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Latin has been extended with new concepts before, e.g. Newton didn't write classical latin like Cicero, but a post-renaissance latin with extended vocabulary.

Latin has been extended with new concepts before, e.g. Newton didn't write classical latin like Cicero, but a post-renaissance latin with extended vocabulary. Koine greek would be another option, being another dead language, but Latin has the benefit of already having a large heritage of scientific writing. Carefully extending a dead language does have the strong benefit that you can keep it understandible across time. Even mid 19th century English is noticeably more difficult to read, and that's saying nothing about the 16th century English of Shakespeare. Here's a microcosm of what a waste this is: Benjamin Jowett has translated the complete works of Plato to English, and they're public domain! Great! Free Plato for everyone! ... except this was written in the 19th century, and they're written in an archaic prose that contemporary readers struggle to read, so everyone who wants to read Plato still has to get a modern translation. We're still translating texts that have been readily accessible for half a milennium. Sure there may have been a new insight or a better phrasing here and there, but primarily it's to get it into a language that is accessible to the contemporary reader. Sticking with English we're losing access to generational talents of the past because we can no longer understand what they're saying.

woodruffw 2y ago
> Even mid 19th century English is noticeably more difficult to read, and that's saying nothing about the 16th century English of Shakespeare. You perceive this because you read modern English; you don’t perceive similar differences in Latin because (I presume) you’re not fluent in Latin. I studied mostly Classical Latin, which yields pretty much the same experience when reading Ecclesiastical or Old Latin as modern English speakers have when reading Shakespearean English. Or in other words: there are foundational shifts that only become legible once the language itself is legible. The fact that I could retcon “x-ray” into Latin today does not make the version of Latin that Livy spoke uniquely valuable to science. All in all, I’d give us a better chance of preserving the sum total of human knowledge, including all versions of Latin, in fastidiously translating them into today’s dominant languages. This will be true of English too, whenever English stops being the lingua franca.

woodruffw 2y ago

> Even mid 19th century English is noticeably more difficult to read, and that's saying nothing about the 16th century English of Shakespeare. You perceive this because you read modern English; you don’t perceive similar differences in Latin because (I presume) you’re not fluent in Latin. I studied mostly Classical Latin, which yields pretty much the same experience when reading Ecclesiastical or Old Latin as modern English speakers have when reading Shakespearean English. Or in other words: there are foundational shifts that only become legible once the language itself is legible. The fact that I could retcon “x-ray” into Latin today does not make the version of Latin that Livy spoke uniquely valuable to science. All in all, I’d give us a better chance of preserving the sum total of human knowledge, including all versions of Latin, in fastidiously translating them into today’s dominant languages. This will be true of English too, whenever English stops being the lingua franca.