- I 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.
- There'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.
- Lingua Franca, like literally. French used to be the language of diplomacy.
- Lingua 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
- My 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.
- Giving the mass in Latin wasn't (generally) done because people understood Latin, but because of a traditionalist sense. The Second Vatican Council stated (among other things) that the mass could be done in other languages apart from Latin, and that it was a good thing to use local languages, so people could understand it better.
After that Council some excisions appeared, like the Society of Saint Pius X, that reclaimed the old ways of giving mass, in Latin, (and, IIRC, with the deacon giving his back to the people, not looking at them), and said there was "a moral and theological crisis in the Catholic Church".
Or people like the Palmarian Catholic Church in Spain, saying they have the authentic Pope, and the one in Rome is an Antipope. They were a scam for pulling money from their believers, and their "Pope" kept spending money on booze and expensive cars. They still exist.
- Besides the language being Latin vs local languages, there is one huge difference people don't know about. The Tridentine Mass has the priest facing toward the altar and the tabernacle, this is called "ad orientem". In "modern" day post-Second-Vatican-Council mass, the priest typically speaks the local language and faces the congregation.
- That's it, I wasn't sure if I was imagining the "priest not looking at you" thing...
- Though the mass introduced with Vatican II had a certain number of differences with the previous, Latin mass. Also while the Society of Saint Pius X excision still exists (and looking at their recent decision, will continue to be split from Rome's authority), I'd say that the majority of parishes celebrating the previous mass are under Rome's authority.
- Historically Latin was also a common international language. Educated people could understand Latin across much of Europe. Not so great for the majority of people, of course. The article seems to indicate that in some places it was pretty widely understood.
I think some rites of the church did use other languages such as Syriac.
I knew about SSPX but not the Palmarians. They seem to be even odder and a cult. Interesting in the same way I find conspiracy theories interesting, so thanks.
- Latin was still part of the mandatory curriculum in french schools, at least when I was there. Didn’t make french kids bilingual (no more than english courses), but it would be safe to assume the average man in the street has at least some vague notions of latin.
- Not just Europe. Well into relatively modern history educated individuals in America were expected to have fluency in Latin and frequently Greek as well. This [1] Harvard admission exam from 1869 immediately comes to mind. Applicants were expected to be able to pass that test, and the overwhelming majority did.
[1] - https://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvard...
- The classical school movement in America is growing quite rapidly, and so maybe we start to see it again?
My kids at least are all learning Latin, and later, Greek.
- In Spain both are still taught in the standard high-school curriculum.
Not everyone takes those classes of course, but Latin is one of the core optatives in the humanities path, it can be chosen in the university entrance exam as one of the core tests, and many students do pick it.
It's not really taught as a foreign language though, it is used to teach fundamental concepts in linguistic analysis and translation, and it can be a legitimately valuable foundation to have a strong general literacy across romance languages.
I'm not sure how common it is elsewhere, but Roman law also makes up a non-trivial fraction of the compulsory curriculum in the first years of studying law at university. Most of the concepts are still relevant, it's what all modern legal systems are founded on.
I remember that a good friend of mine somehow avoided studying maths for the last four years of high-school by choosing all the alternatives, which included both Latin and ancient Greek. He was and still is a fantastic programmer despite hating maths though, obsessed with Linux distros from early teens.
- Classical greek and modern greek are quite different
- Audentes fortuna iuvat!
- I was thinking of rather earlier in history, but you are right.
My grandfather was studied Latin (and Greek) in school in Sri Lanka.
- Indeed, it was also the lingua franca (pun intended) of early science for quite a long time.
- You can't deny it, mass is much more stylish in Latin ;)
- It's only stylish because of the imagined qualities of prestige vested in a language you're not fluent in. It's the same as how you get English-speaking people realising how cringe-inducing anime dialogue really is when they hear it in English instead of Japanese, and then championing "the only REAL way of consuming anime is in Japanese dub!", not realising the Japanese used in that is also extremely cringey.
People finding the mass somehow less holy and sacramental when celebrated in their native tongue need to reflect on their own perspectives on what makes something holy.
- No, the Tridentine (Latin mass) has many other qualities aside from just being in Latin that make it pretty spectacular compared to the Novus Ordo (post Vatican II) mass. You should find a church that does it near you, it's really incredible and quite unlike what you're used to if you've only ever experienced the modern mass.
I'm not Catholic but everyone should attend Latin mass at least once just as an artistic experience.
- The 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. ;)
- I 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'.
- Antiochian (eastern rite) and Assyrian Orthodox both do at least some of their masses in Aramaic, which can be interesting, though there may be a mix of others as well (note that Assyrian is fully independent, whereas Antiochian is in full communion with the broader Easter Orthodox church).
"Western Rite" would be those that adopted Latin or local western languages and traditions- think organs or other musical instruments, unleavened bread, crossing yourself from left to right, etc. The Catholic and Protestant churches are like this, along with a relatively small number of Orthodox churches. "Eastern Rite" are those that follow the Eastern Orthodox traditions, chanting the divine liturgies in older languages, no musical instrumentation, leavened bread, crossing yourself from right to left, etc.
- Some 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
- Latin (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.
- While I've never been to a mass with the homily in Latin, I've had a few with the readings in Latin (including Monday's mass two days ago), which always annoys me a little because it's immediately followed by the translation in the local language.
Personally I prefer the Latin mass, but one change I'd like to see would be for all the texts for that day to be read in the local language, not just the Epistle and Gospel (among other changes).
- [dead]
- One 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.
- What 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).
- There 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.
- My sister had her diagnosis described in Latin in the early 90s by CZMP hospital in Łódź
- I 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.
- Oh 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
- This 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...
- The 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.
- I'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.
- I’m confused. Why not start the conversation in Polish?
- He 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.
- Nie widzę problemu z pytaniem o polskiego księdza jeśli wiadomo, że taki znajduje się gdzieś w pobliżu - jeśli to miałoby ułatwić całą sprawę z załatwianiem chrztu. Nie ma w tym niczego niekulturalnego. No chyba, że tata był nauczony padać plackiem przed koloratką - to wtedy to zupełnie inna dyskusja.
Oh look at me, I'm being rude here - talking in Polish. Because that eases the convo.
- But why wouldn't he start the conversation in Polish? If the priest responds, he is Polish. If he doesn't, he is Spanish.
- Yea 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?
- Both 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.
- because the assumption is that he wanted the child baptized by a Polish priest.
Could it be he just wanted the child baptized, no matter if it was Spanish or Polish priest? Then, starting with Latin is the way to get a priest's attention.
- As 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
- The EU has already started expanding to countries whose prestigious classical language was Greek, not Latin, so Latin would no longer look like a compromise but favoritism towards Western Europe.
- I 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.
- English is the international language now. About a century ago, the lingua franca of the technological world was German. Half of my father's university text books were in German, pretty much all of mine were in English. Things can (and do) change.
- Except now the whole world is in a common meme pool. Thanks to the internet, Metcalfe’s Law applies to languages globally. China may stave it off for a while by firewalling its population... but the rest of the world won't care.
It's not going to change again. Not even if the US and UK both sank into the ocean.
- > that is a reason the catholic Church still uses it for things like papal encyclicals.
Nah, it's just because that particular institution tries very hard to be internally consistent, for historical reasons. They immediately publish translations of such documents into "common" languages as well, and that's what non-clerics will actually read.
- I said a reason, not the reason. Both can be true.
- Or Esperanto. But Spanish or Italian would also be great as they sound so nice.
- Among 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.
- Esperanto being created by L.L. Zamenhof ... a Polish Ashkenazi Jew. Full circle!
- > Latin language should be become the official language of the EU
It would be more practical, if everyone spoke the same language, but the EU does deliberately not want that. The EU wants to preserve language and culture of its member states and regions. "United in Diversity" is an important idea of the EU.
- nah I disagree. Because a dead language helps preserving the living languages of the nations.
- I 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.
