Why Latin Should Revive

I am rather excited by various developments which seem to show that Latin may be making a comeback: the Living Latin movement, for example, and some recent publications of Medieval and Neo-Latin texts. It seems possible to me that some momentum may be accumulating.

"Latin is a language without  a country.  It is not the native language of any country.  That is why it is doomed." 

It was a language without a country when the Western Roman Empire fell in AD 476, and for well over a thousand years after that it remained the international language of western Europe. It was not a global language as English is today, and I don't happen to know whether or not the reach of Latin was greater than that of Arabic or Chinese, but within western Europe, it was universal.

 

In European universities, from Finland to Portugal, to Lima, Peru, where St Mark's University was officially established in 1551, lectures were given, discussions were held, and examinations, oral and written, in Latin. Latin was the language of mathematics and physics, of botany, chemistry, geography, medicine. Newton published his Principia, in 1728, in Latin. Spinoza published a few minor early works in Dutch, and then all of his major works were in Latin. 

Descartes and Leibniz each published about half in Latin and half in French. Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes wrote mostly in Latin. Milton wrote in English, Italian, Latin and Greek, the show-off! But these were all 17th- and 18th-century figures, coming at the end of the period of Latin's dominance in Europe. Before the year 1600, although there certainly was a large amount of vernacular literature, exactly none of it could have been considered academic. Latin had no country of its own, that's true, but it did have communities, including the academic community. Students and professors traveled all over Europe and employed the same language wherever they went. It was expected that a professor would teach in several countries over the course of his career, in part to ensure that ideas circulated internationally. 

Latin was the language of royalty and high aristocracy, and of international diplomacy. It was not always expected that every single king and queen could speak brilliantly and spontaneously in Latin, but the advantages of being able to do so were large and obvious.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, military generals, colonels and majors came from the aristocracy, and they traveled internationally, working sometimes for this country, sometimes for another. Although in this case it had less to do with the spread of ideas than with the mercenary officers seeking the most advantageous positions. And all over Europe, battlefield commands were shouted out in Latin.

Latin was the international European language of shipping and commerce. Christopher Columbus did not attend a university, but he did learn Latin, in order to be a ship's captain traveling internationally, and also in order to read works about the Earth's geography which were all either originally written in Latin or translated into Latin from Greek.

So you see, although Latin did not have a country, for over a thousand years it still had some very important uses. And I didn't even mention the Middle Ages, or theology! It may have been no-one's first language -- or very few people's first language -- but it was very many people's second language. The time in which Latin has declined is still a very short time compared to the time when it flourished.

Anyway, when I said yesterday that I was very excited because I thought Latin might be about to make a very big comeback, I was not thinking about it replacing English as the world language numero uno (see what I did there? never mind). I was merely expressing the hope, shared by some others, that Latin may be reviving somewhat from the low point in popularity it has recently reached. At the very least, perhaps more people will resume studying several thousand years' worth of the history of hundreds of millions of people in the language in which it was written.

A Few Significant Latin Works

I do not claim that the works I mention in this post are the most significant works in the Latin language. As the decades roll by, I find lists of the most significant this or that to be less and less significant. The best such lists can be is interesting in some way, and hopefully some readers will find this post interesting.

The Vulgate Bible, or biblia sacra vulgata, is a Latin version of the Old and New Testament and some Old Testament apocrypha, made by St Jerome and some other, unknown individuals in the late 4th and early 5th centuries from Hebrew, Greek and earlier Latin sources.

It was the primary version of the Bible used by the Catholic Church until the 20th century, and it also happens to be quite beautifully written. Some have thought that the term "Vulgate" means that the Latin style of this version of the bible is somehow vulgar, but this is an error; "Vulgate" simply refers to the fact that it has been translated into Latin.

Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, or The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, is a history of England written around 730 by the writer known as the Venerable Bede. Bede wrote on a great many subjects, but his history is by far the best-known, most widely-read of his works. It covers the history of England from Caesar' invasion in 55 BC to Bede's own day. Historians of England generally agree that their profession began with Bede, and that his history is one of the great works of Dark Age Western Europe. Writing in the 12th century, William of Malmesbury, considered by many to be one of the very best Medieval historians in Europe, not just in England, said that he considered his work to be a continuation of Bede's history, and expressed the hope that he might be a not wholly unworthy successor.

Remaining in England: Magna Carta is highly revered by many English people as the core of their legal system, and indeed many of the principles of English law such as the right to trial by jury, and the principle that all, including the English monarch, are answerable to the law, were first formally expressed in writing in this document. It was first written in 1215, and at first it failed at what it was intended to do. Magna Carta was written in an attempt to end a war between King John and the barons of England. It did not end that war, and it was immediately declared invalid by the Pope. However, revised versions were written beginning in 1217 and continue to be written to this day, and, if not a direct source of contemporary principles of jurisprudence, it continues to be a powerful symbol of the rule of law and of justice fairly meted out, in the United States as well as in the United Kingdom. It seems rather important to some historians to refer to the document in the linguistically correct Latin version as "Magna Carta" rather than in the often-heard phrase "the Magna Carta," so I'm following their preference and mentioning it.

De Insulis Indiae supra Gangem nuper inventis, Of the Islands of India Beyond the Ganges Newly Discovered, is one of several titles which refer to the Latin translation of the letter written in Spanish reporting on Christopher Columbus' first transatlantic voyage to Isabelle of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon. The author of the letter claims to be Columbus himself, writing on the return trip to Spain in February 1493. Leander de Cosco notes in the introduction to the translation that he finished it on the 29th of April, 1493. Already in May 1493 the first edition of the Latin translation had been published in Rome. 6 more editions were printed in Rome, Basel, Paris and Antwerp before the end of 1493.

Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, was written by Isaac Newton, and first published in 1687. Newton published revised editions in 1713 and 1726. In this work Newton expounded the principles of what is still called Newtonian physics, and still used in all sorts of practical applications up to and including space flight. The Apollo 8 mission orbited the moon, and on its return to Earth mission control passed on a child's question, "Who's driving the spaceship now?" to mission pilot William Anders, who famously replied, “I think Isaac Newton is doing most of the driving now.”