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 Replies: 8 / Views: 1,261 |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3692 Posts |
So I remember reading somewhere that Canadian coins must be bilingual (English and French). One piece of evidence of this is the transition from large cents to small cents: the removal of "One Cent" in favour of "1 Cent". Around this same time, a Latin phrase was removed from 1911 coins: "Dei Gratia", by God's grace. This omission caused an uproar and it was reinstated the following year.
So my question is this: we've had "godless" coins that have recently been released by the mint. Nobody could really care anymore about Latin. And Latin is not an official language in this land, nor does anybody converse in it. Maybe in King George's time Latin was somehow symbolically relevant, but today English is what Latin was hundreds of years ago.
So I have to conclude, let's get rid of Latin on our coins entirely. Who knows how many people have looked at the word Regina on the obverse and thought it was referring to the capitol of Saskatchewan. Living in Toronto, which is a diverse multicultural teenaged metropolis, I've never heard of a Latin-speaking community before. How about the rest of Canada? Does anybody speak Latin anymore?
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Valued Member
Canada
55 Posts |
Latin is a 'dead' language, and as such is used in science etc., as it is never changing, will thus remain accurate and true to it's original form, is the root of many other languages, and is learned by those in science, medicine, law etc. So on coins it will have the same meaning thoughout time.
As far as how languages evolve/change, one only has to look at text messaging to see how English has been corrupted! I think we should use it on coins instead of english or french, that way it will be fair to all languages.
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Valued Member
Canada
276 Posts |
Yes, let's get rid of our history, no one is living it anymore.
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Pillar of the Community
 Canada
9864 Posts |
Latin names and titles have been on coins for over 2,000 years.That's alot of tradition to break with.
Quid est vita sine res numaria?
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Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21786 Posts |
The problem with Latin regarding Canadian coins is, that is the common root language for both French and English. That is the reason I suspect that some Canadians, I guess a significant minority, would prefer Latin remain on the coins.
Both French and English speakers would have the same regard (or perhaps disregard), for it.
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Pillar of the Community
 Canada
3692 Posts |
I'm just saying that because our bilingual laws are so anal that we somehow missed what used to be a big deal. Yes, I understand the science part of Latin - because I too believe things should be referred to by their true name. Yes, English and French can be corrupted, uh, when has it never been this way? I'm just saying that no one's outraging one way or the other, either for Latin or for bilingualism. So, to me, if we wanted to be practical we should add Chinese, Polish, and every other language that is spoken in Canada.
To test this point, we should add "SEMPER UBI SUB UBI" to our coins as a joke and see who actually can translate this seemingly dead language.
Edited by Libertad
02/06/2011 10:02 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3077 Posts |
"SEMPER UBI SUB UBI"
puteus ego nunquam
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Valued Member
Canada
276 Posts |
lol Latin is on our coins because it's part of our history, and the history of our monarch. Being politically correct on our coinage will happen eventually :P ... but canada is one of the few countries that accepts multiculturalism to the point of changing policies. Everywhere else, immigrants need to adopt local culture.
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Moderator
 Australia
16817 Posts |
Quote:
Latin is a 'dead' language... To borrow imagery from biology, Latin is "extinct in the wild" - nobody has spoken Latin as their mother tongue since the fall of the Western Roman Empire. For over a thousand years, Latin was kept alive in the "zoo" of the church, where it became the defacto holy language of western Europe. During the Dark Ages, people in Western Europe learned to read and write in Latin or they didn't learn to read and write at all, since the only people who really needed to know all that bookish stuff were church folks. Kings and emperors of Europe wished to emulate the ancient Romans on their coins, and so copied the Roman obverse design of a portrait with their titles around it. These titles were in Latin both in imitation of the Romans and because there was virtually nothing else it could have been substituted with. As the concept of nationalism grew and spread, Latin was replaced with the local languages on most of the coinages of Europe. Today, only five countries continue to use Latin as a primary language on their coins, though many more (such as Monaco and the United States) include a Latin motto along with legends and inscriptions in the local language. Those five countries are: Great Britain, Canada, Switzerland, Belgium and the Vatican City. Switzerland and Belgium both adopted the use of Latin in modern times for reasons of linguistic neutrality as, like Canada, there is more than one official language. The Vatican City, as a religious state, maintains the now-nearly-extinct legacy of Latin as the holy language. Britain and Canada are the last two monarchies to continue the "imitating the Romans" tradition of Latin titles for the rulers. There may be a multilingual aspect to Canada's retention of Latin, as well. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Posted 02/05/2011 8:40 pm
