Caveat Emptor: Lovers of Latin Try to Sell a Dead Tongue • Hacker News Board

Re: Caveat Emptor: Lovers of Latin Try to Sell a Dead Tongue

#41

Post by VLM » Sun, Dec 01, 2013, 3:02 PM UTC

wolfgke wrote: post #38

digitalengineer wrote: post #20

The use of Latin would do great damage to the European dream of unity. There's already a great distance between those who (are suppose to) represent the European population and the European citizens themselves. If they started using their own language it'd be like the old days where one could only come close to god via the church because the bible was written in Latin, a language only the men of the church understood…

The bible wasn't originally written in Latin. The Old Testament is mostly written in Classical Hebrew (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew#Classical_Hebrew ), except for large sections of the books of Daniel and Esra - these are written in Aramaic (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic ) The New Testament is originally written in Koine Greek (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novum_Testamentum_Graec…

The historical social relevance was most of the German peasantry couldn't read or listen to Aramaic at that time. Most of them couldn't understand written German but the stats for literacy were good enough that they'd understand someone reading it aloud.

Its also relevant because of lack of control and a rather concrete expression of rebellion. "We forbid you to do this" "Been there done that". Rabble rousing always happens and never amounted to much; publishing an illegal book was a substantial escalation.

Re: Caveat Emptor: Lovers of Latin Try to Sell a Dead Tongue

#42

Post by fhars » Sun, Dec 01, 2013, 3:15 PM UTC

wolfgke wrote: post #38

digitalengineer wrote: post #20

The use of Latin would do great damage to the European dream of unity. There's already a great distance between those who (are suppose to) represent the European population and the European citizens themselves. If they started using their own language it'd be like the old days where one could only come close to god via the church because the bible was written in Latin, a language only the men of the church understood…

The bible wasn't originally written in Latin. The Old Testament is mostly written in Classical Hebrew (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew#Classical_Hebrew ), except for large sections of the books of Daniel and Esra - these are written in Aramaic (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic ) The New Testament is originally written in Koine Greek (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novum_Testamentum_Graec…

But in the western (roman catholic) parts of europe, the latin vulgata was about the only relevant version of the bible during most of the middle ages. So for practical purposes, the argument is correct.

Re: Caveat Emptor: Lovers of Latin Try to Sell a Dead Tongue

#43

Post by TruthElixirX » Sun, Dec 01, 2013, 5:13 PM UTC

mxim wrote: post #36

TruthElixirX wrote: post #2

""We have a single money, the euro," Mr. Feye says. "We should have a single language, Latin."" We do. Its called English.

We should never have a single language, as no one can represent all the cultural characteristics.

The majority contents of lots of cultures is bigotry and hatefulness towards those not in the culture.

I am fine with losing it.

Re: Caveat Emptor: Lovers of Latin Try to Sell a Dead Tongue

#44

Post by tptacek » Sun, Dec 01, 2013, 7:40 PM UTC

superpatosainz wrote: post #12

michaelsbradley wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latin is still in daily/weekly use in those Catholic churches around the world that celebrate the traditional form of the Roman liturgy, or use the Latin edition of its modern form. Many clergy and laity alike study, learn and treasure the Latin readings, prayers, chants and hymns that form such an important part of the Western Church's heritage. In Saint Louis, Missouri, USA we have a church where the traditional La…

Actually, most Catholic churches now is celebrated in their region's language, after Jean Paul II's Second Vatican Council.

He knows; he's pointing out that you can go to Latin High Mass / Tridentine Mass in certain parishes in big cities. There's a bunch of places in Chicago that do it once a week too.

Re: Caveat Emptor: Lovers of Latin Try to Sell a Dead Tongue

#45

Post by MarkTee » Sun, Dec 01, 2013, 8:44 PM UTC

yongjik wrote: post #18

Renaud wrote: post #4

Certainly won't happen anytime soon. English is certainly the lingua-franca of the modern world and will probably stay that way for a while. While mastering English is hard, you can get quite far with a modicum of English. Latin is an extremely important language and we should keep teaching it as a large portion of the grammar and vocabulary of Europe's languages derives from it, but it's fraught with complexities th…

I agree with your main point, but you're making an unfair comparison. If Latin were an internationally popular language alive today, then I imagine you could also get quite far with bits of broken Latin. Also, if you think English isn't "fraught with complexities that make it really hard to master", I know an entire nation made (mostly) of people who've been learning English since twelve and still failing miserably a…

I know an entire nation made mostly of people who've been learning English since birth and they still fail at basic reading comprehension.

Re: Caveat Emptor: Lovers of Latin Try to Sell a Dead Tongue

#46

Post by coliveira » Mon, Dec 02, 2013, 12:04 AM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #31

coliveira wrote: post #10

I am in favor of using Latin in some circumstances. People miss the fact that the great thing about a dead language is that it doesn't change. However, if you write about science in English, for example, you can guarantee that 50 years from now your text will feel dated -- just try to read papers from the beginning of the 20th century. On the other hand, we still can read the great works of antiquity (from 20 centuri…

Two-hundred year old English is perfectly readable, and it would be entirely impossible to write a paper in Latin on, for example, computer science without very creative reinterpretation. Torturing English to turn it into a relatively regular language would make much more sense than trying to torture Latin into something remotely adequate for conveying modern concepts.

There is no way to change English into a regular language, unless you create a completely new language. Latin is already a highly regular language by the definition of its grammar.

As for writing CS papers in Latin, there is no reason why you can't do it by importing the existing vocabulary, the same way English imported the vocabulary it needed from other languages.

Re: Caveat Emptor: Lovers of Latin Try to Sell a Dead Tongue

#47

Post by yongjik » Mon, Dec 02, 2013, 2:03 AM UTC

pfortuny wrote: post #22

yongjik wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your main point, but you're making an unfair comparison. If Latin were an internationally popular language alive today, then I imagine you could also get quite far with bits of broken Latin. Also, if you think English isn't "fraught with complexities that make it really hard to master", I know an entire nation made (mostly) of people who've been learning English since twelve and still failing miserably a…

I bet you mean Spain but it would be nice to know another example...

South Korea (shrug). From what I heard, China & Japan aren't much different.

Re: Caveat Emptor: Lovers of Latin Try to Sell a Dead Tongue

#48

Post by jedwhite » Mon, Dec 02, 2013, 3:33 AM UTC

derleth wrote: post #35

jedwhite wrote: post #7

Languages are living things. They morph and change, evolve and grow, and die. Latin lives on in English, French, Italian, Spanish and other languages. So in a sense it is not dead. Reading Beowulf (Old English) would not be much less intelligible to a modern audience than reading the Aeneid in Latin. Time changes all languages... and fugit interea, fugit irreparabile tempus, singula dum capti circumvectamur amore. Ed…

> Latin lives on in English Only through borrowings. English is a Germanic language.

I think it's fair to say that Latin lives on in English, although one might quibble over the definition of "lives on". Old English was derived from a number of closely related Germanic dialects. The English language, however, is a fusion. It was influenced by Old Norse, and borrows from many languages. It has a more-than-significant number of words with Latin roots, beyond, I think, merely borrowings. Latin is used particularly heavily in scientific and legal domains, but Latin roots permeate English vocabulary, and Latin phrases are peppered through common use in various forms -- e.g. "i.e" :-)