Why Speak Latin?

Why is it important that students and teachers of Latin speak Latin?

...why is it important that students and teachers of Spanish speak Spanish? Or French? Or German? While some would argue that Latin, unlike French, Spanish or German, is a 'dead' language, and that there is therefore no point in learning to speak it, NAILLS believes that the concept of 'living' and 'dead' languages is founded on a misconception of what languages are. Languages are communication systems. There cannot be anything intrinsically dead about a communication system. Hence, the question whether Latin is dead or living is simply a question of how people treat it. In the past several centuries, millions of people have learned Latin and used it effectively to write and speak with one another, in spite of the fact that none has been able to claim it as his native tongue.

In universities today, Latin studies are competing with other disciplines for students, funding and public respect, and have consistently been losing ground to languages perceived as more 'relevant' to the needs of a society driven by the spoken word. The cultural inheritance we have received from the Classical world the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, conveyed to us in the Latin language, is rapidly being eroded away. To turn the situation around, Latin students will need to obtain the same level of proficiency in their language as modern language students do in theirs. NAILLS promotes the use of a 'living language' teaching method and supports teachers in gaining the knowledge and experience to apply it correctly.