Submitted by Bèrto ëd Sèra on Tue, 02/19/2008 - 19:31.
You are wrong here, Gerard. Latin is the exact choice because it did change a lot, up to the point in which it originated the Romance languages. Yet, much before that, the semantic clouds associated with Christian and Late Antique Latin are significantly different to those associated with Classical Latin.
I'm reading a fantastic compilation of sociological studies about the early Byzantine Empire, and about the evolution of the social conception brought about by Christianity. There is absolutely no way in which you can mix the semantic conceptions of (say) a Classical writer of the I century BC and the writings produced (albeit both are in Latin) in the VI century AD.
When such a tremendous social discontinuity occurs, you need a firm reference for the reader to set a context. If you tell people that Cicero and Justinian the Great can be interpreted within a single semantic framework you only end up confusing people.
As said, I have no request to close a Latin wikipedia, neither do I want close the door to the use of any dead (or half-dead) language. But a clear reference is needed, people may not be lead to think that a text in the Latin wikipedia can be even remotely compared to Cicero. It's two different things, they must bear two clearly different labels.No more than that.
You are wrong here, Gerard.
You are wrong here, Gerard. Latin is the exact choice because it did change a lot, up to the point in which it originated the Romance languages. Yet, much before that, the semantic clouds associated with Christian and Late Antique Latin are significantly different to those associated with Classical Latin.
I'm reading a fantastic compilation of sociological studies about the early Byzantine Empire, and about the evolution of the social conception brought about by Christianity. There is absolutely no way in which you can mix the semantic conceptions of (say) a Classical writer of the I century BC and the writings produced (albeit both are in Latin) in the VI century AD.
When such a tremendous social discontinuity occurs, you need a firm reference for the reader to set a context. If you tell people that Cicero and Justinian the Great can be interpreted within a single semantic framework you only end up confusing people.
As said, I have no request to close a Latin wikipedia, neither do I want close the door to the use of any dead (or half-dead) language. But a clear reference is needed, people may not be lead to think that a text in the Latin wikipedia can be even remotely compared to Cicero. It's two different things, they must bear two clearly different labels.No more than that.