Facebook’s been on a multilingual tear recently. Ever since Facebook launched its Facebook Translations app, where Facebook users could help translate the social network into the world’s many languages, Facebook has added support for everything from Hebrew to Persian to even Pirate Speak.
Facebook (Facebook) just announced that it has added an interesting language to its roster: Latin. Yes, the ancient Italic language has made its way onto the world’s largest social network.
You might be asking yourself: why is Facebook adding Latin support? Doesn’t it seem like a waste of time to support a dead language? Facebook explains its rationale in its announcement:
“To students of Latin, the availability of the language on Facebook may be just what’s needed to narrow the distance between themselves and the venerable language. After all, the experience of studying Latin can frequently seem somewhat far and away. Even the readings prescribed by Latin teachers have an air of detachment about them: Cicero and Demosthenes, Caesar and Virgil. While students of “living languages” practice on subtitled films and in conversation groups, on vacations and with exchange students, Latin scholars soak in rare living breaths of their studied language, satisfying themselves with the occasional legal phrase, nursery plant, benediction or school motto. Recognizing verb stems and identifying vocabulary roots just somehow aren’t quite the same as ordering off a menu or asking for directions.
Though Latin has been long out of use, for some of us, it never loses its intrigue. As a native English speaker, I enrolled in Latin to supplement my study of Romance languages. I still remember reading a translated copy of “Winnie the Pooh” in Latin, and gradually working my way through state speeches and philosophic commentary dating from the Roman Empire. When I joined Facebook a year ago, I chose a Latin phrase, “dictum meum pactum” (”my word is my bond”), as the phrase that currently appears on my Facebook business card.”
Summary: A lot of today’s update has to do with helping students of the old language. Using Latin every day to interact with your friends is actually an ideal way to pick up a new language. And while we may not use Latin anymore, so many historical documents were written in the language that we cannot afford to forget how to read and speak it.
We like this update. A lot. Now I have a new reason to learn Latin.
