I remember reading 17th century letters from Dutch diplomats. They used French to write back home- except when they talked about money. Such matters required a higher form of communication.
There's a lot of french in tolstoy too, and I believe most of the dialog can be inferred to be in french but is in russian for literary reasons. French was the daily home language of the russian imperial aristocracy. They spoke russian with an accent.
We are Poles, so, of course, we print in Latin
81–90 of 93 posts
Re: We are Poles, so, of course, we print in Latin
#82I even have some medical diagnosis from Poland of a family member in Latin from the early 1990s. Weird elitist way of saying "you have cancer and our healthcare is one big corrupted ruin so you will suffer". The doctor was probably smoking a cigarette while typing it.
Receipts are still formalized in Latin internationally, because you should be able to take it across the world. All plants, diseases and medicaments have standardized Latin terms. What use would be a polish medication, in a country that doesn't speak polish. Au contraire, the assumption, that everyone one the world understands a local language is elitist.
Re: We are Poles, so, of course, we print in Latin
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Receipts are still formalized in Latin internationally, because you should be able to take it across the world. All plants, diseases and medicaments have standardized Latin terms. What use would be a polish medication, in a country that doesn't speak polish. Au contraire, the assumption, that everyone one the world understands a local language is elitist.
Medical diagnosis in Latin within Polish healthcare system is useless. You'll barely receive any help within this system anyways, and certainly not receive any constructive help outside of it. As a bonus in the pre-internet era, nobody around knew the cause of death because it was written down in some fossil language. Latin language was used as some kind of legalization of incompetence and corruption.
Maybe it's unusual, but it's hardly unusual. If there is a doctor who doesn't know the proper name of treatment and disease, I would highly question how he got to be a doctor in the first place.
Also you wouldn't likely understand a lot of terminology of other subjects, that hardly means it's useless, but rather very important for them to competently work in their subject.
> As a bonus in the pre-internet era, nobody around knew the cause of death
Are you just trolling?? A dictionary is hardly inaccessible. You can also just ask. Due you also think pilots should stop gossip in that weird military lingo all the time?
> Latin language was used as some kind of legalization of incompetence and corruption.
Knowing the proper terminology of your subject is the sign of incompetence and corruption. Sure.
Re: We are Poles, so, of course, we print in Latin
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Medical diagnosis in Latin within Polish healthcare system is useless. You'll barely receive any help within this system anyways, and certainly not receive any constructive help outside of it. As a bonus in the pre-internet era, nobody around knew the cause of death because it was written down in some fossil language. Latin language was used as some kind of legalization of incompetence and corruption.
> Medical diagnosis in Latin within Polish healthcare system is useless. Maybe it's unusual, but it's hardly unusual. If there is a doctor who doesn't know the proper name of treatment and disease, I would highly question how he got to be a doctor in the first place. Also you wouldn't likely understand a lot of terminology of other subjects, that hardly means it's useless, but rather very important for them to compet…
I'm absolutely not trolling, I'm deadly serious. Good luck decrypting Latin with no experience and a paper dictionary. Even nowadays it's 100 EUR for 5 minutes of "just asking" a doctor. Back then it was an envelope with equivalent.
Re: We are Poles, so, of course, we print in Latin
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Medical diagnosis in Latin within Polish healthcare system is useless. Maybe it's unusual, but it's hardly unusual. If there is a doctor who doesn't know the proper name of treatment and disease, I would highly question how he got to be a doctor in the first place. Also you wouldn't likely understand a lot of terminology of other subjects, that hardly means it's useless, but rather very important for them to compet…
> Are you just trolling?? A dictionary is hardly inaccessible. You can also just ask. Due you also think pilots should stop gossip in that weird military lingo all the time? I'm absolutely not trolling, I'm deadly serious. Good luck decrypting Latin with no experience and a paper dictionary. Even nowadays it's 100 EUR for 5 minutes of "just asking" a doctor. Back then it was an envelope with equivalent.
Re: We are Poles, so, of course, we print in Latin
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Are you just trolling?? A dictionary is hardly inaccessible. You can also just ask. Due you also think pilots should stop gossip in that weird military lingo all the time? I'm absolutely not trolling, I'm deadly serious. Good luck decrypting Latin with no experience and a paper dictionary. Even nowadays it's 100 EUR for 5 minutes of "just asking" a doctor. Back then it was an envelope with equivalent.
You get this when you were there, so you could have asked then. I fail to see your problem. You are lumping in potentially valid problem with subject expert using subject terminology. If you want to know what the doctors write in doctor to doctor communication, ask them, lookup in a book, learn it yourself or now-a-days just search it on the internet. I don't know what subject you work in, hence I don't want to give…
Re: We are Poles, so, of course, we print in Latin
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not just Europe. Well into relatively modern history educated individuals in America were expected to have fluency in Latin and frequently Greek as well. This [1] Harvard admission exam from 1869 immediately comes to mind. Applicants were expected to be able to pass that test, and the overwhelming majority did. [1] - https://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvard...
The classical school movement in America is growing quite rapidly, and so maybe we start to see it again? My kids at least are all learning Latin, and later, Greek.
Re: We are Poles, so, of course, we print in Latin
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Spain both are still taught in the standard high-school curriculum. Not everyone takes those classes of course, but Latin is one of the core optatives in the humanities path, it can be chosen in the university entrance exam as one of the core tests, and many students do pick it. It's not really taught as a foreign language though, it is used to teach fundamental concepts in linguistic analysis and translation, and…
Give him this book, it's pre-University, from the Algebra basics to Calculus. https://biblioteca.empresainteligente.com/resources/bibliote... It's in Spanish, proof based, but not as hard as Spivak. If he is good at programming he must be good at logic and thus if he understands Math as something to apply rules , he we will ace the book. He can use Maxima to locally solve the equations. Forget LLM's, these will just…
Common in many countries. Its a problem in the UK and getting worse.
Re: We are Poles, so, of course, we print in Latin
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
You get this when you were there, so you could have asked then. I fail to see your problem. You are lumping in potentially valid problem with subject expert using subject terminology. If you want to know what the doctors write in doctor to doctor communication, ask them, lookup in a book, learn it yourself or now-a-days just search it on the internet. I don't know what subject you work in, hence I don't want to give…
You certainly never have dealt with a doctor in Polish healthcare system. It's never as simple a just asking. Consider yourself lucky.
Re: We are Poles, so, of course, we print in Latin
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Latin language should be become the official language of the EU It would be more practical, if everyone spoke the same language, but the EU does deliberately not want that. The EU wants to preserve language and culture of its member states and regions. "United in Diversity" is an important idea of the EU.
I think the emphasis is on official . That is, it would function as the common language of administration, communication, diplomacy, etc. (i.e., lingua franca), but it wouldn't replace vernacular languages. This was the norm centuries ago in Europe. One advantage of it being "dead" is that the meanings of terms are much more stable. They don't undergo the usual slippage and mutation of spoken languages. This advantag…