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Knowledge of Latin in the 1940s | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5320 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes  Speaks: German*, English | Message 1 of 7 04 June 2011 at 11:39am | IP Logged | ||
In Richard Feynman's very entertaining book "Surely, you're joking, Mr. Feynman!" he writes about censorship while working on the Manhattan Project and mentioned that only a handful of languages and no coded language whatsoever was allowed:
I'm wondering why they included Latin in the list of approved languages. Did language loving intellectuals actually use Latin at the time for their private correspondence with other like-minded intellectuals or did they include it in the list to let the scientists know that trying to use Latin as "secret language" would be pointless? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6582 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 2 of 7 04 June 2011 at 12:19pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm guessing people might use Latin phrases in their English. That'd be okay, whilst inserting a Chinese phrase would not be allowed. Doesn't mean anybody was expected to write the entire letter in Latin. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6272 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 3 of 7 04 June 2011 at 12:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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William Joyce, better known as "Lord Haw-Haw", was something of a linguist, and used
Latin sometimes in correspondence. After he left for Nazi Germany just as World War II was breaking out, the police visited a friend's house and found a postcard or letter from Joyce written in Latin. The friend had to translate the letter for the police, who commented, "Coo, you professors!" More common than actually writing the whole letter in Latin was the use, by the educated, of occasional Latin phrases. To add a further comment: knowledge of Latin was undoubtedly more widespread in the 1940s than it is now. Nowadays, it could well function as a "secret language". I imagine the alarm bells would really have started ringing if people working on the Manhattan Project received or sent correspondence in Russian. Although listed as one of the permitted languages (probably because there was someone checking the letters who was capable of understanding it), use of it would still have aroused suspicions. Edited by William Camden on 04 June 2011 at 1:00pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5320 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 4 of 7 04 June 2011 at 1:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's funny that you mention "Lord Haw-Haw". I recently listened to a Milt Rosenberg podcast in which he talked with his guest Richard Lucas about "Axis Sally" and other WW2 collaborators among them William Joyce.
The otherwise pretty pedestrian podcast features some original recordings of "Axis Sally" and other collaborators. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| s0fist Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5046 days ago 260 posts - 445 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Sign Language, German, Spanish, French | Message 5 of 7 04 June 2011 at 1:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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For one thing, knowledge of Latin was a lot more prevalent among those with advanced degrees at the time, all those physicists and chemists and such. A good number of the people Feynman mentions were in their 40s-70s, not just recent graduates; as such they would've been educated 1900-1920s. I might be mistaken, but Latin, ancient Greek, and other classical and 'scientific' languages were still a large part of the college admittance exams at the start of 20th century (bachelors level and by extension, doctorates). So it could be a simple fact of 'scientists talk in Latin' or 'can't get anywhere without Latin' bureaucracy/politics.
And as Ari mentions, there's a surprisingly large (scientific, medical, and legal) vocabulary of words and phrases still in use in English that are verbatim Latin, e.g. ad hoc, ad hominem, QED, alma mater, vice versa, de facto, per se, and "et cetera". Just google Latin phrases. In fact, I figure it'd be a strain, to say the least, to get by without any Latin for anyone in scientific, medical, legal, and close fields. Ergo Latin pro lucror. P.S. 'little brother also speaks' was one of the best parts of this cool book. :) Edited by s0fist on 04 June 2011 at 1:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5320 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 6 of 7 04 June 2011 at 2:49pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm well aware of this fact, but many of these Latin expressions are so frequently used in the English language (and other languages as well) that it stands to reason that even people who didn't study Latin would be familiar with at least some of them. I.e., there would be no need to specifically list Latin among the languages approved for letter writing, because the average censor could simply pick up any larger English dictionary to find out, for example, what "ad hoc" means. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| psy88 Senior Member United States Joined 5591 days ago 469 posts - 882 votes Studies: Spanish*, Japanese, Latin, French | Message 7 of 7 04 June 2011 at 11:58pm | IP Logged | ||
There was a similar person during the Vietnam war. She was known as Hanoi Hannah and directed propaganda to American troops in Vietnam. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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