So LATIN, THE greatest language of them all, the unifying linguistic force behind so much of European culture, not to mention the Church, was an Irish invention. Or rather, as our story on Page 1 reveals, a re-invention. The crystal clarity of the language, it turns out, was the result of painstaking codification by long-forgotten monks on the Isle of Saints and Scholars during the Dark Ages.
tries to begin their own vernacular literature and formalise the structure of their languages. It is dawning on Europe what a debt we owe those pious, studious men who, it now emerges, not only kept the flame of learning alive but rekindled it. How wonderful, God-sent, their vocation. And what a pity we no longer treasure it enough for Latin to figure in our National Curriculum. For shame, Department of Education!