If one is to study standard languages, one ought to at least get some exposure to Latin—perhaps the greatest standard language available to learn today. Latin lives not only through the Romance languages and the vocabulary of English and other languages but through many surviving texts available freely on the the Internet.
Latin exerts a strong influence over all of the modern European languages. It offers a window into the past—through reading Latin, you can read the words of people that lived hundreds of years ago. Latin is also a vehicle by which you can learn more about the languages you already speak—where do the words of English come from? How have their usages/meanings changed? Studying Latin is a useful way to become conscious of how we (modern people) can easily fall into the equivocation (or Word–Concept Fallacy).
Nearly everyone has to learn Latin as a second language. So, learning Latin can be a vehicle for meeting people around the world who are interested in history, understanding different worldviews, and more.
See Luke Smith's video "WHY IS LATIN WORTH LEARNING AND USING" (March 2019). To learn Latin is to learn how to study grammar and think through how propositions are put together. Learning Latin is learning the language that has informed much of Western thinking—including how the vernacular languages were standardized through grammars and dictionaries.
Latin is a primarily written language. One research question I have yet to look into is to what extent Latin as a standard language has coexisted with the various contemporary Romance languages in their earlier forms. Than is—rather than having the Romance languages evolve form Latin, is the picture we see more of a standard around which people could gravitate with various spoken languages? (linguists might call this a kind of diglossia).
External sources—materials to read in Latin:
See my page on learning Latin for an overview of methods and techniques others have used to successfully learn Latin.
How can Latin live on the Internet?
Learning Latin means memorizing a whole lot of details. Fortunately, these details are fairly well laid out in tables, books, etc. The pages below should be sufficient to work through building a basic command of (correct) Latin.
Its well-defined grammar lends Latin well to automated stuff—the pages I've created below use web technologies to offer features not available in traditional paper books.
Each page is designed to be a digestible lesson you can study in one session. Whether at home or on the go, you can use these webpages to boost your Latin abilities.
My goal is that by working through all the lessons here, you will acquire a solid grasp of the "nuts and bolts" of Latin grammar and will be well-prepared to study more specific texts and topics.
These pages are designed to be compatible with learning through the Dowling Method. They're mobile friendly, so if you're just waiting somewhere and have a phone, you can work on memorizing essential Latin forms. The idea is after you memorize all the content presented here, you should be able to pick up a Latin reader or a text with a parallel translation in a language you know (e.g. the Latin Vulgate) and be able to read and boost your vocabulary and working language ability having already memorized all the essential "pieces" of Latin.
I created a Latin Text Input tool for typing long vowels and other characters from your browser (JavaScript required).