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To: Mrs. Don-o

But those earlier languages were uniform (nearly) across the world at the time.

English is just a single example of the local vernacular in effect now. Very different from the clarity and immutability of the common languages and very subject to nuance and abuse.

The reason I left the New Mass was because of the handshake (hug; grope) of Peace. An even worse reason to leave, probably. But later I found there were some perfectly good reasons to take shelter in the Tridentine Mass.

I would elucidate but you already know them and I have to leave for Latin Mass in 15 minutes.


26 posted on 09/02/2012 3:02:00 PM PDT by steve86 (Acerbic by nature not nurture TM)
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To: steve86
Oh, I love the Latin Mass too, and would be an attendee if there were one less than 100 miles from me. Nor am I unaware of the benefits of having educated people speaking and writing the same language from, oh, Oslo to Cadiz to Prague.

But English, while a local vernacular, is local on 3 continents --- the British Isles, Canada, USA, Australia, NZ, and many ex-British-Empire places --- and the best and most widespread "second" language almost everywhere, on all 6 inhabited continents. That has its advantages, too.

I am by no means a philologist, but I don't think that any language that's in use is ever immutable. Just look at the difference between Classical Greek, Koine Greek, Modern Greek.

Used to be, Greek was the language of drama, poetry, philosophy, theology, mathematics and the sciences -- high civilization --- while Latin was the language of cops, soldiers, construction workers, publicans and petty bureaucrats. That's one connotation of Jerome's Latin version being "Vulgate" --- common --- and the Greeks thought it was a damned shame.

'Course, before them, the rabbis of Yavne thought Greek was a damned shame!

30 posted on 09/02/2012 3:56:43 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("You can observe a lot just by watchin'." - Yogi Berra)
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