Latin, the Enlightenment, and science
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From: Peter T. Daniels on 27 Dec 2009 00:22 On Dec 26, 11:40 pm, Marvin the Martian <mar...(a)ontomars.org> wrote: > On Sat, 26 Dec 2009 10:17:37 -0500, jmfbahciv wrote: > > The French make it almost > > impossible to do useful things in an efficient manner. You are not > > allowed to create new words until they are approved by some commission > > years later (can't recall the name). > > Academie francaise. Sorry, I can't do the French characters. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionnaire_de_l%27Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3% > A7aise > > This does have advantages. For one thing, the Engs and the Americans > butcher the English language. Real English has a limited set of phonemes, > but the Engs and the Americans have this nasty habit of using every > phoneme from every language. And they're starting to insist that foreign > pronunciations be used. They're completely ignorant that there often are > more than one dialect in a language; for example, Spanish. Please don't use words you don't understand (such as "phoneme"). > Another benefit is that the Engs (Engs live in Eng-land, right?) and > Americans use words incorrectly, and the incorrect usage becomes > "correct" because they're so fond of "descriptive" dictionaries rather > than proscriptive dictionaries. It's very democratic, the idiots get to > decide what words mean. It's one big Archie Bunker joke. For example, to > "protest" means to testify FOR something. In idiot speak, to "protest the > war" means to speak against the war when the real meaning is to speak FOR > the war. Please don't expatiate on things you know nothing of. And pick up an elementary introduction to linguistics. (Just about any book by David Crystal or Jean Aitchison would be helpful.) > Lastly, it is hoped that having a panel such as the French Academy would > prevent fad gibberish words like "bling-bling" from reaching the > dictionary. Don't even get me started on how "Ebonics" is being passed > off as English. No danger of that, since no such thing is happening. (Nor was it happening when the stupid name "Ebonics" was invented.) > The only real downside to the French Academy is that idiots who don't use > the language properly are called idiots. Is that so wrong? Have you ever heard of King Canute?
From: Dennis on 27 Dec 2009 00:43 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. Is it really true that international understanding is more important here than elsewhere? ISTM you're right but I wonder. In English and other languages a lot of scientific vocabulary is drawn from Latin, though somewhat less in German, which has been a pre- eminent language of science. I think Peter Daniels is right, you can express the ideas of science in any language, though historically a lot of scientific vocabulary has Latin/Greek roots, with the exceptions noted. > 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. I think it's the other way around; people in the humanities are the ones who adopted national languages! I'm trying to think of examples of scientific works in Latin. Newton and Leibnitz wrote in Latin, of course, but Descartes did his work in French, and Galileo in Italian. I think somewhat Swedenborg wrote scientific works in Latin, but he was probably the very last one. > 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. More likely the explanation lies in the history of the development of science, and the groups that supported it, such as the British Academy of Sciences. It may simply be that the use of Latin was too far gone in general by the time experimental science really got going, in the 1700's. I don't know enough to comment further. Dennis
From: Peter T. Daniels on 27 Dec 2009 07:46 On Dec 27, 12:22 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote: > On Dec 26, 11:40 pm, Marvin the Martian <mar...(a)ontomars.org> wrote: > > This does have advantages. For one thing, the Engs and the Americans > > butcher the English language. Real English has a limited set of phonemes, > > but the Engs and the Americans have this nasty habit of using every > > phoneme from every language. And they're starting to insist that foreign > > pronunciations be used. They're completely ignorant that there often are > > more than one dialect in a language; for example, Spanish. > > Please don't use words you don't understand (such as "phoneme"). English hasn't added a (consonantal) phoneme since the 12th century or so, when the distinction between s and z (and the other similar pairs) was taken over with borrowings of French words.
From: Chuck Riggs on 27 Dec 2009 07:51 On Sun, 27 Dec 2009 13:15:14 +1100, Peter Moylan <gro.nalyomp(a)retep> wrote: >On 27/12/09 12:47, DKleinecke wrote: >> On Dec 26, 4:41 pm, Robert Bannister <robb...(a)bigpond.com> wrote: >>> chazwin wrote: >>> >>>> All thinking is language dependant. >>> >> >> There is a lot of that going around. People who think verbally tend to >> think people who think in other modes aren't thinking. >> >> In mathematics there have always been algebraists who think verbally >> and geometers who think in pictures. This has been understood now, by >> mathematicians, for a long time and both sides make adjustments. It >> appears that about 75% of mathematicians think verbally and 25% >> visually. >> >> Outside of mathematics this puts visually minded people in a minority >> like left-handed people. A lot of educators think they must be taught >> do things the right way. > >If visually minded people are in a minority, there must be two different >meanings of "visually minded". > >I've found that I belong to that minority of people who have trouble >imagining a picture in their mind. I can't, for example, mentally form a >picture of the face of somebody I know well. My visual memory is >terrible. My auditory memory, on the other hand, is pretty good. > >As far as I know, most people do have the ability to imagine a scene in >a photographic way. Whenever I mention it, everyone is surprised that I >don't see in pictures. It seems that the vast majority of people are >visually minded in the sense I'm thinking of. > >My lack doesn't hinder my ability to think geometrically. I can easily >picture a diagram. Perhaps "picture" is the wrong word, though, because >I'm probably seeing that diagram as an interlinked set of symbols rather >than as a projection onto a three-dimensional or two-dimensional image >space. > >I'm curious to know whether there is any connection between "visually >minded" in the sense used above in reference to mathematics, and >"visually minded" in the sense that makes one a good artist. Did an AUE member add all these newsgroups to the thread? I knew an American Indian who thought and dreamed mainly in pictures. He told me that was common in his tribe. I suspect this proclivity would come in handy when associating names and faces, among other things. It is a skill I am poor at, for I think almost exclusively in words. Is being hungry, as I am now, a form of thinking or do I tell myself, "I am hungry"? It is my brain, yet I don't know. -- Regards, Chuck Riggs, An American who lives near Dublin, Ireland and usually spells in BrE
From: jmfbahciv on 27 Dec 2009 08:20
Peter T. Daniels wrote: > On Dec 26, 9:58 am, jmfbahciv <jmfbahciv(a)aol> wrote: >> 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- > > It has to do with the claim that English is "more versatile" (scil. > than other world languages) in its ability to "make up new words > easily." However, that is one of the reasons English was used to describe science and technical specs instead of another Western Civ language. There are no government rules that prevent creation of new words in countries where some form of English is spoken. > > A claim that English borrows (assimilates) words from other languages > more easily than other world languages is more legitimate. Oh, I see what you're saying now :-). I don't write well and never have. /BAH |