The language which a people naturally uses is called its "vernacular," or "mother tongue." Thus French is the vernacular of the French people, and German the vernacular of the German. A "living language" is one in common use by ordinary persons. A "dead language" is one that has ceased to be spoken among the people, though preserved in books and still studied. An "acquired language" is a dead or a living speech that is acquired by study. To the vast majority of the people of the United States, English is their vernacular or mother tongue; to immigrants from non-English-speaking countries English is an acquired language. When we speak of the learned languages we usually mean Latin, Greek and Hebrew.
The dead languages, of course, were originally living. At the beginning of the Christian era, Latin and Greek were in vigorous life all over the Roman Empire. Latin prevailed in the West; Greek in the East. In the greater part of these territories both Latin and Greek were acquired languages. The old vernaculars still lived on, but Latin and Greek were used in governmental business, in commerce, in literature, in religion. In the West the old vernaculars, chiefly of the Celtic and Germanic stocks, were forced into the remoter regions or died out altogether when Rome conquered their homelands. When we say a language dies we do not mean that it leaves no trace behind it. Usually, in dying it also kills the acquired language and produces a new tongue. Thus, when Latin died in Europe, new languages took its place, such as Italian, Spanish, French; and these differ from one another mainly by the effect the old vernaculars had on the speech of the conqueror. In the East, however, Latin failed to make much headway against the Greek; on the contrary, the Greek culture conquered the Latin, and in Rome, at any rate, Greek was as familiar as the ancient vernacular. In the East, Greek itself was confronted by two far more ancient civilizations. In Asia, it had to face the Semitic dialects of the great Assyrian and Babylonian Empire, and in Egypt the immemorial tongue of the Pharaohs. Hence we may say, in general, that when the Church began her work, Latin and Greek were the common tongues of the West, Greek and Syriac the common tongues of Western Asia, and Greek and Egyptian the common tongues of Eastern Africa.
In the time of our Lord the ancient Hebrew had become a dead language, and, though it was used in the Temple and the synagogue, Syriac and Greek were languages of the ordinary intercourse. When the Apostles began to preach to the people they did not take over the Hebrew language, with the exception of a few words, but they used the various vernaculars. In the same way, the common tongue was used in the Liturgy. Now, as we said, there were three great centers whence the liturgies spread, namely, Antioch, Alexandria and Rome, and we find that the chief languages used in public prayer and sacrifice, are for the first Greek and Syriac, as Antioch, while a Greek city, was the sea-gate of all Syria, both Eastern and Western. Alexandria bore the same relation to Egypt, and we find the Liturgy of Saint Mark in Greek and Coptic, that is, the language of the hieroglyphics written in Greek characters. While in Rome. the Latin language resumed exclusive sway as the shifting of the center of gravity of the empire to the Bosphorus retired the Greek to its ancient limits. When the Germanic and Slavonic nations poured in on the empire, and were gradually converted to Christianity, the East and the West developed two different policies in dealing with their languages. As a general rule, the East translated the Liturgy into the vernaculars of the new nations, while the peoples evangelized from the West were content to adopt the language of Rome in their public worship. Thus, it came to pass that Slavonic tribes, such <as the Russians, who received Christianity from Constantinople, use Slavonic in their liturgy, while other Slavonic tribes, such as the Poles, who were converted under Roman influence, use Latin. In the same way, the Abyssinians, who received the faith from Alexandria, use Ethiopic, and the Irish, who received the faith from Rome, use Latin.
From what has been said of dead languages, it is easily understood that the languages we speak now are new growths. As a matter of fact, languages are constantly changing. If you read the English written two hundred years ago, you will notice at once that, while you understand it perfectly, there is something unfamiliar about it; if you go back two hundred years farther, you will need a glossary, and the phrases will often be quite unintelligible. Read the English of a thousand years ago, and you are face to face with another language that has to be studied as you study German today. What is true of English is true in greater or less degree of all the other modern tongues. The result has been that even in countries like Russia, where the Liturgy was translated into the vernacular, the Church Russian is as strange to the Russian speaker of our time as Latin is to a Frenchman or a Spaniard.
It may be asked why does not the Church now translate the Liturgy into the vernacular or vulgar tongue? There are many reasons, but so far as the Latin Liturgy is concerned the chief is that the use of Latin has become an emphasis of doctrine. In the sixteenth century there came the great revolution known as Protestantism. One of the leading doctrines of that heresy struck at the public officers of the Church. Protestants denied the right of the officers of the Church to choose other officers according to the words of Christ, "Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you." Hence the ministers were not sent out to bring the people into the Church, but the people had the right to choose their own ministers, who, like the civil officers, had power only as long as they represented the people. Again, the Protestants denied the existence of a sacrifice in the Church, and of course with the sacrifice went the altar and the priest. All divine service was therefore merely public prayer, and all the people were equally qualified to perform it. Hence it was necessary that the divine worship should be performed in a language which all understood, and hence it is that all the Protestant sects hold service in the language used by the congregation. Their minister has no power or authority whatsoever. He is merely one of the congregation set aside for convenience sake to lead in prayer, just as a man is set aside for convenience sake to ring the bells or play the organ. As we have already seen, the Catholic doctrine is the very opposite of the Protestant teaching. All men are born into civil society. By the very fact that they exist they must exist in some government. Hence it is that they all have a right in the government, .and as a matter of fact exercise that right in a greater or less degree. But men are not born into the Church. They are brought into it either early or late in life. Hence, before there was a Christian people there were ministers sent out to form a Christian people. This is the commission Christ gave His Apostles to go out, not in the name of the people, but to the people in His Name, and to make disciples of them all, without distinction of race or color or condition. Hence the mission or authority of the public official in the Catholic Church does not come from the people, but from Christ through the Apostles and the subsequent succession of public officials. This is what is called the Apostolic Succession. In order, therefore, to emphasize the fact that the public official is a public official in her sight, even though the people do not choose him, and that public prayer is public prayer, even when offered alone by the proper officer, the Church insisted on retaining Latin in her services. This language, not known to the people, marked in the clearest way that it was not they but the properly constituted officer who was offering the public prayer. Moreover, the sacrifice was continued in Latin to show that it was the priest who offered the sacrifice, and that he offered it not because he derived his authority from the people, but because by the Apostolic Succession he had received a share of the Priesthood of Jesus Christ. Latin then became, as it were, a barrier or dividing line between priest and people an emphasis on the doctrine not only of the sacrificial character of the Mass, but also of the public character of the ministers of religion.
- taken from The Mass, by Father Peter Christopher Yorke