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I bet plenty of universities will keep using them beyond our lifetimes.

From that point of view they are doing quite well.



you can also take a Latin course in college. how "well" is Latin doing?


Good, it is still the official language in Vatican documents, has an updated dictionary, and some European countries see it as a CV requirement by most HR departments when hiring for top management positions.


> some European countries see it as a CV requirement by most HR departments when hiring for top management positions.

This sounds utterly bizarre, I have a very hard time believing this. Which countries would that be?


I can't confirm the specific example, but this sounds like a smoke cover for nepotism and/or classism. If you're not allowed to recruit solely from your personal friend group, requiring that applicants be able to speak a dead language let's you select that same group of people while giving a flimsy justification.


So, just like strong idiosyncratic preferences for particular programming languages.


In France for example, it used to be that all good family kids studied Latin, so high league universities and was seen as plus on the CV, at least for 20 years when I used to live there.


France would be a typical example, except that this is an urban legend.

Context: I graduated from the 3rd best high school in France, then from one of the Grandes Ecoles (~ Ivy League). I was born in the early 70's in Versailles.

German and Latin were seen as languages where the best students meet. This was a vision of the parents without getting in the reality. The best high-school students were everywhere.

I had Latin and Greek in mid-school and high school like anybody else. Complete loss of time when you are not interested.

At university it did not matter at all.

Today, when recruiting even for the "really French" companies nobody would think about Latin as a discriminant. It literally wouldn't cross anyone's mind.

There are urban legends everywhere, this is one about French education (which is sometimes great, and sometimes completely backwards to the point where I doubt the decisions makers have ever seen kids in real life)

As for today (and not 40 years ago), in the class of my son in that same elitist high school, one student does Latin and Greek. Because he is interested in the languages.


That’s pretty good for a dead language, but not so much for a living one to the OP’s point.




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