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[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Lingua_Franca
After that Council some excisions appeared, like the Society of Saint Pius X, that reclaimed the old ways of giving mass, in Latin, (and, IIRC, with the deacon giving his back to the people, not looking at them), and said there was "a moral and theological crisis in the Catholic Church".
Or people like the Palmarian Catholic Church in Spain, saying they have the authentic Pope, and the one in Rome is an Antipope. They were a scam for pulling money from their believers, and their "Pope" kept spending money on booze and expensive cars. They still exist.
Most of the changes people associate with the Novus Ordo were completely optional and often not even expected to have become so common. This is why all the popes have been exasperated, to varying extents, with the Latin Mass movement. Literally nothing prevents dioceses from celebrating the Novus Ordo mass in Latin, ad orientem, chanting, etc.
I think some rites of the church did use other languages such as Syriac.
I knew about SSPX but not the Palmarians. They seem to be even odder and a cult. Interesting in the same way I find conspiracy theories interesting, so thanks.
[1] - https://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvard...
People finding the mass somehow less holy and sacramental when celebrated in their native tongue need to reflect on their own perspectives on what makes something holy.
Of course if it’s “really” done in the ancient way then it’s done at such a high speed that you need five or six Jesuits and advanced recording equipment to even figure out what is being said. ;)
"Western Rite" would be those that adopted Latin or local western languages and traditions- think organs or other musical instruments, unleavened bread, crossing yourself from left to right, etc. The Catholic and Protestant churches are like this, along with a relatively small number of Orthodox churches. "Eastern Rite" are those that follow the Eastern Orthodox traditions, chanting the divine liturgies in older languages, no musical instrumentation, leavened bread, crossing yourself from right to left, etc.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Slavonic
Personally I prefer the Latin mass, but one change I'd like to see would be for all the texts for that day to be read in the local language, not just the Epistle and Gospel (among other changes).
1. Poland at the time was an expansive, multi-ethnic state, and while Polish gained increasing dominance as the lingua franca of the state (other languages of the state administration included German and Ruthenian), Latin was for a long time the lingua franca even just within the Polish state itself.
2. Unlike other countries where education was concentrated exclusively in cities, Poland also had a dense network of parish schools that diffused knowledge of Latin among even the rural nobility and town-dwelling population. Later, there was also a network of Jesuit colleges that followed the Ratio Studiorum which included extensive education in Latin and made an elite education accessible not just to wealthy magnates, but to poorer nobles as well. Recall that the Polish szlachta alone comprised on average about 11% of the population, compared to the corresponding 1-2% in France or England.
3. Because of Poland's republican style of government, public speaking, oratory and debate were essential for political participation. This was all carried out in Latin. Sarmatian culture also saw the Res Publica Poloniae as a "spiritual successor" of Rome and saw the Latin language as part of its identity. Furthermore, during the era of the elected monarchs, kings were not always fluent or able to speak in Polish, but they would have known Latin.
Similar thing for species names, not sure where I've seen it.
A side note from Polanmd: My professor of Solids State Physics was pretty fluent in both Latin and Greek, which I find quite interesting (it was about ~20 years ago, he was in his 60-70s).
There's English article on Wikipedia about this particular topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_Hunters?useskin=vector
He managed to use it once when we were living in Kuwait and he had to arrange for my sister to get baptized - he knew that there were two missionaries visiting the local Cathedral - one Spanish and the other Polish but as he didn't know who was who, he started the conversation in Latin and of course got an appropriate response.
Also he figured it would be rude.
IIRC the wider context is that my dad, not knowing where the priests were at that moment and having no one to ask in the vicinity, went to a confessional as he saw someone there.
Oh look at me, I'm being rude here - talking in Polish. Because that eases the convo.
Far more people understand it than things like Esperanto. Quite a lot of people know it a bit. I did it at school. My kids learned some (their choice to do it up to GCSE level).
That said, in practice, English is the international language. It is what is most likely to be used at an international conference in most fields, or when people with two different native languages speak.
It's not going to change again. Not even if the US and UK both sank into the ocean.
Nah, it's just because that particular institution tries very hard to be internally consistent, for historical reasons. They immediately publish translations of such documents into "common" languages as well, and that's what non-clerics will actually read.
I disagree with some grammatical choices made for Interlingua, but in any case it had a simple grammar and the vocabulary was well chosen among the words that are common to the greatest number of European languages. Thus I could read and understand Interlingua without knowing anything about it before that.
Interlingua has a vocabulary bias towards Romance languages, but that is due to the fact that Romance words, mostly coming from Latin or French, are also widespread in English, and also in other language groups like Germanic or Slavic, while much less Germanic or Slavic words are found in languages from other groups. Therefore when selecting the words that are found in most European languages, there are more Romance words than from the other groups.
It would be more practical, if everyone spoke the same language, but the EU does deliberately not want that. The EU wants to preserve language and culture of its member states and regions. "United in Diversity" is an important idea of the EU.
One advantage of it being "dead" is that the meanings of terms are much more stable. They don't undergo the usual slippage and mutation of spoken languages. This advantage would be lost if it were to replace existing vernacular languages.
While that might make sense from a legal standpoint, it seems like it makes it risky to hire patent lawyers in Europe who are not native English speakers, which in turn, along with many other similar inconsistencies, does in practice create an EU-preferred language.