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Hi, my name is Marco and I'm from Roma, Italy. Today I'd like to talk to you about
the importance of studying Latin and ancient Greek, the so-called dead languages,
and in general the value of the knowledge of classical antiquity.
Latin is widely studied in Italy, 40% of high school students
have Latin as a principal subject, and a few also study ancient Greek.
I think this is an interesting feature of the Italian school system.
Studying Latin and Greek, people gain a better mastery
of their own language and an intimate understanding of its structure,
that helps them in writing, speaking and even thinking better.
In fact, many European languages, and Italian in particular,
but also French and Spanish and a few others were born as dialects of Latin.
Some say with good reason that we still speak in Latin and think in Greek, meaning that
while our languages originated in Rome, our conception of the world was born in Greece.
Most things that we do or think today were invented by the Greeks.
The Greek language was the first to be written in an alphabetic form.
The word itself "alphabet" is a Greek word, as "Alpha" and "Beta" were the first letters of the alphabet.
Also they were the first to have an elected government, they invented democracy,
which by the way is another Greek word, meaning "power of the people".
Another example, they were the first to use money,
they created tragedy, that was the first form of entertainment,
the origin of the whole history of theater, leading to movies and television.
But more, the Greeks were the first to ask themselves questons about
the world and human kind, so that they invented philosophy.
For example, they imagined the world was all made of small particles called atoms,
or they were the first to make a distinction between good and evil.
There's much else we could say about the Greeks, maybe the Roman contribution was less original.
But we could say that the Romans put into practice what the Greeks had imagined.
In architecture they were the first to use
brickwork and arches in large public buildings like bridges and theaters that are still seen
around Europe in very good shape after many centuries.
The Roman Empire collected elements from the Greeks and other Mediterranean cultures
and shared them all around Europe creating a common base.
Just think about the importance, the role played by the Roman Empire in spreading Christian religion.
So, in short, we could say that the study of the classical antiquity
is still quite important, is still essential to understand the world around us and
our own reality, our own identity that still owes so much to those origins.
Thank you.