7 ms·

I wonder why a Latin name wasn’t appropriate.

Nasrudith 7y ago
I think the real reason was because we were confident about surpassing Rome and our own modern empires by the 1970s. There was a certain ammount of "looking back to the peaks and we are but a shadow of the greats" meme well beyond they realized they surpassdd the Roman Empire with the use of the fallen in the west Roman empire and the use of Latin (amusingly paying no regards to the Eastern Roman empire aka Byzantium). Now it is used for taxonomies still but the real reason for that is "Do you want to rename every system of classification and have to deal with two systems and names for thousands instead and avoid confusion in a vast body of work?". A resounding no and shudder would be the answer even if we had an undeniably "better" universal language for the purpose that didn't have any "politics" to it.
- excalibur 7y ago
  > A resounding no and shudder would be the answer even if we had an undeniably "better" universal language for the purpose that didn't have any "politics" to it. So not JavaScript?
mywittyname 7y ago
Maybe because not that many (American) people learn Latin anymore.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- mhh__ 7y ago
  That's the point, no? (No preference to a given nation)
  - dooglius 7y ago
    Mere use of the Latin alphabet gives a preference to some nations...
    - mhh__ 7y ago
      Some is not one, though. Especially in the case of large values of "some"
  - Mountain_Skies 7y ago
    Conspiracy theorists would have a fun time with an official language of the Vatican being selected for the purpose of anything as basic and universal as time itself, even if just for a label.
  - mywittyname 7y ago
    Well, my comment was more eluding to the fact that, until very recently, many Americans learned Latin as part of their primary school education. It was requisite knowledge for university.
    - FabHK 7y ago
      (Secondary school, presumably)
    - gamblor956 7y ago
      This has not been true in America since at least before WWII and the GI Bill. Latin was never a part of the standard primary school curriculum.
      - mywittyname 7y ago
        I was talking specifically about pre-WWII. My depression-era grand-parents learned it in school.
        gamblor956 7y ago
        70+ years ago is not "very recent" when talking about schooling. Public schooling has only been widely available in the US for less than 150 years and only widely mandated for children in the last 100.
    - Digit-Al 7y ago
      I think you mean "alluding". Eluding means avoiding.
- zcrackerz 7y ago
  They really ought to, when possible. I can't count the number of times I've encountered a new word that I could trace back to a basic Latin root. I feel like it gives you a good foundation for any romance language and goes hand in hand with the history of western civilization.
  - magic_beans 7y ago
    Latin is indeed still taught in elite private schools across the country. But let's be realistic: we'll never, EVER see a widespread push to get Latin into American education.
    - mattkrause 7y ago
      My regional public high school offered four years of it; I don't think it's that rare.
  - dghughes 7y ago
    It's great for plants and animals when you want to know its official name and not the dozens of names many dozens of countries use.
- rietta 7y ago
  I took two years of Latin in high school. I still remember the basics and it has more or less served me well. I think it made learning Spanish, which I also took in high school and college, easier. "Puella in silva est" - "the girl is in the forest" was one of the first exercises that I remember to this day ;-p
  - rietta 7y ago
    Having memorized the Lord's prayer in Latin is a fun party trick in some circles too :-)
  - denton-scratch 7y ago
    "Le singe est dans l'arbre" Eddie Izzard, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1sQkEfAdfY&gl=GB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1sQkEfAdfY&gl=GB I took latin too, for seven years. I finally passed with a 7 - one better than an "F" (for "fail").
rob74 7y ago
It might as well be the acronym for a Latin name, "Universalis Tempus Coordinatus" or something like that...
- primroot 7y ago
  Universale tempus coordinatum (because of grammatical gender agreement)
- yebyen 7y ago
  It's worth noting for any non-Latin understanders that you can put those words in any permutation and the meaning in Latin is the same.
skywhopper 7y ago
I mean, it basically is. The English, French, and Latin words are all very similar. I'm not going to embarrass myself with improper Latin declensions, but suffice it to say that "UTC" still works as a compromise initialism if you want to say it in Latin as well.
- joshklein 7y ago
  In French, most adjectives follow the noun they describe (while adjectives precede nouns in English), so the primary compromise is not naming per se, but specifically abbreviating. It’s a good compromise and a compromise good.
  - K0SM0S 7y ago
    Not exactly. In French, adjectives can both precede or follow the noun. It's stylistic more than grammatical in many cases, and depends on how the sentence is constructed. Nuances (e.g. proper versus figurative meaning) can be elegantly conveyed by switching the adjective. Examples: "Un homme grand" means 'a tall man', but "un grand homme" is more commonly 'a great man' (although it could also mean tall, depending on context or sophistication). "Une voiture bleue" is the only correct way to say 'a blue car' ("une bleue voiture" would be grammatically wrong). "Un petit homme noir" ('a short black man') is also correct, but "un noir homme petit" is absolutely wrong, as any other variation... Generally, when both orders are allowed, emphasis is put on whichever comes first —the noun or its adjectives. Unless the sentence ends there, in which case the last word obviously resonates more. Don't ask me why... It's logically as weird to me as it may seem to you. I only know from practice (like most French people I suspect) and I'm generally bad at explaining grammar (again like most, for it's really complicated). There's probably some rule somewhere about that, with three dozen exceptions, as usual in French. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    - bradknowles 7y ago
      Did you ask L’Académie française? They know everything. Just ask them.
United857 7y ago
Interestingly that's the approach Switzerland took by adopting "CH" as its country code/abbreviation: Confoederatio Helvetica in Latin. This was to avoid giving the appearance of favoring any of its four official languages (It would otherwise be "SE" in German, "CS" in French/Italian/Romanish).
- iooi 7y ago
  Thanks for sharing, that's very interesting. Does that decision have anything to do with Switzerland's reputation for neutrality?
  - gumby 7y ago
    It's not a reputation but an actual policy. It's hard to untangle but the policy has more to being surrounded by other states (no ocean) and having big walls around it already, and being too small for geopolitical strength. The country was last invaded in the napoleonic wars.
  - somacert 7y ago
    My understanding of Swiss neutrality (simplistic and very poor) is that the swiss mercenaries were too good and after they were finally defeated a ban on fielding mercenary companies was enforced and this lead naturally to the neutral stance Switzerland takes today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_mercenaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_mercenaries Except the pope, being the pope got to keep his.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  India's official language is English. I recall a journalist asking an Indian official isn't that a sign of British oppression? The official replied that India is home to many native languages, and to avoid favoritism a foreign language was chosen, and since the bureaucracy was already familiar with English that was the logical choice.
  - _delirium 7y ago
    Well, English is co-official with Hindi. Originally, Hindi was even supposed to be the only official language at a national level (states can have their own official languages). The Indian Constitution of 1950 declared Hindi as the sole official language, with English being used only temporarily for a 15-year transitional period. A number of politicians who pushed for this clause did see phasing out English as part of the decolonization process. But it's true that English usage alongside Hindi as co-official has been extended indefinitely due to non-Hindi-speaking regions preferring to use English over Hindi when dealing with the central government. The Constitution was amended in 1967 to remove the phase-out period, partly in response to some riots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Hindi_agitations_of_Tamil_Nadu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Hindi_agitations_of_Tamil...

I think the real reason was because we were confident about surpassing Rome and our own modern empires by the 1970s. There was a certain ammount of "looking back to the peaks and we are but a shadow of the greats" meme well beyond they realized they surpassdd the Roman Empire with the use of the fallen in the west Roman empire and the use of Latin (amusingly paying no regards to the Eastern Roman empire aka Byzantium). Now it is used for taxonomies still but the real reason for that is "Do you want to rename every system of classification and have to deal with two systems and names for thousands instead and avoid confusion in a vast body of work?". A resounding no and shudder would be the answer even if we had an undeniably "better" universal language for the purpose that didn't have any "politics" to it.

excalibur 7y ago
> A resounding no and shudder would be the answer even if we had an undeniably "better" universal language for the purpose that didn't have any "politics" to it. So not JavaScript?

mywittyname 7y ago

Maybe because not that many (American) people learn Latin anymore.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mhh__ 7y ago
That's the point, no? (No preference to a given nation)
- dooglius 7y ago
  Mere use of the Latin alphabet gives a preference to some nations...
  - mhh__ 7y ago
    Some is not one, though. Especially in the case of large values of "some"
- Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  Conspiracy theorists would have a fun time with an official language of the Vatican being selected for the purpose of anything as basic and universal as time itself, even if just for a label.
- mywittyname 7y ago
  Well, my comment was more eluding to the fact that, until very recently, many Americans learned Latin as part of their primary school education. It was requisite knowledge for university.
  - FabHK 7y ago
    (Secondary school, presumably)
  - gamblor956 7y ago
    This has not been true in America since at least before WWII and the GI Bill. Latin was never a part of the standard primary school curriculum.
    - mywittyname 7y ago
      I was talking specifically about pre-WWII. My depression-era grand-parents learned it in school.
      - gamblor956 7y ago
        70+ years ago is not "very recent" when talking about schooling. Public schooling has only been widely available in the US for less than 150 years and only widely mandated for children in the last 100.
  - Digit-Al 7y ago
    I think you mean "alluding". Eluding means avoiding.
zcrackerz 7y ago
They really ought to, when possible. I can't count the number of times I've encountered a new word that I could trace back to a basic Latin root. I feel like it gives you a good foundation for any romance language and goes hand in hand with the history of western civilization.
- magic_beans 7y ago
  Latin is indeed still taught in elite private schools across the country. But let's be realistic: we'll never, EVER see a widespread push to get Latin into American education.
  - mattkrause 7y ago
    My regional public high school offered four years of it; I don't think it's that rare.
- dghughes 7y ago
  It's great for plants and animals when you want to know its official name and not the dozens of names many dozens of countries use.
rietta 7y ago
I took two years of Latin in high school. I still remember the basics and it has more or less served me well. I think it made learning Spanish, which I also took in high school and college, easier. "Puella in silva est" - "the girl is in the forest" was one of the first exercises that I remember to this day ;-p
- rietta 7y ago
  Having memorized the Lord's prayer in Latin is a fun party trick in some circles too :-)
- denton-scratch 7y ago
  "Le singe est dans l'arbre" Eddie Izzard, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1sQkEfAdfY&gl=GB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1sQkEfAdfY&gl=GB I took latin too, for seven years. I finally passed with a 7 - one better than an "F" (for "fail").

rob74 7y ago

It might as well be the acronym for a Latin name, "Universalis Tempus Coordinatus" or something like that...

primroot 7y ago
Universale tempus coordinatum (because of grammatical gender agreement)
yebyen 7y ago
It's worth noting for any non-Latin understanders that you can put those words in any permutation and the meaning in Latin is the same.

skywhopper 7y ago

I mean, it basically is. The English, French, and Latin words are all very similar. I'm not going to embarrass myself with improper Latin declensions, but suffice it to say that "UTC" still works as a compromise initialism if you want to say it in Latin as well.

joshklein 7y ago
In French, most adjectives follow the noun they describe (while adjectives precede nouns in English), so the primary compromise is not naming per se, but specifically abbreviating. It’s a good compromise and a compromise good.
- K0SM0S 7y ago
  Not exactly. In French, adjectives can both precede or follow the noun. It's stylistic more than grammatical in many cases, and depends on how the sentence is constructed. Nuances (e.g. proper versus figurative meaning) can be elegantly conveyed by switching the adjective. Examples: "Un homme grand" means 'a tall man', but "un grand homme" is more commonly 'a great man' (although it could also mean tall, depending on context or sophistication). "Une voiture bleue" is the only correct way to say 'a blue car' ("une bleue voiture" would be grammatically wrong). "Un petit homme noir" ('a short black man') is also correct, but "un noir homme petit" is absolutely wrong, as any other variation... Generally, when both orders are allowed, emphasis is put on whichever comes first —the noun or its adjectives. Unless the sentence ends there, in which case the last word obviously resonates more. Don't ask me why... It's logically as weird to me as it may seem to you. I only know from practice (like most French people I suspect) and I'm generally bad at explaining grammar (again like most, for it's really complicated). There's probably some rule somewhere about that, with three dozen exceptions, as usual in French. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - bradknowles 7y ago
    Did you ask L’Académie française? They know everything. Just ask them.

United857 7y ago

Interestingly that's the approach Switzerland took by adopting "CH" as its country code/abbreviation: Confoederatio Helvetica in Latin. This was to avoid giving the appearance of favoring any of its four official languages (It would otherwise be "SE" in German, "CS" in French/Italian/Romanish).

iooi 7y ago
Thanks for sharing, that's very interesting. Does that decision have anything to do with Switzerland's reputation for neutrality?
- gumby 7y ago
  It's not a reputation but an actual policy. It's hard to untangle but the policy has more to being surrounded by other states (no ocean) and having big walls around it already, and being too small for geopolitical strength. The country was last invaded in the napoleonic wars.
- somacert 7y ago
  My understanding of Swiss neutrality (simplistic and very poor) is that the swiss mercenaries were too good and after they were finally defeated a ban on fielding mercenary companies was enforced and this lead naturally to the neutral stance Switzerland takes today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_mercenaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_mercenaries Except the pope, being the pope got to keep his.
WalterBright 7y ago
India's official language is English. I recall a journalist asking an Indian official isn't that a sign of British oppression? The official replied that India is home to many native languages, and to avoid favoritism a foreign language was chosen, and since the bureaucracy was already familiar with English that was the logical choice.
- _delirium 7y ago
  Well, English is co-official with Hindi. Originally, Hindi was even supposed to be the only official language at a national level (states can have their own official languages). The Indian Constitution of 1950 declared Hindi as the sole official language, with English being used only temporarily for a 15-year transitional period. A number of politicians who pushed for this clause did see phasing out English as part of the decolonization process. But it's true that English usage alongside Hindi as co-official has been extended indefinitely due to non-Hindi-speaking regions preferring to use English over Hindi when dealing with the central government. The Constitution was amended in 1967 to remove the phase-out period, partly in response to some riots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Hindi_agitations_of_Tamil_Nadu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Hindi_agitations_of_Tamil...