Postmortem: Latin is not just for the elite

THERE are times when I'm glad I don't live in the United Kingdom. Political correctness — the practice of neutering language so that it does not give offence to anyone — has won yet another victory for the Forces of Mediocrity.

The employees of Bournemouth Council in the south of England have been instructed not to use Latin when communicating with the public. Every newspaper is carrying the story and, not surprisingly, the chattering classes are in high dudgeon.

Mary Beard, a professor of classics at Cambridge, said, "This is absolutely bonkers and the linguistic equivalent of ethnic cleansing."

Council employees have been told they should avoid phrases such as "status quo", "vice versa", "ad hoc" and "et cetera". Latin words are banned because some people do not understand them and "might be offended". Latin is "elitist". Has everyone gone completely nuts? When will it stop? Are we to reduce English to a series of monosemic grunts to protect the self-esteem of people with no cultural breadth? Dr Peter Jones, co-founder of the charity Friends of the Classics, said, "This sort of thing sends out the message that language is about nothing more than the communication of very basic information in the manner of a railway timetable."

Latin phrases are useful because they express concisely an idea that would otherwise require a long paraphrase in English. HM Queen Elizabeth II famously used the term annus horribilis of the year 1992 which was so unhappy for her family. Much was subsumed in that short phrase. Try explaining the term contra mundum in a few words. It actually comes from Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited and is used to suggest struggling against everything the world can throw at you. English is enriched, not obscured, by Latin.

English, as everyone knows, is full of words from other languages. Many of these have been anglicised and that obscures their origins. We don't realise we are using Anglo-Saxon, French, Latin, Hindi or Greek. Like Malay, English is a real melting pot.

Aren't all languages? They can't be anything else. We should welcome the richness this brings, not try to limit it. Only the French have consistently strived to stem the tide of linguistic incursion, but to no avail.

Despite all its pronouncements, the Académie Francaise could not stop the French using "le weekend" and "le foot". The British humorist Miles Kington made an art form of "franglais", that wonderfully mid-channel version of French.

He popularised such gems as Longtemps, pas voir (Long time, no see) and il a des idées au-dessus de sa gare (he has ideas above his station).

Languages at any point in their development include foreign phrases and sayings that are not fully assimilated. Where would we be without RSVP — Répondez, s'il vous plaît? ("Could you possibly write back and tell us if you are coming?" So long winded!) Or what about cherchez la femme (we must assume that a woman has provided the motivation for this crime)? The Latin phrases used in everyday English are simply a component of the living language.

I cannot imagine how English has got along without lah or bah for so long? "Go lah" translates "I think it would be an awfully good idea if you were to get going now"; "No lah" — "I really am rather concerned that you haven't grasped all the ramifications of this issue"; "OK lah" — "If you absolutely insist, I will do it, but I do hope you understand that my heart is not in it." As the T shirt tells us, "To lah or not to lah, that is the question."

At my first parents' evening at JIS a parent stood up and asked me if I was planning to introduce Latin into the Jeruding International School (JIS) curriculum.

At the time I equivocated feebly, but the time has clearly come, particularly in the light of the pusillanimous reaction of British Councils to a few complaints from the pc police.

Five years of compulsory Latin should ensure that all JIS pupils leave Brunei with a proper grasp of grammar. They might even stop putting "like" into every single sentence. I'm sure I can find an out of work classicist who would love the challenge of teaching the Aeneid to Year Eight. JIS students don't know what they are missing: final clauses, ablative absolutes, the pluperfect subjunctive, dative verbs ...

A dative put with show and give

Tell, envy, spare, permit, believe,

Persuade, command, obey, to these

Add threaten, succour, pardon, please.

More! More! they cried. I had that drummed into me when I was 12. How can I convince JIS students that Latin is cool? Some of the best jokes in education rely on a sound knowledge of the classics.

One is reminded of General Napier, a buccaneering 19th century commander-in-chief of the British Army in India who, having captured the province of Sindh (in present day Pakistan), telegraphed to London: "Peccavi" — I have sinned (peccare: to sin). On reaching Lucknow in Northern India on a different campaign, General Napier's telegramme read, "Nunc fortunatus sum (I am in luck now)". It is these telegrammes that have ensured his place in history, not colonising a 100 million souls.

Perhaps, in protest at this latest piece of idiocy from Blighty, we should all start writing to the British government in Latin. What other way to protect and uphold our cultural heritage? We could start by complaining about the exorbitant cost of replacing a British passport:

Legatus Altissimus Maximus (Your Excellency?), Verissime passporti nostri carissimi sunt. (carus : expensive) Unus passportus Britannicus CDLXXX dollares stet (stet: costs). Britannici ad limen patriae saepe festinant. Gaudeamus igitur, sed non est disputandum XLVIII paginae satis non suntIllegimitimis non carborundum est that sort of thing.

In the playground we used to chant:

Latin is a language

As dead as dead can be

It killed all the Romans

And now it's killing me.

How little we knew!

The writer is the principal of Jerudong International School.

The Brunei Times