March 22, 2025 - 1:00pm
O tempora, o mores — as we classicists like to say. Oh, the times! Oh, the morals!
Such has been the response to the news this week that the University of Oxford is voting on whether to change the Latin of its 800-year-old degree ceremony to suit non-binary undergraduates.
If the Oxford dons vote for the change, the ceremony will no longer use masculine words for both male and female students — magistri (masters) and doctores (doctors). Instead, the neutral term vos (you) will be used. The new Latin will then identify those who are non-binary, as well as those who identify as male and female.
I studied classics at Oxford, but I don’t mind this change to ancient tradition. Despite being a supposedly dead language, Latin can clearly change with the times. Even then, the masculine plural has always been used to cover a mixed-gender group.
Oxford’s Public Orator Dr Jonathan Katz, who writes the Latin for university ceremonies, has approved the changes. “It’s just keeping up with modern trends,” Katz has said. “My only role has been to check that the Latin grammar is correct, which I believe it is so far.” The don added: “Ideologically, I remain neutral in this, but it was an interesting linguistic exercise that the lead Dean of Degrees and I were requested to go through.”
I was lucky enough to be taught Latin and Greek at school by the planet-brained Dr Katz. I was overwhelmed then by his complete understanding of the two languages — and will be thrilled to read how his new text looks if the changes go through.
Latin is a submarine language at Oxford. It still underpins the university’s history, but is so subtly buried that students only really notice it if they want to. Lovers of ancient languages, meanwhile, can find traces everywhere. In my time at Magdalen College in the early Nineties, I saw Latin every day. My college’s motto was Floreat Magdalena (“May Magdalen flourish”), while that of the university as a whole was — and remains — Dominus illuminatio mea (“The Lord is my light”, the opening phrase of Psalm 27).
The course is even known by its ancient name: literae humaniores, or the more humane letters. That compliment to classics is a nod to the medieval days of the university, when all undergraduates learnt the subject on the wise understanding that it was the crucial discipline.
I rejoiced in the great stretches of Latin at my matriculation ceremony in the Sheldonian Theatre when I arrived at the university, and at my graduation ceremony soon after I left. I adored watching the dons process to the annual Encaenia Ceremony at the Sheldonian, when Oxford awards honorary degrees to distinguished figures and commemorates its benefactors. The word Encaenia comes from the Greek for a festival of renewal, which morphed into a Latin word for “commencement”.
That is the great joy of Latin and Greek: they give you X-ray specs into the derivation of the English language. After all, two thirds of English words have classical roots. Western European thought — tragedy, comedy, politics, philosophy, history, architecture, literature — is built on classical foundations (even if they are mostly Greek foundations). It is a thrill to know a little of both languages — and to see that Latin is alive and well, and still moving with the times.
Harry Mount is editor of The Oldie and author of the bestseller Amo, Amas, Amat and All That – How to Become a Latin Lover.
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Subscribe“will be thrilled to read how his new text looks if the changes go through”
Maybe *at that point* an article would have been warranted, but not an article by someone who thinks pandering to the narcissistic delusions of students is worth celebrating as “moving with the times”.
One might even call it “moving with the past”.
Idiocy needs no comment.
Only adds non-binary?Lightweights. What about the seventy whatever other genders? What about furries? Sorting out the grammar for those would be a proper toga-twister of a task.
Homines sunt omnis divisi in partes tres.
Having attempted to undermine English usage, the progressive destructionists want to be even more radical and undermine Latin (and Greek?) We must tell them non. Satis satis est.
It’s a good illustration how deep the current crisis of the Western world goes, right to its very roots
A delightful little article. It’s good for us to be reminded of one of the great building blocks of a civilization that connects so many nations. And in my view, rather petty of the commentators here to pick on a symbol of foundational unity. Ancient buildings and traditions also have a lot to recommend themselves, as things of beauty and as subterranean connective tissue, like the fungi under the surface of the forest. Thank you, Harry Mount.
I’m not convinced. Bringing “non-binary” codology into the activities of a university is a backward step.
I’m surprised to read such a silly piece by Harry Mount, who also gives the impression that he read Greats at Oxford. He didn’t.