For Love of a Lost Language
I am a Latin lover. Well, let me clarify. I know what you may be thinking. In actuality, I am of native American descent, however, I have an incurable love for the Latin language. You know, the one that is “dead,” as they used to say back in my school days. Luckily, for once, I listened to that wise woman I call my mama. When I was a freshman in high school, she strongly urged that I take Latin class. But I wanted to speak the language of love, French! Mom so aptly advised that studying Latin would open up a vast world of words that would last me a lifetime. Now you know… my mom pointed the way to my poignant passion where the pen meets paper!
As a ninth grader at Noblesville High School, I not only learned how to dissect a frog in biology class, but I learned to love dissecting words. I found it fascinating to master a moniker by relegating its roots. Remember the brain game in your monthly Reader’s Digest – “It Pays to Enrich Your Word Power?” Now simply called “Word Power,” it’s still to this day one of my favorite guilty pleasures. If I miss more than one or two out of a total of twenty, I’m mad at myself for a day!
But back to my days at NHS, Latin was not just a class for me. It was an entire litany of opportunities. My teacher, Ann Hoggatt, offered many activities to entice our interest in this “lost” language. I joined the Junior Classical League (JCL) where our token togs were togas and we reenacted the ways of the Romans. Now a confirmed lover of Latin and literature, I was lucky enough to serve as the editor of the Indiana JCL’s newspaper, “Veritas et Scientia.” Go ahead – take a stab at sussing out the meaning of that title! (Translation – “Truth and Knowledge.”)
And truth be told, I still found my way into four years of French classes with our fabulously fun teacher, Mr. Watson (lovingly nicknamed “Wally” by his students.) Learning French was a breeze with a literacy of Latin. I admit, one of my regrets in life has been not to learn more languages. When I served on mission trips in Haiti and the Dominican Republic a few years back, having a proficiency in Spanish would have been boundlessly beneficial. (One of my many “should have, would have, could have moments!)
But bottom line, studying the mother of all languages has served me well. Thankfully, it gained me a high enough score on my verbal SAT’s to mitigate my minuscule math marks. I’ll never say c’est la vie to my fondness for French, but I’ll be a Latin lover for the rest of my days!
Branna (McCarty) Shores believes that “HOME is where your story begins.” A Noblesville native and proud graduate of NHS and Purdue University, she is a professional speaker, advocate for mental health and work / family balance and retired social worker. Branna is the mother of two grown daughters, six precious grandchildren and wife of one brave husband! Her passions include singing, writing and sharing the lighter side of life through lessons learned, both personally and professionally. She can be contacted at branna18@gmail.com