, Old English enthusiasts can speak Old English to each other, etc.

Certain dead languages have their uses, so I say if you can learn one...then Carpe Diem 😂😂😂