Why is Newton's "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" written in Latin instead of English? What language is Latin?

Latin

Latin is the language of the Latin nation that lived in the Roman region of the Apennine Peninsula more than 2,000 years ago. Later, this nation conquered most of Europe and part of the Middle East, and established During the Roman Empire, Latin became the official language of the entire Roman Empire.

With the development and advancement of history, the Roman Empire disintegrated and many independent countries were formed. These independent countries combined the dialects of the region on the basis of Latin to form their own languages, such as France. The languages ??of Italy, Spain, Portugal, Romania and other countries have many similarities and are often called Latin languages ??for this reason.

(Picture: Logo engraved with ancient Latin)

Latin was originally the dialect of Latium (Lazio in Italian) in central Italy. As the power of the Roman Empire expanded here, Latin was widely spread throughout the empire and Latin was designated as the official language. After Christianity spread widely in Europe, Latin became more influential. From the European Middle Ages to the early 20th century, Roman Catholicism was the public language, and most academic papers were written in Latin. Although only the Vatican still uses Latin, some academic vocabulary or articles, such as the naming rules of biological taxonomy, still use Latin.

The Vatican, a country within a city

The classical Chinese language used during the period of Emperor Augustus of the Roman Empire was called "classical Latin" (latina classica), and the language used by the people from the 2nd to the 6th century The vernacular is called "Vulgar Latin" (sermo vulgaris). In the Middle Ages, Vulgar Latin derived some "Romance languages" (including Central Romance languages: French, Italian, Sardinian dialect, Catalonia; Western Romance languages: Spanish, Portuguese; and Eastern Romance languages). : Romanian. After the 16th century, Spanish and Portuguese forces expanded to the entire Central and South America, so Central and South America was also called "Latin America".

The difference between Romance and Latin is that Romance has lost a lot. The grammatical endings of words, especially the declension of nouns, have been completely lost (except for some pronouns) (noun declension is still retained in Romanian). p>Latin is a complex language, and a complex inflection system forms the main part of Latin grammar. These changes are usually formed by adding suffixes to the end of words (external inflection) or changing the consonants or vowels of the stem (internal inflection). For nouns, adjectives and pronouns, this change is called "declinatio", and for verbs, it is called "coniugatio".

Noun

Generally every noun has a change. There are six cases; more cases may have seven, and less cases may have only two. The seven cases of nouns are:

* "Nominative case" (indicating subject or predicate)

* "genitive case" (indicating ownership relationships, the same as the possessive case in English)

* "dative case" (indicating indirect objects or other indirect grammatical meanings)

* "Objective case" (indicates direct object, also called accusative case or object case)

* "Ablative case" (used in conjunction with some prepositions, or used alone to express tools and means)

* "Vocal case" (used to address someone)

* "Local case" (used in some specific words to express directions)

Because the case changes have Expresses the grammatical relationship between Latin nouns and verbs, so the Latin word order is highly free and does not follow the subject-predicate-object format. For example: Father loves his son, this sentence is common in Chinese, English, and French. There can only be one word order, subject-predicate-object.

But in Latin, there can be six word orders, namely:

Pater amat filium.

Pater filium amat.

Filium amat pater.

Filium pater amat.

Amat pater filium.

Amat filium pater.

The above six sentences have the same meaning. If you want to express "son loves father", you need to make case changes. There are also 6 word orders to express this sentence: Filius patrum amat. Other word orders are omitted.

Although word order is not important for Latin, the most commonly used word order in Latin is the subject-object-predicate structure

There are five types of Latin nouns and two types of adjectives. Each declension method uses different declension methods to distinguish the above six lattice patterns. Nouns end in the singular possessive case to determine the case change.

Verbs

Verbs have differences in person, number, tense, mood (indicative, subjunctive, imperative) and state (active, passive). Latin verbs have four different conjugations, plus some irregular verbs.

Most regular verbs distinguish their conjugations by their infinitive endings: the infinitive ending of the first conjugation is "-āre" and the second conjugation is "-ēre ", the third conjugation is "-ere", and the fourth conjugation is "-īre".

The relationship between Latin and English

English and Latin belong to the same language family (Indo-European language family) but different language families (English belongs to the Germanic language family, while Latin belongs to the Italian language family) , so the grammar is different. Modern British writers tried to apply Latin grammar to English, for example, imposing rules prohibiting the use of adverbs between to and verbs, but they could not be successfully applied to daily language. Even so, more than half of the English vocabulary comes from Latin. Many English words evolved from Romance languages ??such as French or Italian, and these Romance languages ??evolved from Latin (for example: Latin: mercēs → French: merci → English: mercy), and some are directly derived from Latin evolved (for example: Latin: serēnus → English: serene), and some were directly adopted without change (for example: Latin: lārva → English: larva). It can be seen that a considerable number of English words are derived from Latin evolved. In addition, some Latin languages ??evolved from Greek (for example: Greek: schǒlē → Latin: schǒla → Old Einglish: scōl → Modern English: school). The adoption of so many foreign words in English has indeed enriched the otherwise monotonous world of English vocabulary.

Many people are accustomed to calling A-Z the "English letters", but in fact they should be called the "Latin letters" or "Roman letters". Because the twenty-six letters A-Z of English are adopted from the Latin alphabet of Latin.

The following is a comparative list of some proper nouns in Latin and English, showing the influence of Latin on English:

English English translation Latin Latin translation

January January Iānus, the god who symbolizes the end and the beginning

February February febris fever (February is the season when colds are easy)

March March Mars Mars, the god of war

May May Maia God of Spring

June June Iunō God Queen; God of Fertility and Women

July July Iulius Caesar’s name (G. Iulius Caesar)

August August Augustus, King of Ancient Rome

September septem “seven”

October octō “eight”

November Novem “Nine”

December Decem “Ten”

Saturday Satūrnus Saturn, God of Agriculture

Mercury Mercurius, the messenger (Mercury is the fastest around the sun)

Venus Venus, the god of love and beauty (gold symbolizes beauty)

Mars Mars Mars, the god of war (red symbolizes blood, and blood symbolizes war)

Jupiter Jupiter Iuppiter Jupiter, the king of the gods (Jupiter is the largest)

Saturn Saturn Satūrnus Sattu Well, the father of Jupiter (Jupiter defeated Saturn; Jupiter is larger than Saturn)

Neptune Neptūnus Neptune, God of the Sea (blue symbolizes the ocean)

Pluto Plūtō Pluto, Pluto (Pluto is the farthest and darkest)

Aries Ariēs ram

Taurus Taurus Taurus bull

Gemini Geminī twins

Cancer Cancer Crab

Leo Leo Leō Lion

Virgo Virgo Virgō Virgo

Libra Libra Scale

Scorpio Scorpiō Scorpion

Sagittarius Sagittarius Archer

Capricorn Capricornus Capricornus, a monster with upper body sheep and lower body fish

Aquarius Aquarius A container of water

Pisces Piscēs fish [plural]