I grew up in a border town in California. This means that my whole life, I have lived in the vicinity of people speaking two languages all around me. I attended a private Roman Catholic elementary school called St. Mary’s in El Centro, California. While about half of the students there resided in the United States, the other half commuted daily from across the border in Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico. All of our classes were taught in English and many families sent their children to St. Mary’s specifically so they could learn English. Sadly, students were reprimanded for speaking Spanish while on campus and I did not learn much Spanish from them while in the classroom. Nonetheless, my Spanish-speaking classmates often spoke in their native tongue when no adult ears were around. Although I took Spanish classes for about ten years in grade school and high school, I did not learn significant Spanish until I moved to Mexico in my early 20s. However, thanks to the exposure I had to Spanish as a youngster during my brain’s best language learning years, I am able to pronounce words in Spanish with little or no American accent. When I speak to native Spanish speakers in their language, they frequently are surprised to learn that Spanish is my second language. Although I frequently describe my Spanish as “rusty” because I don’t use it often, I speak and understand the language better than I probably am willing to admit. Learning a second language has enhanced my life and I am fascinated by the role language plays in our humanity.
The English language is certainly the “lingua franca” in today’s world, with over 2 billion speakers. However, of that total, only 380 million people speak English as their native language. About 485 million people speak Spanish as their native language and 940 million people speak Mandarin Chinese as their native language. By learning Spanish, I expanded the number of people with whom I can communicate by a number potentially in the hundreds of millions! It helps me in travel and it helps me through the enrichment of my life by the opportunities I have to experience cultures from Mexico, Central and South America, Spain, and elsewhere. My knowledge of Spanish was also tremendously helpful when I decided to attend seminary. Spanish is a Latin-based language and a whole lot of Church vocabulary comes from Latin.
Sanctus. Agnus Dei. Ave Maria. Pater Noster. Chalice. Lectionary. Gloria Patri. All of these words and others either are Latin or come from Latin. If you’re keeping score, sanctus means holy, agnus Dei means Lamb of God, Ave Maria means Hail Mary, Pater Noster is Our Father, Chalice comes from the Latin word calix (a drinking vessel), lectionary comes from the Latin word lection (reading), and Gloria Patri means Glory to the Father. The Latin language at one time held the status that English now holds in the world as the lingua franca. In fact, “lingua franca” is Latin! It means language of the Franks, and it refers to a language that is spoken by native speakers and non-native speakers alike as a means of mutual communication. Because the Christian Church had early roots in Jerusalem (part of the Roman Empire) and Rome (capital of said empire), the vocabulary of the Church is based largely on Latin. It is also influenced by Greek and Hebrew.
Although Latin is today known as a “dead language”, meaning it no longer has any native speakers, its descendants are vast. The Romance languages (meaning the languages with Roman roots) spread through Italy, France, the Iberian Peninsula and even parts of Eastern Europe, before the Americas were colonized by Europeans and the languages jumped the Atlantic. Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and other languages all have Latin roots. Many of these roots are similar enough for speakers to understand, and others are not. The pronunciation also changes the further the dialect gets from Rome. Think about regional accents in English in the United States. If a person from Alabama has a conversation with someone from Boston and someone else from Hawaii, you’d get the impression that each was speaking a different language! Latin languages evolved similarly over a longer period of time. Each Romance language started as a regional dialect as settlers spread, and then developed its own vocabulary and grammar slightly different from the mother tongue. Notice that the further away from Rome you go, the more differences you notice in the languages. Italian (Latin’s closest living relative) is very similar to French (although the pronunciation is different). By the time we move into Spain, the language has changed again. Portuguese is even different still. Although English itself is a Germanic language, so much trade took place between England and France historically that today’s English language owes much of its vocabulary to Latin cognates. Even our grammar is influenced by Latin. If you remember learning in your grammar classes that you are never to split an infinitive, then you are learning Latin grammar. In Latin, the infinitive is contained within the word itself, so it cannot be split. In English, we need the particle “to” in order to make a verb an infinitive. So every episode of Star Trek you watched contains a grammatical error. Without splitting the infinitive “to go”, the mission of the Starship Enterprise would be “To go boldly where no man has gone before.”
Language influences our world tremendously. I like to refer to the original languages used in scripture and other documents so I can have a better idea of what was meant. Language shifts and changes, not just over distances but also over time. Have you noticed that Australian English sounds different than American English, which sounds different than British English? Time and space separated the settlers of those places. This is why it’s important for seminary students to study ancient languages. I had a choice between Greek and Hebrew, but chose Greek because I thought it was more important to exegete the Greek gospels than Hebrew texts (fortunately, I have tools that help me to do both). Many seminarians are also required to study Latin. Studying language helps us to expand our minds and to keep our brains sharp. It helps us to look at the world in new and exciting ways. It helps us to enhance our knowledge of the world around us, and it helps us to develop and enhance our relationships with God’s people. By opening our lips and ears and widening our linguistic abilities, we can deepen our knowledge of the Church and grow in our faith.