Readings in two languages

[choy]

The use of English in some parts of the world, and this definitely applies to Quebec, has very negative political implications that could cause the Mass to become a source of scandal, which of course is a sacrilege (not that it isn’t already a cause of scandal due to liturgical abuses but that’s another topic).

There is no political baggage attached to Latin. It is an, ancient, neutral and static language.

Quebecers know english, even if they refuse to use it

i agree, Latin has no political baggage, but its also largely unkown to 99% of the world population, save for a few words used today. but those words are not enough to establish a comprehension of a full liturgy in Latin

again, why i suggested english is because of the universality of it today. the entire point why a mass would be said in multiple languages is because they want to deliver the mass in a language that the people would understand. so why not deliver it in the language thats universal today?

the issue is using a language that the people understand. and Latin isn’t one of them. because thats the main point why we have bilingual masses

Somehow Jewish people manage with Hebrew. Muslims universally use Arabic.

We are the Latin Church (with apologies to our Eastern brethren who have their own traditions). Latin is not a complicated language, and for most parts of the Mass would become very familiar very quickly. Missals and missalletes can provide the translation.

A bit trickier would be the readings and homily. The latter could use brevity to afford the opportunity for it to be said in two languages, or the priest can say it in his language first and have a layperson read it in the other language (this is not the same as a layperson giving the homily. Readings could be in Latin, people would read the translation in the missalette. Many do now anyway as it is often hard to hear the lector especially where the readings are chanted. Otherwise they could be in the vernacular, alternating.

I used to travel all over the world, to Europe, South America, an Asia, on business. Finding an “international” church was not always possible. I found one in Seoul where I used to go often on business. If Latin were still used in the Church regularly, I could go to any old church and be able to understand the Mass, my Latin is good enough to be able to understand a Latin Mass.

Again, if Rabbis can manage Hebrew, and imams can handle Arabic, surely our priests are intelligent enough to grasp the smattering of Latin they would need for the Mass?

its not the priests that is the problem, its the people
they want a mass they can understand. i’ve already mentioned in an earlier post, switching to Latin only solves the issue on the side of the priests, but not of the people hearing mass

 

[choy]

And as I said I disagree. It seems little more than our American arrogance to think that English is the only language in the world. I’ve seen this almost to the point where some American Catholics think English is the official language of the Church. That is dead wrong. No doubt with the dominance of American business in the last century English gained wide acceptance outside of America for conducting business, but even that is starting to wane.

well, i’m not American
i’m a Filipino who moved to Canada
so i can guarantee you its not “American arrogance” that prompted me to suggest English

look, there is a long list of countries that speak english, and its not thanks to America, but thanks to Britain. also, because English is the langauge of commerce today, more and more people are speaking english. and another reason is the outsourcing business, as American companies outsource mostly their call centers and other business processes to countries with cheaper labor, these countries ramp up their english training to be able to take on these jobs.

i went to Shanghai in 2000, it was just about the start of the boom of Shanghai. hardly anyone in the city speaks english. or should i say, no one. but in our office, everyone speaks english. because we’re an international company. the company itself provides english training for all employees

english is not the only language in the world. but wherever you are, chances are you can find someone who speaks it. thats why i say its universal. and there’s an ever growing effort for different nations to learn english. did you know that China trained 160 million of their own people in english as part of the 2008 Olympics preparations?

 

[choy]

We are one Church.
( for the following, because it does not pertain to the east, i will be speaking of the Latin Church only, I know the difference between the Latin Church and the East)

It is not “introducing” the latin language, it is reclaiming our heritage, and the Official Language of the Roman Church, to use Latin for our liturgies

Everything but the homily should be done in Latin( some notable exceptions, such as con-celebration with an Eastern Priest), with the homliy be spoken in the common tounge(s) of the people

i don’t agree. i believe people in my generation (i’m 33) who never lived through TLM appreciates the mass more in a language we can understand

if the Church decides to restore Latin only, i’ll probably switch to Anglican Use or to an Eastern Rite that would have Divine Liturgy in English

 

[choy]

That would be worse than arrogance, that would be ignorance. However, I don’t see how that’s grounds for disagreement, since neither choy nor anyone else expressed that view.American business dominance alone would be enough to make English an important language, possibly even to the point of surpassing French and Spanish (though I doubt it). What I think is slightly more responsible for the relative universality of English is past British imperialism, which has led to large populations of English-speakers on every continent, with the arguable exception of South America. Probably third down the list would be the combination of various American military adventures, occupations, and bases in Europe, Asia, and South America.

China can certainly rival, in the present and future, past American business dominance. And they can and probably will surpass our current business dominance. The legacy of American military prowess in other countries is likely to wane as countries like Japan, Korea, Panama, the Philippines, various Gulf countries, etc orient themselves less and less toward Washington, and more toward their neighbors. However, despite your claim that it’s already more universal now, I don’t see Chinese ever becoming as universal as English because of the latter’s use as a native language in so many countries across the world.

That’s for the foreseeable future, which I estimate to be a century or two. After that, who knows.

to the Chinese’s credit, there’s a lot of them everywhere in the world. the issue about Chinese being a universal language is that while there are over a billion Chinese in China, plus countless immigrants across the world, Chinese people tend to speak their own native dialect instead of the national language of Putonghua (or Mandarin). in the Philippines, most of the Chinese there come from the Fujian province, so they all speak Fookien. here in Vancouer, most of the Chinese came from Hong Kong, so the dominant Chinese dialect is Cantonese. i had a friend from Shanghai before and says her parents doesn’t speak Mandarin, but only Shanghainese (didn’t mention what the dialect is called in its native tongue). the only good thing about Chinese is that since the written language is not phonetic, a character for example cat, would mean cat in all dialects, even though they would pronounce it differently. but otherwise, they themselves don’t speak a common language

 

[Joe_Kelley]

I once worked with three scientists from India. Each had his own language, but they could only communicate with each other in English. Similarly, I was once on a bus in Rome. A Frenchman and a Spanish man were seated behind me. They could only communicate with each other in English.

This may derive from the English Empire belief that anyone can understand English if you shout it loud enough.

 

[choy]

I once worked with three scientists from India. Each had his own language, but they could only communicate with each other in English. Similarly, I was once on a bus in Rome. A Frenchman and a Spanish man were seated behind me. They could only communicate with each other in English.

This may derive from the English Empire belief that anyone can understand English if you shout it loud enough.

you know, this reminded me of something

in the Philippines, the national language is Filipino, which is 90% based on the Tagalog dialect. much to the resentment of the people of the central islands who speak Visaya. they loath Tagalog so much that most of them opt not to speak it (even though its taught in schools as the national language). i had a girlfriend back in college who was Visayan and we started speaking to each other in English, even if we’re both Filipinos. although she did eventually become comfortable using Tagalog

same with my friend from Shanghai. i don’t speak Chinese, she doesn’t speak Filipino. we talk in English

 

[ProVobis]

A little reminder here: the Catholic Church maintains liturgical texts in several hundred vernaculars, if not more. And according to Veterum Sapientia, “Modern languages are liable to change, and no single one of them is superior to the others in authority. Thus if the truths of the Catholic Church were entrusted to an unspecified number of them, the meaning of these truths, varied as they are, would not be manifested to everyone with sufficient clarity and precision. There would, moreover, be no language which could serve as a common and constant norm by which to gauge the exact meaning of other renderings…But Latin is indeed such a language.”