Ancient greek (and etymology) are very interesting. I'd say ancient languages study is worth reviving, not just specific terms.
Why this matters? In Italy, my country, there is much talking of eliminating a type of high school where ancient greek and latin study is central and carried out through all five years of its duration. People that haven't attended such a school fail to grasp why it may be useful to some (and also some who did, but they're a minority).
For the programmers or aspiring programmers out there: what most shaped my problem solving and bug finding abilities is translating ancient greek and latin in high school. The skill of "reverse engineering" an ancient language is very similar to reverse engineering a (short but difficult) program, for instance.
> For the programmers or aspiring programmers out there: what most shaped my problem solving and bug finding abilities is translating ancient greek and latin in high school. The skill of "reverse engineering" an ancient language is very similar to reverse engineering a (short but difficult) program, for instance.
Or, you know, we could teach that directly instead of using dead language as a proxy for it
By learning how to translate an ancient language you gain a skill that can translate (with more effort) to programming, and I'd argue, but this is of course an untested hypothesis as any opinion on this matter, that this translation is better than learning directly. But let's assume you get even a sub par skill: I'm not saying it's a proxy, even simply beacuse you also learn something else that can be useful for something else.
It's perfectly fine that schools teaching programming directly without ancient languages exist. But why eliminate the possibility for a student to learn those languages when almost all people who did are happy with it? Anyway, I won't debate the matter further: my example is merely set to say that learning doesn't always have barriers as we like to think. Learning some greek and less math doesn't mean you won't ever be a mathematician.
Why this matters? In Italy, my country, there is much talking of eliminating a type of high school where ancient greek and latin study is central and carried out through all five years of its duration. People that haven't attended such a school fail to grasp why it may be useful to some (and also some who did, but they're a minority).
For the programmers or aspiring programmers out there: what most shaped my problem solving and bug finding abilities is translating ancient greek and latin in high school. The skill of "reverse engineering" an ancient language is very similar to reverse engineering a (short but difficult) program, for instance.