Henneböhl, Rudolf (2025). „Romam magnam reficite!“? – Vom Wesen der Sprache und von der Bedeutung des Lateinischen in Antike und Gegenwart. Ars docendi, 24, settembre 2025.

This article – originally delivered as a public evening lecture – investigates the complexity of human speech as an inherently holistic phenomenon, engaging cognitive, neurological, and psychosomatic processes. Speech is not an isolated faculty, but rather emerges from the dynamic interplay of multiple brain regions and embodied, affective functions. Accordingly, language cannot be reduced to a merely cognitive construct, as suggested by a narrow psycholinguistic or neurolinguistic framework, but must be understood as a fundamental expression of human nature. Building upon this premise, the article underscores the educational significance of language instruction, with a particular focus on Latin. Through examples drawn from everyday discourse and the interpretation of literary texts, it illustrates how conscious linguistic reflection – especially in the context of reading and philological analysis – contributes meaningfully to the formation of individual personality. In this sense, linguistic education is reasserted, in the spirit of the humanistic tradition, as an essential foundation for holistic human development.