A language, before anything else, is made of sound. It can be easy to forget this when dealing with ancient, or historical, or dead languages. For those of us studying a language that was spoken a millennia (or two) ago, often enough a language is above all a question of squiggles on a page, charts […]
“It’s all Greek to me.” “Latin is a language, dead as dead can be, first it killed the Romans, now it’s killing me.” Ancient languages have a reputation for difficulty. As ancient language teachers, we are pretty familiar with the complaints uttered by generation after generation of students. Even in late antiquity, the grandson of
Does Ancient Greek Have to Be Hard? Read More »
Dr. Robert L. Jackson is the Founding Partner of Classical Commons, a senior fellow for both Flagler College and the Chesterton Schools Network, and associate editor for Principia journal. But to the Ancient Language Institute, he is “Dr. J,” a friend of the Institute, a past guest on our New Humanists podcast, and ALI President
Can Classical Education Level Up? A Q&A with Dr. Robert L. Jackson Read More »
From the beginning, the Ancient Language Institute’s mission has been to teach students the languages and to develop new materials to help students. So far, we’ve produced tons of materials for use in our classes. But we want to begin sharing these tools with the world. It’s time to build. Thus we are thrilled to
Announcing Vergil Press Read More »
This post originally appeared in Colin Gorrie’s Substack The Winged Schwa on October 4, 2024 with the title “How is a story about a talking bear supposed to teach me Old English?” Reposted here with permission. People have often asked me – and it’s a fair question – “Why did you write a story about
The Old English LLPSI Read More »
This post originally appeared in Colin Gorrie’s Substack The Winged Schwa on September 20, 2024 with the title “The Winged Schwa is Back: Pursued by a Bear“. Reposted here with permission. Goodness, has it been a year and a half already? As you may have gleaned from the lack of Winged Schwa fluttering into your
For the first time, the Ancient Language Institute is moving from the internet to the physical world. Come join us in August 2023, for a 10-day Ancient Greek immersion camp, led by some of the best Ancient Greek teachers from around the world: Bible Camp! Come read the Bible. In Greek. Applications are open now through June. Learn
Greek Immersion Camp: Summer 2023 Read More »
Many people have already noted that the coronavirus outbreak accelerated a variety of trends already occurring in the United States, and nowhere is this clearer than in education. With school-age children and college students alike consigned to Zoom School, parents and students improvised—both out of necessity, and out of the openness to change that necessity
The Future of Classical Education: A Symposium Read More »
We’re excited to announce that the Ancient Language Institute has launched a brand-new podcast: New Humanists. Jonathan Roberts and Ryan Hammill founded ALI in order to transform the way ancient languages are taught, so that students could ditch the grammar charts and actually read texts written in those languages. But why do that in the
Announcing the New Humanists Podcast Read More »
