Dutch and Latin

Dutch and Latin is a combination that might seem unusual at first but reveals a deep historical logic. Dutch is one of the West Germanic languages most closely related to English, the native language of about 25 million people in the Netherlands and Belgium, and the ancestor of Afrikaans; it is also the language of one of Europe's most significant literary and cultural traditions, from the Golden Age painters to the contemporary fiction of Cees Nooteboom and Herman Koch. Latin was the language of the Roman Empire and of European intellectual, religious, and scientific life for well over a thousand years after Rome's fall; it is the ancestor of the Romance languages and has left its mark on virtually every language in Europe, including Dutch and English.

Studying these two languages together at University College London connects you to the full span of European literary and intellectual history, from classical antiquity through the medieval and Renaissance periods, when Latin and Dutch both produced remarkable literature, to the modern era. UCL's strength in both Dutch studies and classical languages means you will work with expert scholars in both traditions, developing advanced reading ability in Dutch and a rigorous training in Latin translation and classical culture.

You will study Dutch language and literature, including modern language work and the history of Dutch literary traditions, alongside Latin texts from a range of genres, periods, and authors, with attention to the historical, cultural, and philosophical contexts that give them meaning. The four-year full-time programme gives you the time to develop real competence in both.

Graduates with this combination move into careers in translation, academia, museums and archives, heritage organisations, publishing, librarianship, education, and cultural institutions. The combination of a modern living language with classical scholarship is a genuinely distinctive profile that opens unusual doors in the humanities sector.