Something called Real Alternative is described as “a codec pack that can be used with any Direct Show media player”. The jargon is in English but I have no idea what it means. It is reminiscent of the sign restricting the use of use of boats in a Shanghai park. In ‘Chinglish’ it reads “Seasick persons, alcohol and patients having the disease and not a single child by boat”. Is there a ‘real alternative’ international language that most of us could learn to speak, kind of, more or less, at least a little, when necessary?

One remembers our Latin master at school deploring the fact that both Cambridge and Oxford (cited alphabetically) were debating dropping Latin as a requirement for university entrance. At the time Latin and French were the two ‘other languages’ most frequently taught in Ontario schools.

Those who had to study both did so with varying degrees of enthusiasm. It was satisfyingly patriotic to be able to read La Presse from Montréal. It was less agreeable to have to cope with the fact that, as novelist Dorothy Sayers once wrote remembering her own schooldays, the Romans had the peculiar custom of altering the endings of their nouns according to the ‘case’ in which they were used – nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative or ablative. But, she said, life is full of odd things that one must learn to accept.

Sayers did not have to “go up” to Oxford. She already lived there but since she was not reading Classics she got by with only a modest competence in Latin. Although she said she had been born with a gift for language, by the time she became internationally known she could not read any Latin author with ease.

The chief argument for studying Latin was its usefulness in teaching the young to think and write clearly. That was particularly the case with the use of Latininfluenced English and, of course, with the Romance (‘Romanish’) languages. Eloquence, let alone elegance, in any of the above, it was argued, was enhanced by one’s Latinity. Many scientific and legal terms are understood more readily with that knowledge. One should not have to ask the meaning of ‘magnum cum laude’, ‘habeas corpus’,‘acer rubra’ or ‘reflux esophagitis’.

For better or worse Oxbridge abandoned compulsory Latin in the 1960s, following similar earlier decisions by North American universities. Still, each generation should have Classics scholars even though their numbers do not need to be in the thousands. It would at least be desirable that a university graduate be able to translate the Latin motto of his or her own alma mater. That of the University of Toronto is, ‘Velut arbor aevo’ (‘As a tree [grows] in age’). Do students there still sing the old Varsity song, “Velut arbor aevo, may she ever thrive-o / God forever bless our alma mater”?

Professor Jarred Welsh says that there is a new interest in Latin at the U of T. Rumour has it that there are even some Latin clubs in elementary schools because of Harry Potter (Henricus Figulus?). Would there be any interest in basic Latin instruction in Dufferin County which is under a distant school board but which boasts the motto “In vias rectas”? It would be nice if all future councillors and trustees could translate it. In doing so, familiarity with Psalmus XXIII might be a help.

There would have to be a revival of optional instruction in Latin, or Greek for that matter,

in local secondary schools if we were ever to produce future Classics scholars. One supposes that Mandarin Chinese or Spanish might be in greater diplomatic or commercial demand. But to lose the root languages of Western culture – and one should perhaps include Hebrew as well – would be like being deprived of our traditional alphabet, even though the letters J, W, X and Z may be expendable.

There are other considerations. The Roman Catholic Church, which whatever its current problems will continue to be an important international community, has both a traditional and practical interest in perpetuating the use of Latin as its ‘foundational tongue’. It is commonly thought that it was abandoned in the ‘aggiornamento’, the updating begun by the Second Vatican Council. In fact, the apostolic constitution ‘Veterum sapientia’ issued by Pope John XXIII in 1962, put increased importance on teaching Latin in seminaries and schools.

Western Catholics tend to forget the other ancient languages that are in common use in the Eastern Orthodox, Coptic and other parts of Christendom. Nevertheless, for the past 50 years missionary priests in Africa, for example, have insisted that Latin is a unitive factor among the various tribal groups that live closely together within the artificial boundaries once imposed by colonial governments. I myself remember a birthday I spent in Venice where the Latin liturgy at San Marco was sufficiently familiar but the Italian homily was incomprehensible.

But the issue here is basically neither liturgical nor cultural. It is the practical matter of a universal alternative language for what has become One World. More than 3,000 languages confound worldwide communication. Misunderstanding, suspicion and hostility result from the ‘Babel barrier’.

Fifty years ago Prof. Mario Pei of Columbia University published One Language for the World. He hoped the U.N. might call a conference of linguists to choose an already existing language that would be acceptable to the preponderant majority. That did not happen.

Esperanto had been developed in the 1880s by a physician named Zamenhof and for a time it gained a considerable following. It was followed in the early 20th Century by an invented language called Ido which had less appeal and a short life. Finally, in 1951 Interlingua, a form of simplified Latin, was introduced by Dr Alexander Gode of the International Auxiliary Language Association. The aim was a basic vocabulary and grammar for scientists.

An alternative language that could become familiar even to most people on four of the continents – Europe, the two Americas and Australia – would be a useful alternative means of communication for humankind. Latin should be a prime candidate.