Latin Redux

An editorial in today's New York Times is about the revival of Latin. The author believes this trend could strengthen the country's political rhetoric. Reading the foundations of Western civilization in its original form is a richer, fuller experience, and opens one eyes up to our classical roots. And, translating Latin is a wonderful way to train the mind. All of our early presidents studied Latin in school, and even Presidents Clinton and Bush studied Latin, but in in the mid 1960s the study of Latin collapsed. In 1977 only 6,000 students took the National Latin Exam, but in 2005 that number increased to 134,873.

Those of you who were lucky enough to have studied Latin, please visit the new website, Vicipaedia. The goal of Vicipaedia is to keep Latin hip and alive, but the articles are written in authentic classical Latin. Some articles are written by beginning Latin students, so Vicipaedia should not be used as a reference work, but as a way to practice the language.

Vicipaedia has 15,000 articles. Catullus, Horace and the Roman Senate are included; so are musica rockica, Georgius Bush and cadavera animata, aka zombies. You can read in Latin about hangman (homo suspensus), paper airplanes (aeroplanum chartaceum), as well as about famous Italians like Leonardo da Vinci and the Super Mario brothers.