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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In medieval Europe, most languages were underdeveloped when compared to Latin. They often lacked standardization and varied heavily locally. Adding to that, the Catholic Church was headquartered in Rome. Therefore, scholar and religious texts were always in Latin to avoid misunderstandings. Some of these words, especially related to law, biology, psychology and academia itself prevailed until today because of a common association between Latin and a higher degree of sophistication as well as just the simple lack of need for a better word.
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