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Comment by blaesus | Hacker News Reader

Latin is "dead" and that's its advantage.

English is well "alive", and living implies mutation. In 500 years, our children would be reading our English as we read Shakespeare (that is, with difficulty); and in 1000 years, our English would become what Beowulf looks like today (that is, you can't recognize a word).

Latin doesn't change. Caesar's Latin is Vulgate's Latin, which is Newton's Latin, which is the Pope's Latin, which is the Latin used in Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis and Winnie ille Pu.

What is dead may never die. The "English" as we know it will die. Latin will not.

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>Caesar's Latin is Vulgate's Latin, which is Newton's Latin, which is the Pope's Latin

Not really. There are significant differences between classical and medieval latin, since during the medieval period Latin was a living language in use by the clergy and educated. The differences wouldn't have been nearly enough to render classical and medieval latin unintelligble to one another of course, but Virgil probably would have scratched his head at some of Thomas Aquinas' grammar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Latin#Changes_in_voca...

Caesar would rotate vomiting in his grave if he knew you're comparing even his simple ways of using the language to the medieval barbarians. And he didn't speak the same Latin as the founders of Rome either.

Caesar is dead; Romans are no more. Their opinions matter not; what matters is whether we and the future generation consider these authors to have spoken in the same tongue.

Latin is not dead, it is alive and its modern dialects are called Portuguese, French, Catalan, Spanish, ....

The relationship between Latin and e.g. Spanish is exactly the same as between Beowulf-era English and the English we’re speaking now. So I don’t understand your argument that Latin is unchanging whereas English isn’t.

Well, the Beowulf-era English is not changing either.

French and Castilian and friends are standardized against some spoken variant. And spoken languages inevitably change over time.

Latin is standardized against the writings of the classical authors, and to a lesser degree, the medieval authors. These authors, being dead, can't change.

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