
Caveat Emptor: Lovers of Latin Try to Sell a Dead Tongue - jedwhite
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303755504579207862529717146?mod=WSJ_hp_EditorsPicks
======
digitalengineer
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. Controlling the language meant great
power (as Martin Luther found out when he translated the bible so common man
could read it).

~~~
wolfgke
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](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](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic))

The New Testament is originally written in Koine Greek (source:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novum_Testamentum_Graece](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novum_Testamentum_Graece)
and
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Greek#Biblical_Koine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Greek#Biblical_Koine)).

The Latin versions are just old translations.

~~~
VLM
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.

------
Renaud
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 that make it really hard to master
unless you really want to spend the time and energy to specialise in it;
certainly a worthy goal in itself, but not what most people would aspire to.

~~~
yongjik
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 at basic
reading comprehension...

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

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

------
austinz
It's a quixotic dream, but one I think is quite beautiful. In terms of
'revived' languages used today in everyday life, the most successful one that
comes to mind is Hebrew (and there was a strong desire for national cohesion
for a newly created state that in part drove its revival). I don't think
anything remotely similar exists in Europe today to drive the widespread
adoption of Latin, especially as the drive for further European integration in
general has been battered in recent years.

~~~
michaelsbradley
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 Latin
Mass is celebrated daily, the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales[1].

If you're not familiar with how the traditional Roman liturgy looks and
sounds, there are a number of video recordings online[2].

[1] [http://www.institute-christ-king.org/stlouis/](http://www.institute-
christ-king.org/stlouis/)

[2]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c32brXXx5k8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c32brXXx5k8)

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

~~~
fennecfoxen
Jean Paul II did the Second Vatican Council? Right. And Linux Torvalds
invented the C programming language.

~~~
simonh
Don't be silly, everyone knows Linus started the GNU movement, that's why he
insisted it should be called GNU Linux ;)

------
jedwhite
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.

Edit: that is, "meanwhile it flees: time flees irretrievably, while we wander
around, prisoners of our love of detail."

~~~
derleth
> Latin lives on in English

Only through borrowings. English is a Germanic language.

~~~
jedwhite
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" :-)

------
superpatosainz
Just a little remark:

>"Where is the liberty of the people?" Mr. Licoppe asked. "Because there are
many who want to preserve the study of Latin."

Is it really necessary that I've got to explain that there are also people who
don't want to preserve it? Do I have to explain how the idea marketplace,
competence, academic freedom and other systems actually works?

The whole idea of embracing Latin for everything is dumb. If Latin were
actually a lingua franca, then, like that school completely ignores, linguas
francas (francae?) aren't there to replace the mother language (which includes
all of the region's folklore), just to complement it when talking to an
outsider (that school isn't, it is teaching reticulum interretiale only
instead of internet first and then reticulum interretiale).

Also, from a pragmatist point of view, learning Latin today, and either using
it as a lingua franca or not is pretty useless (there are exceptions, of
course, like Philosophy, law, medicine, etc; but they aren't that important in
a day-to-day context).

------
tzs
For those who want to program in Latin, Perl has it covered [1].

[1] [http://search.cpan.org/~dconway/Lingua-Romana-
Perligata-0.50...](http://search.cpan.org/~dconway/Lingua-Romana-
Perligata-0.50/lib/Lingua/Romana/Perligata.pm)

------
coliveira
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 centuries ago) in Latin. Also, a lot of scientific
works were written in Latin during the renascence, and they are still
available to us. Sadly, what is written in English will hardly last for more
than a few hundred years. The only saving grace is that future generations
will have automatic translation systems that will solve a lot of these
problems.

Another issue with English is that it is a very imprecise language. You have
to be extremely careful to write precise sentences in it. Latin, because of
its grammatical nature, is much easier to handle in this respect. This is the
same reason why it is much easier to understand philosophical concepts in
German than in English. Just because English is widely understood (due to the
cultural dominance of English-speaking countries), it doesn't mean that we
shouldn't try to use a better language to express ourselves. Latin seems like
a natural option due to its large impact on the western world.

~~~
Crito
> _" 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 centuries ago) in
> Latin."_

Starting as somebody exposed to only modern english, getting off the ground
with 17th or 18th century english is going to be _much_ easier than getting
off the ground with _any_ latin.

Seriously, I'm not sure what english works you have been reading, but it
really doesn't get bad until you get really get back into the mid-17th century
or so. Even with 16th century stuff, I would say that most of the difficulty
comes from antiquated idioms (and rarely vocabulary). Trouble you had with
scientific papers from the early 20th century probably had more to do with
your inexperience with the subject matter of the paper, not the language it
was written in. Books written in the 19th century are still considered
reasonable reading for children today (Twain, Carroll, Dickens, Thoreau, etc.)

~~~
VLM
I agree and provide some more popular examples:

Shakespeare from around 1600 is rewarding but pretty much needs a translator
into English to be understood by moderns. On the other hand Gibbon writing
around the American Revolution in 1776 is modern, and is a very easy read.

The biggest issue you'll find is a variation in what moderns would consider
grade level. Modern journalism is not allowed to rise about 3rd grade level
reading ability because of the "need" to maximize potential readers aka
profit. Bad writing drives out good writing just like bad money drives out
good, or some say bad code drives out good code. (or coders?)

Gibbon is at a higher grade level of reading ability than modern average,
which is going to be intimidating. I'd say its around high school level. It IS
harder than the average newspaper sports page. However its not harder than any
modern high school level text. Compared to a college level physics textbook,
Gibbon is a pretty easy read.

~~~
derleth
> Shakespeare from around 1600 is rewarding but pretty much needs a translator
> into English to be understood by moderns.

Nobody in 1600s England spoke the way Shakespeare wrote. Shakespeare was
writing poetry. His plays are famous for their use of iambic pentameter
especially, which is beautiful to hear and read but not a natural part of
English prose.

To pick another example more-or-less at random from the same era, the work of
Thomas Hobbes is much less poetic and, therefore, substantially more readable.
The major stylistic difference I can see is that they were absolutely addicted
to what we'd now consider overlong, or even run-on, sentences.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes)

 _Leviathan_ :
[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3207](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3207)

~~~
VLM
You make an excellent point, another poetic example is Jabberwocky is not a
typical example of all late 1800s English literature.

------
PeterisP
Trying to preserve a language by '...instead of using the modern Latin word
for train (ferrivia), you must write something like vehiculum in binaris
ferris currens: "vehicle running on two irons."' is an excellent way to ensure
that the language stays dead, permanently.

If people want a 'lingua franca' not based on languages of large nations, then
a quick googling seems to indicate that there are much more _esperanto_
speakers than fluent latin speakers...

------
azernik
The EU is not going to add Latin as an official language, and it has nothing
to do with financial difficulties; every official language of the EU has that
status _because_ it is the national language of a member state. In general,
the Union is a (con)federation of national states, and adding Latin as a
Union-wide language wouldn't really be compatible with that.

------
Nux
It's quite a romantic idea and somehow I like it, but it will not happen and
should not happen.

There is one language that is understood/used much more in Europe than any
others and that language is English, it's also the one language that is
understood in most if not all civilised corners of the planet. The cognitive
and all other efforts implied to change this would be just too big.

European nations hold dear to their languages, some more than others, but
slowly and surely this grasp will weaken: your films are in English, your
internet is in English, your smartphone defaults to English, your code
comments are in English and so on.

For those who love Latin, English is not such a bad language to use; its
lexicon is ~30% based on Latin.

~~~
wolfgke
What is criticised (especially from French or German native speakers) is that
most European languages are more exact in their wording and grammar than
English. Thus translating from English into such a language (French or
especially German) often involves interpreting what the author probably meant
and express it more exactly. This especially makes automatic English -> German
translations particular dreaded for computer-generated translations.

------
sdpope
I can't imagine this growing beyond a fringe movement. Countries are pretty
attached to their languages, I doubt it would accomplish more that aggravate
eurosceptics: The european nationalism one of the quoted proponents dismisses
is a pretty powerful force that hasn't exactly accepted the degree of
integration these Latin-advocates envision.

Also, the history in this article is so atrocious I had to write a blog post
about it.[1]

[1][http://sdpo.pe/2013/12/which-roman-empire/](http://sdpo.pe/2013/12/which-
roman-empire/)

------
orbitingpluto
Semper ubi sub ubi.

~~~
fennecfoxen
NO! You can't make a real sentence with nothing but adverbs and
prepositions!!!

:b

~~~
ximeng
"Always wear underwear" \- makes sense to me.

------
TruthElixirX
""We have a single money, the euro," Mr. Feye says. "We should have a single
language, Latin.""

We do. Its called English.

~~~
Spooky23
Some of my countrymen feel it is a universal language -- just a matter of
volume. If you yell English loudly enough, people will understand.

~~~
paulrademacher
DO? YOU? SPEAK? ENGLISH?

