Why are Latin and Greek words still heavily used everywhere? Like university frats and sororities, latin honors, and Biological terms? Why would they not use the English equivalent words instead for these words specifically?

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Why are Latin and Greek words still heavily used everywhere? Like university frats and sororities, latin honors, and Biological terms? Why would they not use the English equivalent words instead for these words specifically?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Latin specifically was once the defacto universal language of Europe.

The Catholic church adopted Latin as its official language both because the Bible was written in Latin and also to have a standard language for the priesthood across Europe.

The Aristocracy learned Latin as well for similar reasons. So for centuries being able to speak Latin was a sign that you were wealthy and/or part of ruling class or clergy.

When the first Universities were founded the church was involved because for centuries churches had been the keepers of books and old knowledge.

Europe was coming out of a dark age and in order to build up this new system of education they had to start somewhere.

The new scientist class studied the Classics Greek and Latin books because the science, engineering, and math of those cultures was the basis for higher knowledge in Europe and was considered by many of that era to have been the Golden Age of Europe.

So learning Ancient Greek and Latin was mandatory for the scientist class and it became the language of science by necessity.

This is the history of why so many things in science are named after Greek and Latin words because it fell into fashion for scientists to use their newly learned languages to name the various things they were cataloging and discovering.

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