6 ms·
We are Poles, so, of course, we print in Latin
- expedition32 4mo agoI remember reading 17th century letters from Dutch diplomats. They used French to write back home- except when they talked about money. Such matters required a higher form of communication.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- shadowtree 4mo agoLingua Franca, like literally. French used to be the language of diplomacy.
- rafram 4mo agoLingua franca actually comes from the Mediterranean Lingua Franca [1], which was mostly derived from Northern Italian languages, not French. French eventually became the "lingua franca," but it wasn't widespread (or even clearly defined) when that term started being used. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Lingua_Franca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Lingua_Franca
- giraffe_lady 4mo agoThere's a lot of french in tolstoy too, and I believe most of the dialog can be inferred to be in french but is in russian for literary reasons. French was the daily home language of the russian imperial aristocracy. They spoke russian with an accent.
- ForHackernews 4mo agoNabokov was famously raised trilingual in Russian, English, and French by his Russian aristocratic family.
- comrade1234 4mo agoMy grandfather emigrated from Vilnius (was polish at the time) to the USA as a teenager and managed to find a church that did their mass in Latin, and still does to this day. I assume he understood it but I'm not sure - he was well-educated and spoke a few languages.
- bombcar 4mo agoThe church Latin used in “the Latin Mass” is relatively simple and pretty easy to learn; and it’s very rare to find one that does the readings and homily in Latin; most of those are in English (or the local language) even at an FSSP parish. Of course if it’s “really” done in the ancient way then it’s done at such a high speed that you need five or six Jesuits and advanced recording equipment to even figure out what is being said. ;)
- kjs3 4mo agoI recall some of the Orthodox denominations still do mass in Latin. I visited an Antiochian Orthodox Church for a class where this was the case. I think (it has been a long while) the key phrase you'd look for is 'Western Rite'.
- bombcar 4mo agoLatin (and other "old" languages) can still be found in various ways and places, though that starts to get deep into it, as the "New Catholic Mass" can be said in any language, one of which is Latin.
- somenameforme 4mo agoSome Eastern Orthodox use (for all dialogue, they do celebrate mass) a language that's now only referred to as Church Slavonic. [1] Though going down this tangent I can't help but think of that Emo Phillips skit on religion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANNX_XiuA78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANNX_XiuA78 [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Slavonic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Slavonic
- 4mo ago
- snowpid 4mo agoAs a side note I do think Latin language should be become the official language of the EU. It's dead so - its a compromise for all member staes - you can change as you like - it was used millennials as a law language so it fits
- kmac_ 4mo agoOr Esperanto. But Spanish or Italian would also be great as they sound so nice.
- shadowtree 4mo agoEsperanto being created by L.L. Zamenhof ... a Polish Ashkenazi Jew. Full circle!
- adrian_b 4mo agoAmong the constructed languages that I have seen, I believe that Interlingua was the closest to how a language that could replace English as the international language should be. I disagree with some grammatical choices made for Interlingua, but in any case it had a simple grammar and the vocabulary was well chosen among the words that are common to the greatest number of European languages. Thus I could read and understand Interlingua without knowing anything about it before that. Interlingua has a vocabulary bias towards Romance languages, but that is due to the fact that Romance words, mostly coming from Latin or French, are also widespread in English, and also in other language groups like Germanic or Slavic, while much less Germanic or Slavic words are found in languages from other groups. Therefore when selecting the words that are found in most European languages, there are more Romance words than from the other groups.
- graemep 4mo agoI think that is a reason the catholic Church still uses it for things like papal encyclicals. It puts different groups on a more equal footing. Far more people understand it than things like Esperanto. Quite a lot of people know it a bit. I did it at school. My kids learned some (their choice to do it up to GCSE level). That said, in practice, English is the international language. It is what is most likely to be used at an international conference in most fields, or when people with two different native languages speak.
- Tade0 4mo agoI'm Polish and my father (boomer generation) attended a boys-only high school, where Latin was part of the mandatory curriculum. He managed to use it once when we were living in Kuwait and he had to arrange for my sister to get baptized - he knew that there were two missionaries visiting the local Cathedral - one Spanish and the other Polish but as he didn't know who was who, he started the conversation in Latin and of course got an appropriate response.
- asibahi 4mo agoI’m confused. Why not start the conversation in Polish?
- Tade0 4mo agoHe didn't know the nationality of the man in front of him as he's never seen the faces of the two before. It was the mid 90s, so it's not like he could easily look that up. Also he figured it would be rude. IIRC the wider context is that my dad, not knowing where the priests were at that moment and having no one to ask in the vicinity, went to a confessional as he saw someone there.
- michaelscott 4mo agoBut why wouldn't he start the conversation in Polish? If the priest responds, he is Polish. If he doesn't, he is Spanish.
- ulfw 4mo agoYea I didn't get this logic either. Why would the Polish person be the one assumed to be speaking Latin but the Spanish (literally a language based on Latin) person not? Who says Spanish people can't learn Latin?
- scbrg 4mo agoBoth priests are assumed to understand Latin. The situation they want to avoid is starting up a conversation with someone in a language they don't know. So the options are: 1) Use Polish, with the risk of being rude if you happen to speak to the Spanish priest 2) Use Latin and ask "do you speak Polish?", and both the Polish and the Spanish priest will understand. You could of course argue that it's not so very rude to accidentally try to strike up a conversation with someone in a language they don't know, but apparently Tade0's father thinks it is.
- lifestyleguru 4mo agoI even have some medical diagnosis from Poland of a family member in Latin from the early 1990s. Weird elitist way of saying "you have cancer and our healthcare is one big corrupted ruin so you will suffer". The doctor was probably smoking a cigarette while typing it.
- 1718627440 4mo agoReceipts are still formalized in Latin internationally, because you should be able to take it across the world. All plants, diseases and medicaments have standardized Latin terms. What use would be a polish medication, in a country that doesn't speak polish. Au contraire, the assumption, that everyone one the world understands a local language is elitist.
- lifestyleguru 4mo agoMedical diagnosis in Latin within Polish healthcare system is useless. You'll barely receive any help within this system anyways, and certainly not receive any constructive help outside of it. As a bonus in the pre-internet era, nobody around knew the cause of death because it was written down in some fossil language. Latin language was used as some kind of legalization of incompetence and corruption.
- 1718627440 4mo ago> Medical diagnosis in Latin within Polish healthcare system is useless. Maybe it's unusual, but it's hardly unusual. If there is a doctor who doesn't know the proper name of treatment and disease, I would highly question how he got to be a doctor in the first place. Also you wouldn't likely understand a lot of terminology of other subjects, that hardly means it's useless, but rather very important for them to competently work in their subject. > As a bonus in the pre-internet era, nobody around knew the cause of death Are you just trolling?? A dictionary is hardly inaccessible. You can also just ask. Due you also think pilots should stop gossip in that weird military lingo all the time? > Latin language was used as some kind of legalization of incompetence and corruption. Knowing the proper terminology of your subject is the sign of incompetence and corruption. Sure.
- quercusa 4mo agoOne nice thing is that the Polish church records are in Latin (with Latinized names), so I've been able to find and read birth/baptismal records for my wife's ancestors from the 1800s.
- krzyk 4mo agoWhat is strange, that medical matters are mostly translated to Polish, while when I watch medical shows on TV I see that US still tends to use Latin there. Similar thing for species names, not sure where I've seen it. A side note from Polanmd: My professor of Solids State Physics was pretty fluent in both Latin and Greek, which I find quite interesting (it was about ~20 years ago, he was in his 60-70s).
- cwmma 4mo agoThere is a specific medial jargon developed form latin designed to be unambiguous and often intentionally different from lay words is one thing you're hearing in American tv, the other is that many technical words are English words but of latin origin.
- pndy 4mo agoMy sister had her diagnosis described in Latin in the early 90s by CZMP hospital in Łódź
- lifestyleguru 4mo agoI wonder if Latin was spoken and heard when Pavulon/Pancuronium was injected into victims during the same era in Łodź. "Fun fact" - pavulon can be used to execute a death sentence in USA.
- pndy 4mo agoOh damn... I'd guess they had their own "industry-specific" term for Pavulon. There's English article on Wikipedia about this particular topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_Hunters?useskin=vector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_Hunters?useskin=vector
- p0w3n3d 4mo agoThis phenomenon is well explained in ``God's Playground: A History of Poland'' by Norman Davies, which I am currently reading/listening to. But historically Latin was the lingua franca that time, and Polish people who wrote were always educated. So no other possibility back day I'd say...
- danielam 4mo agoYes, Latin was indeed the lingua franca of Europe then, but the situation is even more interesting here. 1. Poland at the time was an expansive, multi-ethnic state, and while Polish gained increasing dominance as the lingua franca of the state (other languages of the state administration included German and Ruthenian), Latin was for a long time the lingua franca even just within the Polish state itself. 2. Unlike other countries where education was concentrated exclusively in cities, Poland also had a dense network of parish schools that diffused knowledge of Latin among even the rural nobility and town-dwelling population. Later, there was also a network of Jesuit colleges that followed the Ratio Studiorum which included extensive education in Latin and made an elite education accessible not just to wealthy magnates, but to poorer nobles as well. Recall that the Polish szlachta alone comprised on average about 11% of the population, compared to the corresponding 1-2% in France or England. 3. Because of Poland's republican style of government, public speaking, oratory and debate were essential for political participation. This was all carried out in Latin. Sarmatian culture also saw the Res Publica Poloniae as a "spiritual successor" of Rome and saw the Latin language as part of its identity. Furthermore, during the era of the elected monarchs, kings were not always fluent or able to speak in Polish, but they would have known Latin.
- toyg 4mo agoThe macaronic approach was pretty common everywhere, it's a natural stage of evolution - the old language 'holding on' with specialized terminology that would be pointless to replace with more inefficient expressions. Which is why Latin words and expressions are still deployed every day in legal and scientific conversations around all Western countries.