English Language/Latin

English language and Latin is a combination that takes you to the roots of how Western languages work and how they have been used to produce literature of lasting significance. English language as an academic discipline is distinct from the study of English literature: it examines the structures, history and social life of the English language itself, from its Germanic and Romance origins through to its contemporary global variation and the ways it is shaped by social factors including class, gender and identity. Latin, meanwhile, opens the door to an extraordinary literary tradition spanning Roman poetry, philosophy, history and rhetoric, and provides an analytical understanding of the language family from which so much of European intellectual life has grown.

At the University of Glasgow, this four-year full-time degree gives you serious training in both disciplines. You will study the phonology, syntax and history of English, engage with sociolinguistics, discourse analysis and the varieties of English used across the world, and develop your analytical and research skills across a range of methodological approaches. In Latin you will build reading fluency, work closely with major texts from the Roman tradition, and develop an understanding of the classical world in its historical and cultural context.

The programme includes a year abroad, which gives you the opportunity to study at a partner university and to encounter English language and related disciplines in a different academic environment. Typical entry is around 152 UCAS tariff points.

Graduates from this combination go on to careers in education, publishing, academic research, law, journalism, the civil service and heritage, among many others. The ability to analyse language precisely and to read Latin texts opens particular doors in classical scholarship, translation, archiving, legal practice and any field where close engagement with texts, historical or contemporary, is valued. Postgraduate study in linguistics, classical studies, medieval literature or English language is a natural next step for those who wish to pursue specialist careers or academic research.