Lingua Latina Legenda: an open-source introduction to Latin

This open-source textbook is one part of a project to develop a new two-semester introduction to Latin at the College of the Holy Cross. Our curriculum is based on these principles:

• the course emphasizes authentic examples of language, and is organized around a target text (in this textbook, the Fabulae of Hyginus). Instead of composing made-up Latin, we draw on the target text as much as possible.
• we follow modern principles of language pedagogy in presenting first those features of language (syntactic, morphological, lexical) that are frequent in Latin, are inherently complex, and are most different from English forms of expression and thought.
• we determine the sequence of the textbook’s topics based on computational analysis of the features needed to read unaltered passages of Hyginus.
• throughout the curriculum, we link the study of Latin to reflection on contemporary issues.

Our work at Holy Cross is taking place through the college’s Scholarship in Action program, and we gratefully acknowledge its support.

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