Best Language for Science (besides english)

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by Exhumed, Apr 30, 2006.

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  1. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    I vote for Latin,
    English is next.

    Latin is a very clear language, English is more of a mess.
    I'm no linguist though, just my opinion.
     
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  3. Zephyr Humans are ONE Registered Senior Member

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    What advantages does Latin have over something like Esperanto or Lojban? (Or the Ithkuil mentioned earlier?) It's already a dead language, meaning almost no-one speaks it natively, so once you're going to the trouble of learning, why not design something better?
     
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  5. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    Many scientific terms in many science fields are already in Latin, besides Latin is the basis of many European languages and would be easier to learn to anyone who knows one of those.
    Why invent the wheel the second time? Vatican keeps updating Latin language with modern terminology.
     
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  7. Zephyr Humans are ONE Registered Senior Member

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    Is that the case? I'm fairly sure there are more native Esperanto speakers than Latin speakers. So if the wheel's already been reinvented, and you now have two wheels ... why not see which one works better?
     
  8. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    More esperanto speakers? Do you have any statistics?
    For example I can learn Latin in my university and most likely will the next year, but there is no place where I can learn esperanto, and why should I (of course this s subjective)?
    Latin is history and by learning Latin it'll be easier to learn Itallian or Spanish,
    besides it's a very beautiful language.

    Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
     
  9. Zephyr Humans are ONE Registered Senior Member

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  10. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    Latin or Esperanto?
     
  11. Zephyr Humans are ONE Registered Senior Member

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    Esperanto ... the Latin article is relatively uninformative.
     
  12. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    Ah, but data about one language is not sufficient to compare the two.

    But, as far as I know, you can learn Latin in any major university (and many do the basics at least), the same can not be said about Esperanto though.
     
  13. Zephyr Humans are ONE Registered Senior Member

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  14. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    That doesn't mean that more people know Esperanto than Latin.
     
  15. Zephyr Humans are ONE Registered Senior Member

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    I know ... but something doesn't have to be taught at universities for people to speak it.
     
  16. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    No, but it shows a greater chance for people to learn it and, I think, quality too, for that purpose is the teacher, or we'd all be learning just from the books and not attending school or university at all.
     
  17. Zephyr Humans are ONE Registered Senior Member

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    Erk ... look, I'm not saying Esperanto is the only language one could possibly consider for science. I just think that if you're considering an international language, Esperanto, Interlingua and other IAL's (international auxillary languages) which were specifically designed to be both powerful and flexible, and fairly easy to learn, should receive consideration as well as Latin.

    I assume you know that Latin used to be the language of science - and that Galileo was one of the first to write in the vernacular (Italian) instead so more people could understand his work?
     
  18. Zephyr Humans are ONE Registered Senior Member

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    Sometimes ... I am so tempted to do just that. Maybe you've had better teachers

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  19. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    Of course I know that Latin used to be the language of science. Thus it shows that it has the potential to be such once again and there is already a worldwide framework for people to learn it, it doesn't have to start from almost zero, like those artificial languages.
    And there is lots of interesting literature and other writing available in Latin, so it's actually interesting to learn it and read works written in the middle ages and even the Roman times.
     
  20. Zephyr Humans are ONE Registered Senior Member

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    Yes, but not modern scientific works. I'd imagine those are mostly in English or German.

    Isn't Latin's previous usage a double-edged fact? It did work as a scientific language - but then there was also a point where it stopped working. Why?

    In the end I think while it's interesting to consider the ideals of global scientific languages and so on, the pace of scientific progress may be more due to our wetware than the software we run on it. :-/
     
  21. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    I'm a law student and writing my bachelor's paper I read Roman law (translation) for reference.
    About 2/3 of Latvian Civil codex is a 1:1 copy from ancient Roman civil laws and the legal principles which were developed in the Roman times are the basis of all European legal system (less English).
    Ancient Roman lawyers and judges worked for 1000 years pefrecting their laws.
    When the Soviets came to power in these parts they had the plan to develop their own communist legal system, but fell back to the Roman one, because nothing better can or has been thought of.
    So, when it concerns law, the Roman writings are still a valuable scientific input for anyone who wants to understand the foundation of European legal sytems and other countries of the world which use it.

    You have a valid point. I suggest that it was because the pace of science just exploded, and many people which didn't have scientific education, started to do experiments and make discoveries, and write about them in the language they knew.
    But that's just my speculation.
    Agree.
     
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