Tucked far away in the northeast corner of the EC Torrance campus and secluded in obscurity, the dead language known as latin is being resurrected by a small group of impassioned students led by Vincent Lloyd, astronomy professor.

Originally started as a labor by Charlie Donovan, a former El Camino foreign language professor, the informal group, consisting normally of five to ten students, meets once a week in the evening to discover, practice, and recite latin from various ancient and contemporary texts.

“Our goal is to learn how to read,” Lloyd said. “People don’t really go around conversing in latin anymore but there’s a lot of literature over the last 2,000 years that is available if you can learn to read latin.”

Although the group meets on campus, Lloyd encourages anyone interested in learning the language to participate.

“Anybody can join,” Lloyd said. “There are no exams, no fees, there is homework though.”

Since latin is not offered at EC, Lloyd’s group acts as an alternative to those interested in the subject who would otherwise have to take a formal course at the university level.

“I have no qualifications whatsoever to teach latin, but I can teach beginning latin, I know enough to teach beginning latin,” Lloyd said.

The class is not limited only to students either. EC faculty and staff members have been known to drop in.

“It’s great because there’s no pressure, you know, you’re taking it because you wanna take it and you wanna learn and so you’re in a group of people like that who all want to learn together,” Irene Graff, Director of Research and Planning and former group member, said.

The unorthodox composition of the class also extends to the type of course work, ranging from ancient epitaphs, graffiti from Pompeii, and roman stories to contemporary works such as the Harry Potter series translated in latin.

“it was inspiring to be able to look at, say, you know, a phrase in latin that’s on a building and kinda have an idea of what it means,” Graff said.

While latin may no longer be directly used today, some feel that there may still be some benefits to studying the language from which many romance languages originate.

“it is the foundation of many of the languages in Europe and it also contributes to many words that we speak in english, and so, understanding latin words can expand your vocabulary even in english and it also helps to learn other languages because you’ve got that foundation,” Graff said.

The latin study group meets Mondays at 7pm in the Physics building in Room 117.