Hi! I just had a random linguistic question. I was thinking of terms like “alma mater” and graduation designations like “cum laude” etc. and even in academic writing we commonly have phrases like “ad hominem” or “ad nauseum”. Why have these terms persisted in English societies, and where did integration of them with academia come from?
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Latin was in a sense the universal language of Europe in the Medieval era. It was the common language spoken by the church and the nobility, the Bible of that era was only written in Latin, and a lot of international correspondence was written in Latin.
Speaking Latin therefore was a sign of being in the upper class.
When the first universities and higher learning institutions were formed the basis for scientific knowledge was the classics. Books originally written in Greek and Roman times that had been maintained by the Church in the intervening years.
So if you wanted to learn about science, math, engineering, etc you had to learn Latin and Ancient Greek to read the books.
So Latin and Greek became the de-facto scientific languages. Whenever something was discovered they would give it a Latin or Greek name.
That’s why most dinosaurs have Latin names, and why College institutions like Fraternities use Greek Letters for their names.
It just became fashionable to use Latin and Greek in higher learning, and soon Latin became associated with Intelligence.
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