Marilyn Hagerty and Latin

Every now and then something happens in Grand Forks, North Dakota. This is generally a shock to both local residents and the larger world. So when Marilyn Hagerty’s review of the Olive Garden went viral last year and led to appearances on TV, collaborations with Anthony Bourdain, and national renown, it caught the community off guard. It got even more exciting and intentional when she won the Al Neuharth Award for Excellence in the Media this fall. This is a big deal.

It was really fun to meet and chat with Marilyn Hagerty last week about Latin at UND. Latin is one of her causes that she returns to regularly in her various columns (and North Dakota has a very strong tradition for teaching Latin in high school and several strong programs). You can read the resulting column here and be sure to notice the shout-out to the 2012 Cyprus Research Fund lecture. 

One thing that I tried to explain to her was the way that studying ancient languages introduced a sense of cultural quiet to our hectic worlds. Most readers get that studying languages can re-wire our brains, improve critical thinking skills, hone our memory, introduce the basic terms and rules of grammar, grow our vocabularies, and challenge us with a massive new body of cultural, literary, and social expression.

What I tried to explain is that the act of reading a Classical language – as much as they can instill panic when introduced in a classroom setting (and there’s no kind of panic like a Book Two of Thucydides panic) – requires a kind of concentration and quiet that our culturally chaotic world refuses to sanction.

This is the first year since I’ve been at UND in which I’m not doing anything with any ancient languages; even my Latin Friday Morning has fallen dormant. While I miss the camaraderie of toiling through a text with students, more than anything, I miss the quiet that preparing that class would bring. Sitting with a Latin or Greek text blocked out the other noise of the world and forced me to focus on one thing: that text, those sentences, those words. And, even acknowledging that our ways of reading are deeply embedded in our own cultural expectations, connecting with the ancient world through words forced me (quite violently at times) to confront how language works and worked in a way that nothing else has. More than that, however, it allowed me to participate in a ritual of reading that dated back thousands of years and eclipsed for just a moment my otherwise rapid fire, media infused, blogocentric, no huddle, world. (Something that Marilyn Hagerty would certainly appreciate.)

So, if you are reading this blog and having taken Latin or Greek, go and sign up for a Latin or Greek class today.