Italian parliamentarian Cristiana Muscardini expresses support for more Latin education in schools

Sunday, October 04, 2009

Found a page here in Italian today from an Italian parliamentarian named Cristiana Muscardini expressing her support for a larger role for Latin (Greek gets a bit of a word in there too) in the European Parliament. The page is dated 7 September so it's fairly recent. Here's a rough translation of most of it:

It's without question that the roots of European identity are deeply rooted in the heredity left to us by the Greeks and the Romans. Latin, with Rome and Christianity, played the role of an international language to diffuse this identity everywhere...today, losing the knowledge of the Latin language would break the continuity of the thread that connects us to our roots. Moreover, many words of many European languages have an etymology that derives from Latin and therefore the knowledge of this helps also with the learning of languages of our own countries. Considering therefore the formative value of Latin, considering its function in the collective memory and its link with the values that have created European civilization,

1. Does the Commission not believe that the study of Latin should be restored to high schools, in an extensive program of European cultural formation, which allows the reading of Latin texts and, in classical schools, of Greek texts as well?

2. Does the Commission not consider it appropriate, through the Erasmus program, to encourage the exchange of students between faculties that favour the Latin language?

3. Why does the Commission not dedicate a chapter in its "Education and Formation 2010" program in order to improve the quality and efficiency of education and training?


Perhaps a Latin version of her Wikipedia page is in order.

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