New Latin Totally Explained

Everything about New Latin totally explained

New Latin (or Neo-Latin) is a post-medieval version of Latin, used approximately in the period 1600–1900.

Extent

Classicists use the term "Neo-Latin" to describe the use of the Latin language for any purpose, scientific or literary, after the Renaissance (for which purpose they often use the date 1600), although, for example, the editors of I Tatti Renaissance Library call their Renaissance Latin language texts Neo-Latin as well. The end of the New Latin period is unspecified, but Latin as a regular vehicle of communicating ideas became rare after the first few decades of the 19th century, and by 1900 it survived primarily in International Scientific Vocabulary cladistics and systematics. The term "New Latin" came into widespread use towards the end of the 1890s among linguists and scientists.
At the beginning of the period, Latin was a universal school subject, and indeed, the pre-eminent subject for elementary education in Western Europe and those places which shared its culture. All universities required Latin proficiency (obtained in local grammar schools) to obtain admittance as a student.
New Latin was, at least in its early days, an international language used throughout Catholic and Protestant Europe, as well as in the colonies of the major European powers. As an auxiliary language to the local vernaculars, it appeared in a wide variety of documents, ecclesiastical, legal, diplomatic, academic, and scientific. While a text written in English, French, or Spanish at this time might be understood by a significant cross section of the learned, only a Latin text could be certain of finding someone to interpret it anywhere between Lisbon and Helsinki.

Notable scientific works in New Latin since 1600

1600. De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus et de Magno Magnete Tellure by William Gilbert.
1609. Astronomia nova by Johannes Kepler.
1610. Sidereus Nuncius by Galileo Galilei.
1620. Novum Organum by Francis Bacon.(External Link)
1628. Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus by William Harvey. (External Link)
1659. Systema Saturnium by Christiaan Huygens.
1673. Horologium Oscillatorium by Christiaan Huygens. Also at Gallica.
1687. Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton. (External Link)
1703. Hortus Malabaricus by Hendrik van Rheede.
1735. Systema Naturae by Carolus Linnaeus.
1737. Mechanica sive motus scientia analytice exposita by Leonhard Euler.
1738. Hydrodynamica, sive de viribus et motibus fluidorum commentarii by Daniel Bernoulli.
1748. Introductio in analysin infinitorum by Leonhard Euler
1753. Species Plantarum by Carolus Linnaeus.
1758. Systema Naturae (10th ed.) by Carolus Linnaeus.
1801. Disquisitiones Arithmeticae by Carl Gauss.
1810. Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen by Robert Brown.(External Link)
1840. Flora Brasiliensis by Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius.(External Link)

Other notable works in Neo-Latin include:

1602. Cenodoxus, a play by Jacob Bidermann.

1621. Argenis, a novel by John Barclay

1625. De Jure Belli ac Pacis by Hugo Grotius. (Posner Collection facsimile

; Gallica facsimile

)

1641. Meditationes de prima philosophia by René Descartes. (The Latin, French and English by John Veitch.

)

1642-1658. Elementa Philosophica by Thomas Hobbes.

1670. Tractatus Theologico-Politicus by Baruch Spinoza.

1725. Gradus ad Parnassum by Johann Joseph Fux. An influential treatise on musical counterpoint.

1767. Apollo et Hyacinthus, intermezzo by Rufinus Widl (with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart). Latin in this period came to be regarded as a medium for "serious" and learned expression; this view left little room for the use of Latin as a literary medium, for poetry, or for creative fiction (outside of translations made by ethnographers and folklorists). One of the last writers of any significant literary reputation to have written a large body of purely literary work in Latin was John Milton, better known for his English poetry. However, some lighter pieces were produced in Neo-Latin, for instance Johannes Kepler's scientific fantasy Somnium (1634) and Ludvig Holberg's satire Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum (1741) (External Link

).
Other, later, authors, including Max Beerbohm and Arthur Rimbaud, have written Latin verse, but these texts have been either school exercises or occasional pieces.

Abandonment

The reasons for the abandonment of Latin as the primary international intellectual language varied, and it's difficult to pinpoint a single cause, especially since there was no sharp cutoff, but rather a slow diminuendo occupying the greater part of the 18th and 19th centuries.
   Although Latin was supreme as an international language in the 17th century, in the early decades of the 18th century its place as a language of international diplomacy came to be taken by French, due to the commanding presence in Europe of the France of Louis XIV. At the same time, some (like King Frederick William I of Prussia) were dismissing Latin as a useless accomplishment, unfit for a man of practical affairs. As the 18th century progressed, the extensive literature in Latin being produced at the beginning slowly contracted, until by 1800 it was only a trickle.
   Nonetheless, Latin held a place of educational pre-eminence until the second half of the nineteenth century, when its value was increasingly questioned; in the twentieth century, educational philosophies such as that of John Dewey dismissed its relevance. Nevertheless, throughout this period Ecclesiastical Latin continued to maintain its position of pre-eminence in the Roman Catholic Church.
   Among the possible causes of the final abandonment of Latin as the primary international intellectual language were:

The growth of romantic nationalism in the aftermath of the French Revolution, and the consequent increase in emphasis on local traditions and languages.

The greater prominence given to scientific over humanistic subjects, including Latin (despite the fact that many of the foundational scientific texts were written in Latin).

The growth of a feeling that Latin was esoteric and irrelevant, and that international communication would be better served by learning foreign languages directly, than by using an auxiliary medium such as Latin. The later 19th century, however, felt the absence of Latin as an auxiliary language, and such languages as Volapük and Esperanto were invented to fill the gap.

The increasing classical emphasis of Latin classes, whose texts, vocabulary, and grammar were (and are) drawn almost exclusively from the Roman period, and which placed little value on the ability to write about contemporary subjects in Latin. With attempts to bring non-classical vocabulary into Latin condemned as barbarous, and the natural tendency of amateur Latin writers to approximate the syntax and style of their native tongue condemned as solecism, it was easier for writers to use their own languages and avoid condemnation for imperfect Latin. Disappointment with the levels of proficiency achieved in Latin by education was a frequently expressed theme. This perceived level of failure was in fact related to the exclusive teaching of classical Latin as an object of antiquarian study, and the use of classical norms rather than looser or contemporary usage as the standard to which written and spoken Latin should aspire. As Latin came to be less used outside the schoolroom, many Latin students went on to forget most of the Latin they'd once known.

Relics

Among the lasting inheritances of New Latin is the system of binomial nomenclature and classification of living organisms devised by Carolus Linnaeus; the need for apt names within an (at least superficially) Latin structure continues to drive the development of new Latin or quasi-Latin vocabulary today. Another continuation is the use of Latin names for the surface features of planets and planetary satellites (planetary nomenclature), originated in the mid-17th century for selenographic toponyms.

Further Information

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