[Jamestown1630]

I see the subtext of the question as simply that the language people actually speak and understand transmits meaning more usefully than a language they don’t speak or understand.

[Steve_Seattle]

"I see the subtext of the question as simply that the language people actually speak and understand transmits meaning more usefully than a language they don’t speak or understand."

Growing up as Catholics, most of us had missals which displayed the Latin and English versions on facing pages. We knew and understood exactly what was being said. After years of exposure to this system, we picked up a lot of Latin and understood it even without a translation. Years later, I still remember parts of the Latin, as in the opening of the Our Father: "Pater noster, qui est in Caelis, sanctificatur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum . . . " and so forth.