Depends on what you mean by “little.” By the 3rd century, Latin had become morphed into a Vulgar Latin, which would become the basis of the Romance languages and more morphing later. Much of its case structure inter alia, codified by Cicero et other classists and in effect during the time of Christ, were being eliminated. Many of the -m endings were being dropped as well. A sample of the differences between Classic Latin and Vulgar Latin appear here in the
Appendix Probi, compiled in the early centuries. There are other such references which show the development of the Romance languages and into what’s in existence today.
I was thinking of written, formal Latin, not the spoken variety of the poorer classes, which differed from the written norm even in Cicero’s time. The
Appendix Probi is a comparison between the correct, written terms and the common, spoken terms of late 4th century Latin. In other words the formal norms had evolved little and would continue to be used by the educated classes and employed in all texts. ‘Vulgar’ Latin was not a written language and never would be. Formal Latin would be understandable, if not spoken, by the general populace until well into the 8th century.
It was only at the third Council of Tours, 813, that priests were obliged to preach in the language of the congregation as they could no longer understand formal Latin. Question then is why didn’t the same council translate the prayers of the Mass into the local dialects? The answer, I think, is somewhat complex.
To begin with these languages were not written and would not be so for centuries to come. Europe at that time was culturally very conservative, preserving what it could of the past with no thought for innovation. It would not have entered the head of any educated man (which meant any educated cleric) of that time to develop the spoken dialects into literary languages on the same footing as Latin.
This was reinforced by the fact that in the culturally unified world of Christendom, only one written language was used by the educated classes. For educated men Europe was a single common city. To fragment it by creating a diversity of languages in the intellectual and liturgical spheres would have been unthinkable.
And a final consideration: a liturgy needs to be is something very much apart from the common, everyday world. The old pagans worshipped in the open air; we worship in an enclosed building, apart from the vulgarity of the world. The architecture, ornaments, clothing, music - and language - are different from contemporary usage, reinforcing this separation from the world and enhancing the sense of supernatural realities. Latin, even though imperfectly understood by the laity, achieved this effect and still achieves it today.
FWIW, over 50% of today’s English vocabulary is from Latin. But many of the words have been morphed and remain as cognates. For example, “consubstantial” has been morphed from the classic form of consubstantialem (dropping of the -m was typical in early vulgarization). And furthermore, there is no guarantee the word won’t be morphed further or changed altogether in the future as very few seem to understand it now.
Anyone who studies theology knows what ‘transsubstantiation’ means. Anyone who doesn’t will ignore the word, rather than alter its meaning. Words, as the
Iesus - Jesus example shows, morph very slowly. Compare any English word having a Latin origin with its Latin original.
In any case morphing of a spoken word doesn’t matter, as what is in question here is the written text.
Also from “Joshua” in the Greek. But the point is the word “Jesus” is what’s used on the inscription on the cross. It’s in the form of “IESVS” however, which would be the true classic form of Latin. Church Latin has codified the name w/cases as Jesus, Jesu, Jesu, Jesum, Jesu, and the vocative Jesu.
I don’t quite follow this. The Greek term is ‘Iesous’ (iota-eta-sigma-omicron-upsilon-sigma), very similar to the Latin. The ‘v’ in classical Latin also stood for a ‘u’.
