Is studying latin associated with (Non–)linguistic cognitive transfer? A large-scale cross-sectional study

Abstract

Despite ongoing discussions regarding the relevance of Latin in modern education, this language still holds a prominent role in European secondary school curricula. While studying Latin is commonly believed to yield cognitive and linguistic benefits, this argument primarily relies on dated research that often uses methodologies that do not allow to make strong claims justifying the widespread use in education. It also remains unclear to which extent the benefits associated with Latin studies are due to Latin students’ superior pre-existing abilities (preselectivity), or to cognitive transfer effects elicited by studying the language. To delve further into the presence and nature of a potential cognitive advantage of Latin, we gathered data from N = 1,731 secondary school students across three grades. We explored whether a ‘Latin advantage’ exists, and if so, for which subjects, when this advantage arises and how it evolves throughout secondary education. We found that first-year Latin students exhibited higher intelligence scores, superior native language competencies and higher meta-linguistic awareness compared to non-Latin peers, which is in line with the preselectivity account. This performance difference was larger in the second year, but smaller in the last year of secondary education, thereby challenging the notion of cognitive transfer effects attributed to Latin studies. Only one variable, vocabulary, demonstrated a trend in line with cognitive transfer benefits. Longitudinal work is needed to further investigate whether Latin studies result in persisting benefits or whether the ‘Latin advantage’ is merely a reflection of preselection biases.