4 ms·

The mention of the Catholic Church's use of Latin made we wonder: if you're going to resurrect Latin as an international language, which pronunciation are you g

by dghf 9y ago

The mention of the Catholic Church's use of Latin made we wonder: if you're going to resurrect Latin as an international language, which pronunciation are you going to use -- the reconstructed classical pronunciation of Cicero et al., or the Italian-influenced pronunciation of Church Latin? For example, Caesar's veni, vidi, vici would be pronounced something like "wainey, weedy, weeky" in the former but "vainy, veedy, veechy" in the latter. And then there's the traditional English pronunciation, which assumes that Latin is pronounced more or less the same as English: e.g., mater is made to rhyme with "later".

cafard 9y ago
Church Latin is curiously silent. There are a lot of Tridentine Masses out there: but one doesn't really hear a lot of the prayers in them, does one? In the Novus Ordo Masses, the prayers are audible, and the congregation takes part, but there aren't many such celebrated, that I know of.
- dghf 9y ago
  To be honest, most of my knowledge of Church Latin comes from things like the Agnus Dei sung by the choir during an otherwise English-language Mass.
- gumby 9y ago
  That is due to a shift in 1962 (although some irredentists, primarily in Europe, do still perform services in Latin). Church latin was the working language of the catholic church. Services switched to Latin (from Greek) around 200, but as the church spread through Europe and the middle east, services were often in vernacular. Since this led to a lot of local interpretation and variance (many -- perhaps most? -- priests were illiterate at the time) by 1000, I believe, the popes started insisting that the priests use Latin and turn their back on the audience.
  - cafard 9y ago
    Since about 1988, after the publication of Ecclesia Dei, the Tridentine Mass has made a considerable comeback. In the Archdiocese of Washington, there are three parishes that offer a Tridentine Mass, but only the cathedral has a Novus Ordo Mass.
  - zeveb 9y ago
    > the popes started insisting that the priests … turn their back on the audience. I don't think that's true: priests' backs aren't turned towards the congregation, but rather priests' and the congregation's faces are turned together towards the sanctuary.
    - gumby 9y ago
      Indeed that is how it is framed. But IIRC (it's been years since I learned these things) the real "problem" addressed was that, particularly in the christianization of the scandinavians and goths, if you defeated them in battle they were happy to add Jesus to their stable of gods to call upon, as that one had been handy for the other side. In addition, as I mentioned, local priests were relying on faulty memory and taking local custom into account when discussing matters ecclesiastical. i'd think that wouldn't be at all bad in a religion, but I can see how it is destructive to corporate structure. It appears that the point was to infuse additional magic into the ritual and remove a large chunk of autonomy from the local providers.
      - zeveb 9y ago
        That still wouldn't make sense, since the exact same set-up was common in the Eastern Roman Empire, which had been thoroughly Christian for almost half a millennium by that point in time. Honestly, it sounds a bit like a just-so story. Wikipedia indicates at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_orientem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_orientem indicates that pre-Christian sects like the Essenes practised it, and that Origen (second & third centuries) & Clement of Alexandria (second century) both mention it.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Since this led to a lot of local interpretation and variance (many -- perhaps most? -- priests were illiterate at the time) by 1000, I believe, the popes started insisting that the priests use Latin and turn their back on the audience. It a congregation, not an audience, and in Roman practice before ~8th-9thC it was the audience whose back was to the priest. In both Eastern and Roman practice, services had both the priest and the worshippers facing East; in the East the priest was at the East end, facing the altar at far Eastern extremity, with the congregation facing the priest and altar. In Rome, the priest was at the far West, facing the altar and, beyond them, the congregation.) Later, the Eastern approach was adopted as the norm in Rome and the West (and eventually the invariable East-West orientation abandoned), but in neither were the priest and congregation facing each other as in the modern Roman mass The universal adoption of Latin (and the Roman rite) in the West was, IIRC, driven more by Charlemagne and subsequent Emporers than the Popes.

by dghf 9y ago

cafard 9y ago

Church Latin is curiously silent. There are a lot of Tridentine Masses out there: but one doesn't really hear a lot of the prayers in them, does one? In the Novus Ordo Masses, the prayers are audible, and the congregation takes part, but there aren't many such celebrated, that I know of.

dghf 9y ago
To be honest, most of my knowledge of Church Latin comes from things like the Agnus Dei sung by the choir during an otherwise English-language Mass.
gumby 9y ago
That is due to a shift in 1962 (although some irredentists, primarily in Europe, do still perform services in Latin). Church latin was the working language of the catholic church. Services switched to Latin (from Greek) around 200, but as the church spread through Europe and the middle east, services were often in vernacular. Since this led to a lot of local interpretation and variance (many -- perhaps most? -- priests were illiterate at the time) by 1000, I believe, the popes started insisting that the priests use Latin and turn their back on the audience.
- cafard 9y ago
  Since about 1988, after the publication of Ecclesia Dei, the Tridentine Mass has made a considerable comeback. In the Archdiocese of Washington, there are three parishes that offer a Tridentine Mass, but only the cathedral has a Novus Ordo Mass.
- zeveb 9y ago
  > the popes started insisting that the priests … turn their back on the audience. I don't think that's true: priests' backs aren't turned towards the congregation, but rather priests' and the congregation's faces are turned together towards the sanctuary.
  - gumby 9y ago
    Indeed that is how it is framed. But IIRC (it's been years since I learned these things) the real "problem" addressed was that, particularly in the christianization of the scandinavians and goths, if you defeated them in battle they were happy to add Jesus to their stable of gods to call upon, as that one had been handy for the other side. In addition, as I mentioned, local priests were relying on faulty memory and taking local custom into account when discussing matters ecclesiastical. i'd think that wouldn't be at all bad in a religion, but I can see how it is destructive to corporate structure. It appears that the point was to infuse additional magic into the ritual and remove a large chunk of autonomy from the local providers.
    - zeveb 9y ago
      That still wouldn't make sense, since the exact same set-up was common in the Eastern Roman Empire, which had been thoroughly Christian for almost half a millennium by that point in time. Honestly, it sounds a bit like a just-so story. Wikipedia indicates at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_orientem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_orientem indicates that pre-Christian sects like the Essenes practised it, and that Origen (second & third centuries) & Clement of Alexandria (second century) both mention it.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Since this led to a lot of local interpretation and variance (many -- perhaps most? -- priests were illiterate at the time) by 1000, I believe, the popes started insisting that the priests use Latin and turn their back on the audience. It a congregation, not an audience, and in Roman practice before ~8th-9thC it was the audience whose back was to the priest. In both Eastern and Roman practice, services had both the priest and the worshippers facing East; in the East the priest was at the East end, facing the altar at far Eastern extremity, with the congregation facing the priest and altar. In Rome, the priest was at the far West, facing the altar and, beyond them, the congregation.) Later, the Eastern approach was adopted as the norm in Rome and the West (and eventually the invariable East-West orientation abandoned), but in neither were the priest and congregation facing each other as in the modern Roman mass The universal adoption of Latin (and the Roman rite) in the West was, IIRC, driven more by Charlemagne and subsequent Emporers than the Popes.