January 20, 2004
Simplicissimus
An entirely new approach to learning the Latin of the Traditional Roman Missal by Carol Byrne, MA PhD (Dunelm), which I found while googling for the Latin texts of the opening prayers of the Mass. I vaguely remember a chant book from Solesmes having such a collection; can I find them on the web somewhere?
January 15, 2004
Curfew violations and homeschoolers
How the HSLDA can help when a homeschooled child is accused of a nutty curfew violation.
January 10, 2004
Proud Daddy
Here is our 7-year-old son's very first research report, completed a few minutes ago. He did it all himself - selected the subject, researched the facts with three reference books (The Sibley Guide to Birds, Reader's Digest North American Wildlife and a National Geographic bird book) and typed his results in emacs.
exticnt means that an animal is no longer on earththere are ten species of extinct birds the labrador duck
the heath hen the eskimo curlew the great auk the passenger pigeon
the carolina parakeet the bachmans warbler the dusky seaside sparrow
the dodo and the ivory billed woodpecker
January 08, 2004
Language arts
Perhaps the Black Speech of Mordor would be a good homeschooling subject ;^)
(Tolkien's Black Speech always seemed to me more Slavic than Arabic, but anyway...)
November 13, 2003
We're neither hippies nor fundies
The Nooyawk Times says so! "Unhappy in Class, More Are Learning at Home".
August 27, 2003
Total recall and total recollection
Monday our two oldest kids and I were hanging out at the local Barnes & Noble trying to find field guides to birds (for the boy, 6 years old) and frogs (for the girl, 4 years old). As I began browsing through Sibley's Birding Basics the boy saw the cover and said, "That's a male ruby-throated hummingbird!"
Recovering from my astonishment - I had classified it as "some bird" - I realized that he has devoured our Readers Digest North American Wildlife and he's hungry for more, so we bought all the Sibley we could find along with the Peterson First Guide to North American Birds with its concise list of 188 birds for him to memorize. Looks like we'll be tossing books into his gaping omnivorous maw for a long time to come.
Meanwhile, our 4-year-old daughter is quite pleased with her guide to reptiles and amphibians: "Daddyyyy, they're not icky!" as I shudder at nearly every page. I've already solemnly defined, declared, taught and preached that there will be no pet snakes or spiders in our house, but she may win that battle: yesterday she spent 20 minutes in silent prayer and recollection before our Fra Angelico Annunciation in the living room. If she decides to mobilize the angels and saints in her cause, I don't stand a chance.
August 04, 2003
June 19, 2003
Education blog
If you're concerned about education in America, you really should read Joanne Jacobs' blog.
Now, I don't know what Head Start does aside from sending a school bus driver to our neighborhood to honk the bus's horn during our naptime, but from this (found at Ms. Jacobs' blog) I can tell our kids are much better off being loved and nurtured at home.
June 10, 2003
Jeff, the European caterpillar hunter
The kids found a fiery searcher yesterday in the front yard and named it Jeff. According to the Audobon Field Guide to Insects and Spiders (one of today's purchases at Barnes & Noble), it's a European Caterpillar Hunter. The European beetle is distinguished from its pedestrian American cousin by its longer antennae and a deep blue lustre on its legs.
Meanwhile, I'm fighting off the willies every time I page through the insect book. I've managed to peek at the spider section only once - damn they're ugly! As for me and my house, spiders are for smashing. Yes, they're "good" in that they eat predatory insects, yadda yadda yadda. Smash 'em. No snakes allowed, either. I'm the Dad, them's the rules.
February 14, 2003
Newman on the modern ruins of education
From Discourse 6, section 8 of Cardinal Newman's The Idea of a University:
A University is, according to the usual designation, an Alma Mater, knowing her children one by one, not a foundry, or a mint, or a treadmill.
Nor indeed am I supposing that there is any great danger, at least in this day, of over-education; the danger is on the other side. I will tell you, Gentlemen, what has been the practical error of the last twenty years,--not to load the memory of the student with a mass of undigested knowledge, but to force upon him so much that he has rejected all. It has been the error of distracting and enfeebling the mind by an unmeaning profusion of subjects; of implying that a smattering in a dozen branches of study is not shallowness, which it really is, but enlargement, which it is not; of considering an acquaintance with the learned names of things and persons, and the possession of clever duodecimos, and attendance on eloquent lecturers, and membership with scientific institutions, and the sight of the experiments of a platform and the specimens of a museum, that all this was not dissipation of mind, but progress. All things now are to be learned at once, not first one thing, then another, not one well, but many badly. Learning is to be without exertion, without attention, without toil; without grounding, without advance, without finishing. There is to be nothing individual in it; and this, forsooth, is the wonder of the age. What the steam engine does with matter, the printing press is to do with mind; it is to act mechanically, and the population is to be passively, almost unconsciously enlightened, by the mere multiplication and dissemination of volumes. Whether it be the school boy, or the school girl, or the youth at college, or the mechanic in the town, or the politician in the senate, all have been the victims in one way or other of this most preposterous and pernicious of delusions. Wise men have lifted up their voices in vain; and at length, lest their own institutions should be outshone and should disappear in the folly of the hour, they have been obliged, as far as they could with a good conscience, to humour a spirit which they could not withstand, and make temporizing concessions at which they could not but inwardly smile.
It must not be supposed that, because I so speak, therefore I have some sort of fear of the education of the people: on the contrary, the more education they have, the better, so that it is really education. Nor am I an enemy to the cheap publication of scientific and literary works, which is now in vogue: on the contrary, I consider it a great advantage, convenience, and gain; that is, to those to whom education has given a capacity for using them. Further, I consider such innocent recreations as science and literature are able to furnish will be a very fit occupation of the thoughts and the leisure of young persons, and may be made the means of keeping them from bad employments and bad companions. Moreover, as to that superficial acquaintance with chemistry, and geology, and astronomy, and political economy, and modern history, and biography, and other branches of knowledge, which periodical literature and occasional lectures and scientific institutions diffuse through the community, I think it a graceful accomplishment, and a suitable, nay, in this day a necessary accomplishment, in the case of educated men. Nor, lastly, am I disparaging or discouraging the thorough acquisition of any one of these studies, or denying that, as far as it goes, such thorough acquisition is a real education of the mind. All I say is, call things by their right names, and do not confuse together ideas which are essentially different. A thorough knowledge of one science and a superficial acquaintance with many, are not the same thing; a smattering of a hundred things or a memory for detail, is not a philosophical or comprehensive view. Recreations are not education; accomplishments are not education. Do not say, the people must be educated, when, after all, you only mean, amused, refreshed, soothed, put into good spirits and good humour, or kept from vicious excesses. I do not say that such amusements, such occupations of mind, are not a great gain; but they are not education. You may as well call drawing and fencing education, as a general knowledge of botany or conchology. Stuffing birds or playing stringed instruments is an elegant pastime, and a resource to the idle, but it is not education; it does not form or cultivate the intellect. Education is a high word; it is the preparation for knowledge, and it is the imparting of knowledge in proportion to that preparation. We require intellectual eyes to know withal, as bodily eyes for sight. We need both objects and organs intellectual; we cannot gain them without setting about it; we cannot gain them in our sleep, or by haphazard. The best telescope does not dispense with eyes; the printing press or the lecture room will assist us greatly, but we must be true to ourselves, we must be parties in the work. A University is, according to the usual designation, an Alma Mater, knowing her children one by one, not a foundry, or a mint, or a treadmill.
February 12, 2003
Yet another reason to homeschool
Clique of middle-school girls makes life hell for 13-year-old amputee.
hat tip: Bill Cork
January 31, 2003
Cassiodorus
It's been a while since I linked to James J. O'Donnell's work. so here's his Cassiodorus page, including an online edition of Professor O'Donnell's now-standard biography.
Does anyone here know of any attempts to relate Cassiondorus' Institutiones to modern classical homeschooling?
January 30, 2003
CERC Update
The bi-weekly update from the Catholic Eduator's Resource Center is available here.
Tales of Brave Ulysses
The kids are clamoring each night for the story of Ulysses, to which I add more and more details until it's becoming quite Homeric, in length at least, if not in beauty. I throw in a lot of sailing toward the setting sun across the wine-dark sea and "the rosy fingers of Dawn". The prow of Ulysses' ship is tracked closely (wacky kids) and Heaven forbid I forget the mighty whirlpool dragging strong ships and men to their deaths on Ocean's floor. I think I got that from the Aeneid, but anyway.
Now if I could only remember where I put Fitzgerald's translation of the Odyssey last month. Drat!
January 09, 2003
And They Wonder Why We Homeschool
"Problem students" are kept in solitary confinement. No, wait, prisoners in solitary confinement have much more room than these public school prisoners students.
January 07, 2003
Catechesis of the Good Shepherd
Everything you need to know about Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. The wife of a friend is doing this at a local parish.
November 26, 2002
Chicago Tribune on Illinois Homeschooler Harassment
Challenge emerges to home schooling:
Officials accused of intimidation in western Illinois
Homeschoolers (and unborn babies and gun owners and taxpayers and...) in Illinois might be in for a rough ride in the next four years: Democrats captured the executive and legistative branches of the state government in the last election.
November 22, 2002
November 19, 2002
Homeschooling Harassment in Illinois
Some progress is being made in the case.
November 18, 2002
Homeschooling in Education Week
Two articles from Education Week: a favorable look at homeschooling and a homeschooling honor society.
November 16, 2002
Trivia Question
What two states, one bordering the Pacific Ocean, one bordering the Atlantic Ocean, are only one hour (time zone) apart?
November 15, 2002
Homeschooling, Anyone?
The Illinois State Board of Education has released "report cards" for each of the public schools in Illinois. You can search for specific schools here, but often the resulting link doesn't work. I noticed it's trying to open an ftp connection, so I thought I'd try to retrieve files by hand. Here is the ftp server welcome message; please note the misspellings and incoherent sentences:
Name (out:billw): anonymous@ftpirptcard.isbe.state.il.us
331-(----GATEWAY CONNECTED TO ftpirptcard.isbe.state.il.us----)
331-(220 WEB1 Microsoft FTP Service (Version 5.0).)
331 Anonymous access allowed, send identity (e-mail name) as password.
Password:
230-Illinois State Board of Education User FTP Site.
230-All Transactions are logged.
230-
230-Notice:
230-This system is for use of authorized users only. Individuals using this system without
authority are subject to have their activities monitored.
230-In the course of monitoring individual improperly using this system and monitoring reveals posssible evidence of criminal activity, the system personnel will provide the
material to proper law enforcement officials.
230 Anonymous user logged in.
Remote system type is Windows_NT.
ftp>
A directory listing reveals that many report cards are simply not available. Way to go, public school system!
The Source for Homeschooling News
A google news search for "homeschool".
Student Exodus From Public Schools
Leaving the warehouses for real education.
September 30, 2002
Teaching Credentials for Homeschoolers
This came from a friend on a homeschooling email list:
Not that the state necessarily cares, but we already have teaching credentials.
From the Conclusion of the Rite of Baptism:
God is the giver of all life, human and divine. May He bless the father of this child. He and his wife will be the first teachers of their child in the ways of faith. May they also be the best of teachers, bearing witness to the faith by what they say and do, in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Wheel of Faith
This looks like an interesting aid in teaching the Faith. The quote from Pope John Paul II is from Catechesi tradendae.
From the Pittsburgh Morning Sun:
A new way to teach a faith
Locally designed wheels to be teaching aid
By NIKKI PATRICK Morning Sun Family Living Editor
A flash of inspiration has led to a new "Wheel of Faith," a hands-on tool for review, reinforcement and memorization of the fundamental truths of the Catholic Church, was the brainchild of Frances Casey, though she maintains that many others also share the credit for the new education program.
September 27, 2002
School Information
Lots of information on public, private and charter schools across the United States. Try looking up your neighborhood schools.
September 23, 2002
The Tyranny of Parental Involvement
Government school parents:
By WILLIAM SORENSEN
BRONXVILLE, N.Y. - If you're a parent with a child in school, late September is the time of year when you may find yourself wondering: Why, at my age (in my case, over 40), am I still doing homework? Who decided that parents must oversee every book report, give practice spelling tests and correct long division? Our parents never helped with homework. They sipped gimlets or watched Walter Cronkite while we toiled away in our bedrooms, conjugating verbs.
Read the rest of this curious rant here (free registration required).
September 13, 2002
Criminalize Homeschooling
This great list is making the rounds of the homeschooling email groups.
WARNING: satire ahead
Memo: Top 10 Reasons to Criminalize Homeschooling
In an effort to increase the public drumbeat for criminalizing homeschooling, California Department of Education Deputy Superintendent Joanne Mendoza has distributed a memo containing the top 10 reasons why public schooling is better than homeschooling. Here is an excerpt from that memo:
Why Public Schooling Is Better Than Homeschooling
- Most parents were educated in the underfunded public school system, and so are not smart enough to homeschool their own children.
- Children who receive one-on-one homeschooling will learn more than others, giving them an unfair advantage in the marketplace. This is undemocratic.
- How can children learn to defend themselves unless they have to fight off bullies on a daily basis?
- Ridicule from other children is important to the socialization process.
- Children in public schools can get more practice "Just Saying No" to drugs, cigarettes and alcohol.
- Fluorescent lighting may have significant health benefits.
- Publicly asking permission to go to the bathroom teaches young people their place in society.
- The fashion industry depends upon the peer pressure that only public schools can generate.
- Public schools foster cultural literacy, passing on important traditions like the singing of "Jingle Bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg..."
- Homeschooled children may not learn important office career skills, like how to sit still for six hours straight.
September 01, 2002
Chrysostom and Your Testimony at Public Hearings
From the Catena aurea, Saint John Chrysostom on today's gospel:
24. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me."
Chrys., Hom. iv: ... And note, that He does not speak of it as compulsory, for He does not say, Though ye will not yet must ye suffer this, but, "If any man will." By saying this He rather attracted them; for he who leaves his auditor at liberty, attracts him the more; whereas he that uses violence oftentimes hinders him.
Follow the Money
I'm not blogging much today - I'm spending most of my computer time with google.
Homeschooling in Illinois is under active attack on two fronts: lowering the age of compulsory attendance from 7 to 6; and submission of private medical records, including immunization records or "proof of immunization", to local public school districts. Seems odd, doesn't it, that the local public school district should be made responsible for ensuring the immunization of children? Perhaps that made sense back when nearly every child attended public schools, but that is no longer the case.
It turns out that in Illinois, public school districts lose government funding if the percentage of non-immunized students rises above a certain level. I'm following the money trail today to see whose job this really is.
Saint Isidore of Seville, ora pro nobis!
August 31, 2002
My Testimony at the Illinois School Code Hearing
For background on the hearings, see my page on the Governor's Commission to Revise the Illinois School Code (which I hope to have updated during this long weekend). Here are my remarks at the third hearing, which was held in Decatur, Illinois, on Thursday August 29.
Good evening, and thank you for coming here tonight and for traveling all over the state to attend these hearings.
My name is Bill White. [personal family information deleted for the web]
Before I begin, I'll note that in Illinois a homeschool is a private school, according to the Illinois Supreme Court's decision in People v. Levisen in 1950.
My remarks concern the section of the school code that would require the parents of private school students to "submit proof of immunization and physical examination with their local public school district or Regional Office of Education." And a footnote to that text indicates that this concerns the "safety of all children."
Now it seems to me that there are at least two problems with this requirement.
First, the proposed regulation would, in effect, establish a system of registration of homeschooling families. Currently in Illinois we enjoy the freedom to educate our children when and how we see fit, within the broad guidelines of the school code, and without the interference of government authorities. Forcing us to turn over medical information to the local public school system would be the first step toward government regulation of our private education of our children.
Second, it seems odd that the public school system should require the private medical information of children whom the school administrators will never see. They don't know our kids and they don't have responsibility for them. It makes no sense to give them our private medical information.
Rather, I suggest changing the code so that proof of immunization and physical examination be submitted, not to the local public school district, but to the school that the student actually attends. Those are the people who know the student, who are familiar with his medical needs and who have responsibility for the student. In addition, such a change would protect the existing privacy rights and freedom of Illinois homeschoolers.
Thank you.
August 27, 2002
We Got Both Kinds
Treated and regular Petri dishes. This might be of interest to homeschoolers doing advanced lab work.
By the way, the quote is from The Blues Brothers:
Elwood Blues: What kind of music do you usually have here?
Claire: Oh, we got both kinds. We got country and western.
August 24, 2002
Illinois homeschooling update
The Governor's Commission on Revising the Illinois School Code held its second public hearing Thursday evening, 22 August, in Carterville, way down south near Carbondale.
Fifteen people attended the first hearing in Godfrey and 6 spoke against changes to the school code that would adversely affect homeschooling in Illinois. One week later, 95 people attended the second meeting and 27 spoke against the changes. The next hearing is in Decatur on Thursday 29 August - if you live in central Illinois please plan to attend:
Richland Community College, 1 College Park, Decatur, IL
Shilling Center, Salon 1 & 2, 1st Floor
5:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Parking: Lot in front of College
Using this handy page, I've contacted local TV stations and newspapers about the hearing in Decatur; let's hope a few of their reporters show up to keep the bureaucrats honest.
Here's a newspaper account of the second hearing.
August 23, 2002
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Welcome to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which was designedf rom its inception (September 1995) as a dynamic reference work. In a dynamicr eference work, each entry is maintained and kept up to date by an expert or group of experts in the field. These authors are given remote electronic access to copies of their entries on our server and they can update those copies any time the need arises. Moreover, all entries and updates are refereed by the members of a distinguished Editorial Board before they are made public. Whenever an author uploads a new entry or modifies an existing entry, the new material is stored off-line until it is approved by the Editorial Board member in charge of that entry. Consequently, our dynamic reference work is responsive to new research, for it can change at any time with the addition of new entries or the modification of existing entries. You can, however, cite fixed editions which are made on a quarterly basis and stored in our Archives. Thank you for your patience as our Encyclopedia develops. (Many of the assigned entries below have not yet been written.) See the Unabridged Table of Contents for the complete list of projected and assigned entries.
August 22, 2002
Brand New Blog: Oblique House
Check out Ellyn vonHuben's brand-new blog, Oblique House. "Observations of an opinionated Catholic home-schooling mother."
August 18, 2002
Illinois Homeschool Alert
The Governor's Commission on Revising the Illinois School Code has proposed changes to the school code that would violate the privacy of homeschooling families, significantly expand the jurisdiction of the state's authority over our children and potentially limit parental choice.
For more information and to see what you can do, visit http://members.wri.com/billw/illinois-school-code/
August 14, 2002
Cultural Debris
I first read this essay in the late 1980s and it's had a lasting effect on me. Even then, long before marriage and children, I hoped I could be engaged in the "pious tailoring" that Kirk praises here. For me, this essay ranks up there with Dorothy Sayers' "The Lost Tools of Learning" as one of the important foundational essays of modern homeschooling. While I think Kirk could have profited from a reading of Hilaire Belloc's works on the history of Christendom and avoided his "Rome is dead and gone" tone, this is still a valuable essay on what we're all about.
(Please forgive any typos - I typed in a hurry while I should have been cooking supper :-)
Originally published in Russell Kirk's quarterly, Modern Age, and reprinted in his book The Intemperate Professor, and Other Cultural Splenetics (Baton Rouge, 1965), pp. 160-163. Italics are indicated by angle brackets.
Cultural Debris - Russell Kirk
We live in a world that is giving at the seams. Sometimes, indeed -- especially to a man who travels a good deal -- there comes an uneasy feeling that the garment of civilization has already parted; and that if one were to tug even the least bit, a sleeve or a trouser leg of our social fabric would come away in his hand. In half the world, the decent draperies of the old order have been burnt altogether, and King Demos struts naked, like the emperor with his imaginary new clothes. When the garment of civilization is worn out, we are confronted by the ugly spectacle of naked power.
Yet cheerfulness will keep breaking in. At this hour when Communists and other totalists are busy ripping to shreds the "wardrobe of a moral imagination," certain people of a different cast of mind have turned tailors, doing their best to stitch together once more the fragments of that serviceable old suit we variously call "Christian civilization" or "Western civilization" or "the North Atlantic community" or "the free world." Not by force of arms are civilizations held together, but by the subtle threads of moral and intellectual principle.
Some years ago, I was in Europe participating in two international conferences, intended to help in this pious tailoring. Between sessions, I tramped about England and Scotland with an American friend, an executive in a great industrial corporation. Being something of a classical scholar, my friend collects sixteenth- and seventeenth-century editions of Latin works -- particularly Cicero and Seneca -- and pokes happily about Roman remains.
We found for his library, in the dusty caverns of Scottish secondhand bookshops, a number of admirable things at trifling prices. There lay the noble elephant folio of Strabo, in two immense volumes, at a mere thirty-five shillings; and the Strawberry Hill edition of Lucan, beautifully bound, at five guineas; and a twelve-volume set of Cicero for a pound. In an age of progressive inflation, one commodity alone remains stable, or increases little in price: classical works. At the devil's booth in Vanity Fair, every cup of dross may find its ounce of gold; but the one thing which Lucifer can't sell nowadays is classical learning. Who wants Latin texts? No twentieth-century Faustus disposes of his immortal soul for mere abstract knowledge. The copies of Strabo and Lucan and Cicero for which a Schoolman might have risked his life ten times over are now a drug on the market. As my friend remarked to me, "These things are cultural debris. It's as if a great ship had sunk, but a few trifles of flotsam had bubbled up from the hulk and were drifting on the surface of the great deep. Who wants this sea drift? Not the sharks. You and I are rowing about in a small boat, collecting the bits of debris."
Whether our civilization really retains coherence sufficient for restoration to be possible may be made clear to all thinking men within a few years. If the fabric of our ancient society has declined to the condition of a mere scattering of debris, all the tailors in the world cannot put it aright -- nor all the beachcombers live by raking the sand for its vestiges. The totalists say that the old order is a corpse, and that man and society must be fashioned afresh, in grim fashion, upon a grim plan. Yet there survive among us some people of intellectual power who hold that the wardrobe of our moral imagination is not yet altogether depleted.
Cant and equivocation dismissed, it seems to me that there are three great bodies of principle and conviction which tie together what is called modern civilization. The first of these is the Christian faith: theological and moral doctrines which inform us, either side of the Atlantic, of the nature of God and man, the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, human dignity, the rights and duties of human persons, the nature of charity, and the meaning of hope and resignation. The second of these is the corpus of imaginative literature, humane letters, which is the essence of our high culture: humanism, which, with Christian faith, teaches us our powers and our limitations -- the work of Plato, Virgil, Cicero, Dante, Shakespeare, and so many others. The third is a complex of social and political institutions which we may call the reign of law, or ordered liberty: prescription, precedent, impartial justice, private rights, private property, the character of genuine community, the claims of the family and of voluntary association. However much these three bodies of conviction have been injured by internecine disputes, nihilism, Benthamism, the cult of Rationalism, Marxism, and other modern afflictions, they remain the rocks upon which our civilization is built.
Well, presently my classics-collecting friend and I walked some miles of Hadrian's Wall, away at the back of beyond in Northumberland. Here, for centuries, Romanitas and humanitas looked northward into barbarism. It is an empty country still, much of it; Pictish hill forts still scowl almost within bowshot of the Roman masonry. To the men of the legions, garrisoned here generation upon generation, it must have seemed -- even toward the end -- that indeed Rome was immortal; and that the barbarian, however vexatious he might be in one year or another, never could give the death thrust to a civilization which extended from Mesopotamia to Pictland, from the Sahara to the Rhine.
Yet in the fullness of time, when the common faith of the Roman world had lost its virtue, the Picts came over the wall. The end of Roman civilization was as abrupt as its beginning had been slow.
In material accomplishments, the barbarians never equalled the Romans; nor had they need to. They possessed the will to endure and in the end the Romans lacked that will. So all that remains of the material achievement of Roman civilization is some fragments of cultural debris: a few coins, a smashed helmet, scattered beads, a ruined wall, a battered stone head. And as for the Roman moral and intellectual accomplishment, it is sold nowadays for a price not much superior to that of wastepaper.
Once we put some value upon our Roman heritage, and I hope we may do so again. Among us there still are men and women enough who know what makes life worth living -- enough of them to keep out the modern barbarian, if they are resolute. If they are enfeebled, and if they cannot make common cause, the garment of our civilization will slide to the rag bin, and the cultural debris of the twentieth century will drift down the rubbish heaps of the future. Not many years of indulgence, I fancy, remain to us. But -- as Henry Adams was fond of saying -- the fun is in the process.
Chesterton on "dead languages"
Ever been criticized for spending time on a "dead language"? Well, next time you are you can whip this out. Or something.
"It is not that Latin is a dead language and English is a living language: Latin is an immortal language and English is a dying language" -G. K. Chesterton
