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The article presents latins as a “live” language. That is a fallacy. A live language is one passed from “mother” to child. It is always a “first” language. T
by pfortuny 5y ago
The article presents latins as a “live” language.
That is a fallacy.
A live language is one passed from “mother” to child. It is always a “first” language.
The fact that Newton, Leibnitz etc used it did not make it a true “live” language.
This is something latinists have to learn to bear with. Latin is dead and is only academic. Nothing wrong with that or with using it.
But trying to comvince people that it is “flourishing” is like trying to defend, say, Cathegory Theory because it is a “flourishing language”: no, it is not. It is a convenient means of ACADEMIC (scientific even) information transfer.
- jhbadger 5y agoLiving languages and native languages are different things. A living language is just one that is actively used in the present. The majority of people using English in the world today did not learn it natively. To them, it makes no difference that there are native speakers of it in the UK and USA, etc. They learn it not because they care about them or wish to visit these places (although they might) but because English is (currently) the standard language for a variety of purposes such as science, just as Latin was in Newton's time.
- marginalia_nu 5y ago> Latin is dead and is only academic. Latin's mostly been kept alive thanks to the catholic church. The church operates on a different timescale than most organizations, and the audience of their documents and decrees aren't just people of the present. When your organization is thousands of years old, it's very useful to stick to one language, so that you can read what your predecessor wrote 500 or 1000 years ago.