Some people say learning Latin makes you a better writer, smarter, etc. even if you're unlikely to directly use it. Dubious claims but it feels like FP can be like that.
The thing about learning Latin (not that I am great at it), at least for an English native speaker, and the epiphany English language speakers have, is the realization that language can have structure and can be discover-able, if I know a root word then I can almost be sure that I know the meaning of con, re, dom etc. There is just no equivalent to that in English other than the Latin origin words we borrowed, because we just assimilate any words we like and make up new ones as we see fit. An example would be beaucoup a Vietnamese word but most US English speakers would know it means big. Without the historical reference of a movie you would not have a reason or rhyme why an Asian origin word made it into English. There is literally no reason or rhyme to most of the spoken language and I think that is the epiphany, that some people actually thought out a logical way to create a language and via that logic it is discover-able.
Very cool. Did not know this. Will have to tell my Vietnamese wife. We were trying to figure out if English had any Vietnamese words. I think this counts.
Sure. When learning Latin, well, you learn to read and write Latin. You absorb the language's principles by learning the language, not by trying to highlight them in a language you already know. That can only give a much shallower appreciation.
Not quite true - many complexities of grammar are shared between the languages and it is often useful to structure the learning of Latin around the English patterns of grammar.
I imagine that diligently learning a foreign language (dead or otherwise) will make you smarter, especially if the free time spent on it would otherwise be spent on less academic pursuits.
A side note: "Dubious" comes from Latin, sharing the root of "duo", which means two,in this case referring to the possible indecision between two things or ideas.