Latin as the Language of Science and Learning

1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-3-11-074575-7
Verlag: De Gruyter

Buch, Englisch, 646 Seiten, Format (B × H): 160 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 1239 g

Reihe: Lingua academica

This book investigates the role of the Latin language as a vehicle for science and learning from several angles. First, the question what was understood as ‘science’ through time and how it is named in different languages, especially the Classical ones, is approached. Criteria for what did pass as scientific are found that point to ‘science’ as a kind of Greek based on pattern-finding and their unbiased checking. In a second part, a brief diachronic panorama introduces schools of thought and authors who wrote in Latin from antiquity to the present. Latin’s heydays in this function are clearly the time between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries. Some niches where it was used longer are examined and reasons sought why Latin finally lost this lead-role. A third part seeks to define the peculiar characteristics of scientific Latin using corpus linguistic approaches. As a result, several types of scientific writing can be identified. The question of how to transfer science from one linguistic medium to another is never far: Latin inherited this role from Greek and is in turn the ancestor of science done in the modern vernaculars. At the end of the study, the importance of Latin science for modern science in English becomes evident.

Zielgruppe

Latinists, historians of science, linguists

Autoren/Hrsg.

Roelli, Philipp

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Klassische Literaturwissenschaft Klassische Lateinische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Historische & Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft, Sprachtypologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Klassische Literaturwissenschaft Mittel- & Neulateinische Literatur

Über Autor(innen)

Philipp Roelli , Universität Zürich, Schweiz.

Philipp Roelli , University of Zurich, Switzerland.