“The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin.” – German poet Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

On the other hand, according to a Rome News Service clipping, shortly before his death in 1958, “Pope Pius XII, in an Apostolic Letter, said Latin is not a dead language and must be “preserved in its force and in its clarity.” He stressed that just because Latin is “covered by the dust of centuries does not justify calling it a dead language.”

Regardless of its salubriousness (“salus” is Latin for “health”), Latin provides the root for myriad words we use in everyday English. For instance, if you want to be brief or abbreviate something, you have the Latin word “brev” (short) to thank, as in “brevity.” (Oddly, if you buy something from Italy that has “Brev” marked on it, it is an abbreviation for “brevetto,” which means “licensed” or “patented.”)

I write this column every week using a Chromebook with Google docs, which is appropriate since in Latin “doc” (teach) gives us the root for words such as “document” and “doctrinal.” Once it’s finished, I transmit my finished piece to the newspaper thanks, in part, to the Latin root “mit” (send). After that, I’m left hoping that it might, in its own little way, be a benefit (from “bene” meaning “good”) to the Sunday paper’s readers.

While many of the words we use every day have some type of a Latin root, some have made the transition to English unchanged from the way they were used in ancient Rome. A few of these words appeared in a 1923 edition of “The Classical Journal,” in a column called “Learn a Word Every Day” by Lillian B. Lawler.

Among them are: “bibulous” (fond of drinking alcohol), “condign” (worthy, appropriate) and “crepuscular” (having to do with twilight). Three more Latin words we use in English are “dirigible” (capable of being guided), “impecunious” (poor) and “lucubration” (meditation). And then there are “parvenu” (celebrity from obscure origins), “simulacrum” (image) and “stultify” (make appear foolish).

But some Latin words, notes Lawler, have come to us by way of other languages, such as French or Spanish. One Latin word we now use that Spanish is responsible for shaping, says the piece, is “incommunicado.” Other words — including “aplomb” (self-confidence), “chivalrous” (gallant), “malfeasance” (wrongdoing), “rapprochement” (establishment of a harmonious relationship) and “taunt” (provoke) — made it to us from the Latin following detours through France.

The word “mattoid” does not appear to be used any longer and was left out of a recently revised printing of a list of Latin words that survived unscathed into our language. Its meaning, according to the Merriam–Webster Medical Dictionary, is a person who is “a borderline psychopath.”

And then there are made-up words that lean on Latin words. When a Japanese electronics company was looking for a name that would appeal to American consumers, its marketing people decided to combine “sonus,” the Latin word “sound,” with the happy-sounding American word “sunny” and came up with Sony.

And let’s not forget the kind of Latin everybody can speak: pig Latin (which Merriam-Webster spells “pig latin,” but notes an “often capitalized L”). The dictionary defines pig Latin as a “language usually formed by placing the first consonants and ‘-ay’ at the end of each word (as in ‘utshay the oorday’ for ‘shut the door.’)”

Well, that’s enough Latin for me for now (and I expect for you too). See you extnay eekway.

Jim Witherell of Lewiston is a writer and lover of words whose work includes “L.L. Bean: The Man and His Company” and “Ed Muskie: Made in Maine.” He can be reached at jlwitherell19@gmail.com.