Latin, the Enlightenment, and science
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From: Peter T. Daniels on 26 Dec 2009 09:02 On Dec 25, 11:46 pm, Andrew Usher <k_over_hb...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > Peter T. Daniels wrote: > > Just recently, there was a long thread in sci.lang and > > alt.usage.english about the word for "oxygen" in various languages, in > > which it was repeatedly asserted, without contradiction, that > > scientists understand the etymologies of their technical terminology. > > Obviously that was a false assumption. > > > But if you don't know the history of physics, you're a pretty poor > > physicist. > > He's not a physicist. He's a crank, which makes it pretty hypocritical > that he would complain about 'off-topic'' postings. Ah.
From: jmfbahciv on 26 Dec 2009 09:58 Peter T. Daniels wrote: > On Dec 25, 10:00 am, jmfbahciv <jmfbahciv(a)aol> wrote: >> Andrew Usher wrote: >>> The use of Latin in the sciences and other learned fields basically >>> ceased in the 18th and 19th centuries. I have long wondered why people >>> accepted the use of national languages exclusively in this endeavor >>> where international understanding is more imperative than any other. >>> It is true, that the use of Latin by 1700 had already passed almost >>> everywhere else, but its last remaining use should still have been >>> enough to support it, given that Latin was the one language that every >>> educated man in the Western world knew, and that Latin, having such a >>> long tradition of use, was at least suitable for scientific and >>> technical purposes as any other language at the time. >>> And so, some explanations suggest themselves. The first is that the >>> predominant advocates and defenders of Latin, from the Renaissance to >>> now, are from the humanities; and so once Latin had disappeared from >>> live literary use, their support was no longer important. The second >>> is to blame it on the French: they abandoned Latin earlier than anyone >>> else, and are well-known to have an inflated view of the greatness of >>> their own language. But that does not seem to explain how it happened >>> everywhere else: had they wanted to emulate the French, they would >>> have started writing in French, and if they had wanted to oppose them, >>> they should have re-emphasised the role of Latin. >>> Now, of course, I can't propose the revival of Latin for these >>> purposes: English has virtually replaced it as the international >>> scientific language. But it look a long time during which dealing with >>> many different languages was a considerable problem, and it seems as >>> though this should have been avoided. >> The third explanation is that English is more versatile. IOW, >> people can make up new words easily. I did this as part of >> my job. > > I take it you don't know Arabic? Correct. But what does this question have to do with why English, or American ;-), is the language used as a default language? > > Which newsgroup are you in? sci.physics. /BAH
From: jmfbahciv on 26 Dec 2009 10:06 Joachim Pense wrote: > jmfbahciv (in alt.usage.english): > >> The third explanation is that English is more versatile. IOW, >> people can make up new words easily. I did this as part of >> my job. >> > > Greek is versatile in making up new words by composition, and that's what > western scientists did until recently. They mixed a lot of Latin words into > this procedure, too. Chinese has been used for the same purpose in the > east, and still is, (e. g., in Japan.) > But the Greeks haven't done the work so they don't get to name things. A side effect of WWII's outcome is that a lot of the work done in science and new technology was done in the US. Guess who got to name stuff? Then businesses used the results of their work and started to sell it to the rest of the world. Guess which nouns, verbs, adjectives (in some cases, adverbs) were used in meetings and advertising? /BAH
From: jmfbahciv on 26 Dec 2009 10:14 I.N. Galidakis wrote: > Joachim Pense wrote: > [snip] > >> Greek is versatile in making up new words by composition, and that's what >> western scientists did until recently. > > Here's a graphical example which partially shows this versatility, for those who > can follow it: > > http://ioannis.virtualcomposer2000.com/writing/definition.html > > For general cultural exchange, I'd say it's pretty obvious that the most > versatile one is American-English, because its bastardization is phenomenal. At > least as witnessed by this author, after spending 10 years there. > > That, which is bastardized and mutated the most is the one which adapts and > survives the longest. > > It's probably not an accident that the net is predominantly English. > The net is predominantly English because the US made most of the hard/software during the 50s, 60s, 70s. If you think about it, we didn't use English but shorthand forms of cybercurd (my word for cybercruft). The documentation, which was shipped with the hard/software, was written in American (not English). This last sentence is very important because of the nouns used to describe components and other aspects covered in our specifications. JMF and I went on a cruise which included a trip to Beijing. We visited a Children's Palace and discovered a room full of kids younger than 6 typing on Apple computers. We could read their code. JMF had a fine discussion about computers with the teacher; neither knew the other's oral language. /BAH
From: Yusuf B Gursey on 26 Dec 2009 10:04
On Dec 26, 8:58 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote: > On Dec 25, 11:18 pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...(a)theworld.com> wrote: > > > > > > > On Dec 25, 11:11 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote: > > > On Dec 25, 8:01 pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...(a)theworld.com> wrote: > > > > On Dec 25, 1:54 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote: > > > > > On Dec 25, 11:43 am, Yusuf B Gursey <y...(a)theworld.com> wrote: > > > > > > why isn't this cross-posted to a medical or biological NG? Latin based > > > > > > coinages are AFAIK more alive in those fields. philosophy tends, AFAIK > > > > > > towards german. particle physics is inovative: quark (a fundamental > > > > > > particle, IIRC from a type of german cheese, but based on a miss- > > > > > > Did Gell-Mann ever claim any connection with Ger. Quark?? > > > > > no, he didn't. > > > > Then why did you say he did? > > > I said the word was from German, not that Gell-Mann claimed the > > connection. > > So now it's your claim that Joyce was writing about three cottage- > cheeses for Muster Mark? I don't have any idea what Joyce had in mind, but I know that quark is a type of cheese in German. |