this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2023
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If English had been a dead language for fifteen hundred years and was only used by people who talk about things only a tiny subset of the population understands?
Yeah, it would seem pretty mystical.
But that's my point, it hasn't been, and it wasn't.
Again, Latin was mandatory in my high school for a year, optional for two more. In the 1990s. It's still optional, I believe. My parents went to church in Latin as kids.
So no, it doesn't sound mystical outside the anglosphere, it sounds like crusy old priests, lawyers and boring lessons. Today.
You are very much in the minority as someone who has studied Latin. Very few non-Catholic high schools even offer it, much less make it mandatory.
And sure, Catholic mass was held in Latin back in the day. Personally, I suspect that's a reason it's associated with rituals and magic. What is a priest doing, if not invoking mystical powers beyond the understanding of man? What language would someone use to invoke the powers of Satan?
Outside the anglosphere, I have no idea.
Well, it took a minute, but you got to the point there in that last sentence.