Why The West Can't Be Converted

[Apotheoun]

Even after 30 years of liberals pushing for "inclusive language" people still naturally fall back into the older usage (for a popular cultural example see the final episode of Star Trek in 2005, and that was after seven years of the Next Generation replacing "man" with "one").

Edited October 7, 2013 by Apotheoun

[Nihil Obstat]

Colloquially there really has been no change, but I do agree that in certain professional situations, again motivated by specific ideologies, you will run into the use of so-called "inclusive language." But it is an artificial construct applied to the English language, much as Newspeak was applied to language in the book Nineteen Eighty-Four.

I do not think it is as artificial as you believe it to be. Look at the use of "they/their" being used as a genderless pronoun. It is still not quite being considered grammatical professionally (at least not in every situation), and it is not quite standard usage, but it is entirely possible that given a bit more time it becomes the preferred usage in those contexts.

It is not good or bad, but simply the way English tends to develop. Many standard usages today would have horrified writers from previous generations. Although some of the standby language peeves have been around for hundreds of years, and people just like pretending they are ultra-important rules of English grammar... But I digress.

[Apotheoun]

I do not think it is as artificial as you believe it to be. Look at the use of "they/their" being used as a genderless pronoun. It is still not quite being considered grammatical professionally (at least not in every situation), and it is not quite standard usage, but it is entirely possible that given a bit more time it becomes the preferred usage in those contexts.

It is not good or bad, but simply the way English tends to develop. Many standard usages today would have horrified writers from previous generations. Although some of the standby language peeves have been around for hundreds of years, and people just like pretending they are ultra-important rules of English grammar... But I digress.

I admit there is confusion, but that is because some educators are pushing bad English. It does not mean that that is a natural change. When I was teaching history and religion I had to constantly correct the grammar of my students. 

Edited October 7, 2013 by Apotheoun

[Apotheoun]

In the last few years, and often for reasons related to Triadological and Christological doctrine, the Church has gone out of its way to make sure that translations reflect the historic use of the English language both in liturgy and catechesis.

[Nihil Obstat]

I admit there is confusion, but that is because some educators are pushing bad English. It does not mean that that is a natural change. When I was teaching history and religion I had to constantly correct the grammar of my students. 

Many educators push bad English because they learned grammar from Strunk and White. Unfortunately educators seem to think that prescriptivist = correct whereas descriptivist = godless anarchic heathen.

All reputable linguists disagree.

[Apotheoun]

Clearly students are confused, I used to see mixed so-called "inclusive" and standard English. Some kids naturally used the word "man" for all human beings, but then would combine that with the word "they" and that is simply incorrect usage, and that is so whether the student uses "man" or "one." Heck, there are even scriptural translations that do stupid things like that, and the translators do that even when the original language text does not. That is of course why the Vatican issued a document on liturgical translations and how they are to be made into English. It is sad that the Vatican had to do that, but it did.

Edited October 7, 2013 by Apotheoun

[Nihil Obstat]

Yes, accepted usage can be nebulous sometimes. But it is dangerous to try to treat English as a prescriptive language.

 

Edit: But it absolutely should be recognized that the liturgical and theological use of a language can and should its own unique characteristics, one of which may well be a prescriptive sort of organization. That is why liturgical English, for instance, is (in theory) a rather more elevated, sometimes 'archaic' style, compared to colloquial or professional English.

Edited October 7, 2013 by Nihil Obstat

[Apotheoun]

Yes, accepted usage can be nebulous sometimes. But it is dangerous to try to treat English as a prescriptive language.

You are really funny. So the ideologues who have been working for 30 years to change the language are dangerous, and so are those who resist them. I am glad that the Church has been resisting them for the last 20 years.

[Nihil Obstat]

You are really funny. So the ideologues who have been working for 30 years to change the language are dangerous, and so are those who resist them. I am glad that the Church has been resisting them for the last 20 years.

Check my edit. Liturgical use of a language usually follows a different sort of rules, relative to the language as a whole.

[Apotheoun]

Sure it may have delayed the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in the 1990s and the translation of the editio typica tertia of the Roman Missal, but the results, especially in as it concerns the Catechism, were worth the wait.

[Apotheoun]

Check my edit. Liturgical use of a language usually follows a different sort of rules, relative to the language as a whole.

That is a common misconception because it really does not. The translation of the Roman liturgy into Latin in the 4th century followed the rules of that language at that time. The same is true with the Slavic liturgy. Liturgical languages tend to diverge from the common usage is only because the Church tends to stick to the original translation made and only rarely re-translates the text. But even in the very traditional Russian Orthodox Church a revision of the Old Slavonic is taking place in order to make it easier to understand for Russian speakers.

[Nihil Obstat]

That is a common misconception because it really does not. The translation of the Roman liturgy into Latin in the 4th century followed the rules of that language at that time. The same is true with the Slavic liturgy. Liturgical languages tend to diverge from the common usage is only because the Church tends to stick to the original translation made and only rarely re-translates the text. But even in the very traditional Russian Orthodox Church a revision of the Old Slavonic is taking place in order to make it easier to understand for Russian speakers.

Divergence from common usage is exactly why liturgical languages differ from their respective vernaculars. They take on peculiar characteristics relative to the source language.

[Apotheoun]

No. In the case of the Roman Church for example, Latin was the spoken language in the West and the Greek language liturgy was translated into the vulgar tongue. Then over time the Romance languages formed and the Roman Church kept using Latin. The same thing happened in the East, except that the liturgy - even in Old Slavonic - was modified from time to time to make the older language understandable to the common folk. The incoherence of the language used in celebrating the liturgy is not the mystery; instead, Christ is the mystery.

Edited October 7, 2013 by Apotheoun

[Apotheoun]

Be that as it may, the reason that "inclusive language" as it is mistakenly called, has been rejected in liturgical and doctrinal translations is because it cannot fully convey the faith of the Church. The liturgy in particular should be free from all secular ideologies in order to prevent any kind of distortion to the faith.

[Nihil Obstat]

No. In the case of the Roman Church for example, Latin was the spoken language in the West and the Greek language liturgy was translated into the vulgar tongue. Then over time the Romance languages formed and the Roman Church kept using Latin. The same thing happened in the East, except that the liturgy - even in Old Slavonic - was modified from time to time to make the older language understandable to the common folk. The incoherence of the language used in celebrating is not the mystery in the liturgy, Christ is the mystery.

Ecclesiastical Latin has unique features that distinguish it from Classical Latin. The reason for that is precisely because Ecclesiastical Latin was used for the liturgy, and therefore developed in a peculiar way which is a trademark of languages used liturgically. 

Given enough time, and proper space for organic development, I think we would eventually see some form of Ecclesiastical English as well. Not necessarily in a formal, codified sense, but in some sense that is understandable by the native English speaker. Nobody said it has to be so radically different from regular English that it is not understandable.