Latin, the Enlightenment, and science
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From: Javi on 24 Dec 2009 15:58 Marvin the Martian wrote: > On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 08:05:35 -0800, chazwin wrote: > > >> The 19thC saw the domination of English mainly because nearly all the >> decent innovations, discoveries and inventions all came from Britain. >> The French and the Germans had to take a back seat. The Germans seemed >> to have concentrated on philosophy whilst the French spent the whole >> century licking their wounds after the Napoleonic defeats. > > So, Georg Ohm, Heinrich Hertz, Hermann von Helmholtz, Rudolf Clausius, > and Heinrich Lenz took a "back seat"? (All big name 19th century German > physicist) Don't forget Albert Einstein, > > As did Augustin Fresnel, Pierre Dulong, Alexis Petit, Pierre Curie, and > Andre Ampere? (Big name 19th century French Physicist) > > How... droll. English Chauvinism is not dead. > > Yes, there is a reason why back in the 1960s you had to be able to read a > foreign language, usually German or French, to get a degree in physics at > an accredited college in the English speaking United States. > > And after WW II, the only reason why we had a scientific jump on the > Russians is because our captured German scientist were better than the > Russian captured German scientists. :-D For a time, German and French were the language of science. The only reason why it is English now is that most research is made in the USA. As soon as another country spends more money in research, its language will become the universal language.
From: Peter T. Daniels on 24 Dec 2009 16:10 On Dec 24, 8:57 am, Andrew Usher <k_over_hb...(a)yahoo.com> 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. What a bizarre scattershot of newsgroups. The dissertation of the American Egyptologist James Henry Breasted, done ca. 1895 for Adolf Erman in Berlin, was one of the last dissertations ever written in Latin.
From: Don Phillipson on 24 Dec 2009 16:18 Mark L. Fergerson "nuny(a)bid.nes" <alien8752(a)gmail.com> wrote in message news:bcf3d7f5-6451-4007-882f-217131423612(a)g22g2000prf.googlegroups.com... > The British Imperial system of units dominated for a long time for > practical reasons; those who bought materials for scientific purposes > specified quantities in pints, gallons, and cubic feet, hence > suppliers stored and packaged them so. This appears untrue: no evidence suggests international shippers of chemicals, metals etc. adopted British measures of length, weight, volume etc. (The French metric system was adopted in Germany from the 1840s and German scientific suppliers dominated the market from the 1880s.) > . . . which is why a U. S. standard pallet at 40 x > 48 inches, out of all the other "standard" pallets used worldwide This ignores the actual evolution of international commercial standards (best modeled by the current shipping container: this is not the optimum by any abstract standard: but represented the cheapest approximation to existing vehicle dimensions, crane carrying capacity etc.) > > 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's because the texts the students were learning from were > written by people educated in Catholic Church-run schools; you learn > the language to read the text, meaning you keep your notes in that as > well. However, you write down military applications in your native > language. 1. This is prima facie untrue for the UK where Catholic schools were outlawed until the 1830s. 2. No evidence appears to suggest that Catholic school students in Germany, France, Austria etc., kept their personal notes in Latin. Some individuals did, others did not, and Latin was not thus prescribed by any rule. 3. Military records were not necessarily kept in a language governed by school rules. Many Russian and German archives appear to have been maintained in French, perhaps because this language was standardized earlier than Russian and German. > > . . . 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. > Nonsense; when the English and German courts started emulating the > manners and dress of the French court, they did not start speaking > French. Why would they? Problems: 1. English and German courts hardly ever "emulated" French courts. They usually did so only at the behest of individual monarchs raised in French environments (e.g. Charles II of England.) 2. But French was 1800-1950 "the language of diplomacy" viz. the language in which ambassadors and staffs interacted world-wide (and diplomatic protocol was modeled on French style: but this continued just the same whether France was a monarchy or a republic.) -- Don Phillipson Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada)
From: bert on 24 Dec 2009 17:48 On 24 Dec, 13:57, Andrew Usher <k_over_hb...(a)yahoo.com> 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. Latin was quite naturally the language of the textbooks, of study, and of examination in the universities of Europe from about 1100 onwards, because these universities were founded by the Church with the purpose of training men for the priesthood. But later secular universities (one of the earliest of which was Edinburgh, founded by the Town Council in 1583) followed the tradition of the older ones. Town Council minutes of the early 1600's lament the poor standard of Latin scholarship among the student body, and propose various measures to improve it. While the use of Latin lasted, Europe enjoyed a continent-wide interchangeability of university staff and students, especially since the same curriculum was followed almost everywhere. Several famous academics were students in different countries for different years of their undergraduate careers. The first professor in Europe to lecture in the vernacular, instead of in Latin, was Francis Hutcheson, the Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow, some time in the early 1730's. His motivation appears to have been that the use of Latin constrained the patterns of his students' thinking, and that the vernacular would let them think outside this Latin-imposed box. One author attributes the start of the Scottish Enlightenment to exactly this newly-provided facility in forming and expressing fresh ideas. Whatever the original reason, the abandonment of Latin then proceeded rapidly through Europe, and was complete within barely a lifetime. Karl Friedrich Gauss's doctoral thesis "Disquisitiones Arithmeticae" of 1797 was the last major scholarly work to be published in Latin. I think that this adoption of national languages had more to do with rising national pride than with any consensus about the shortcomings of Latin. --
From: James Hogg on 24 Dec 2009 18:08
bert wrote: > On 24 Dec, 13:57, Andrew Usher <k_over_hb...(a)yahoo.com> 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. > > Latin was quite naturally the language of the textbooks, of study, > and of examination in the universities of Europe from about 1100 > onwards, because these universities were founded by the Church with > the purpose of training men for the priesthood. But later secular > universities (one of the earliest of which was Edinburgh, founded by > the Town Council in 1583) followed the tradition of the older ones. > Town Council minutes of the early 1600's lament the poor standard of > Latin scholarship among the student body, and propose various > measures to improve it. > > While the use of Latin lasted, Europe enjoyed a continent-wide > interchangeability of university staff and students, especially since > the same curriculum was followed almost everywhere. Several famous > academics were students in different countries for different years of > their undergraduate careers. > > The first professor in Europe to lecture in the vernacular, instead > of in Latin, was Francis Hutcheson, the Professor of Moral Philosophy > at Glasgow, some time in the early 1730's. I doubt if he was the first in Europe. Christian Thomasius started lecturing in German instead of Latin in 1687. > His motivation appears to have been that the use of Latin constrained > the patterns of his students' thinking, and that the vernacular > would let them think outside this Latin-imposed box. One author > attributes the start of the Scottish Enlightenment to exactly this > newly-provided facility in forming and expressing fresh ideas. > > Whatever the original reason, the abandonment of Latin then proceeded > rapidly through Europe, and was complete within barely a lifetime. > Karl Friedrich Gauss's doctoral thesis "Disquisitiones Arithmeticae" > of 1797 was the last major scholarly work to be published in Latin. > > I think that this adoption of national languages had more to do with > rising national pride than with any consensus about the shortcomings > of Latin. -- -- James |