However, soon this won t be an option for New Zealand s public school students.
The education minister, Chris Hipkins, has announced that Latin will no longer be an NCEA subject by 2023.
Hipkins cited poor student uptake as the main reason behind the change: only around 200 students from 10 schools around Aotearoa take NCEA Latin, and only about 25 at level 3.
However, even if it s a language whose spoken applications have long since died off, Latin is still all around us - from the legal system, to medicine, zoology, botany, religious studies.
Thousands of words we use in everyday conversation trace their roots back to Latin.
Latin cut from NCEA: Latin lovers mourn language loss nzherald.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nzherald.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.