> Even mid 19th century English is noticeably more difficult to read, and that's saying nothing about the 16th century English of Shakespeare.
You perceive this because you read modern English; you don’t perceive similar differences in Latin because (I presume) you’re not fluent in Latin. I studied mostly Classical Latin, which yields pretty much the same experience when reading Ecclesiastical or Old Latin as modern English speakers have when reading Shakespearean English.
Or in other words: there are foundational shifts that only become legible once the language itself is legible. The fact that I could retcon “x-ray” into Latin today does not make the version of Latin that Livy spoke uniquely valuable to science.
All in all, I’d give us a better chance of preserving the sum total of human knowledge, including all versions of Latin, in fastidiously translating them into today’s dominant languages. This will be true of English too, whenever English stops being the lingua franca.
You perceive this because you read modern English; you don’t perceive similar differences in Latin because (I presume) you’re not fluent in Latin. I studied mostly Classical Latin, which yields pretty much the same experience when reading Ecclesiastical or Old Latin as modern English speakers have when reading Shakespearean English.
Or in other words: there are foundational shifts that only become legible once the language itself is legible. The fact that I could retcon “x-ray” into Latin today does not make the version of Latin that Livy spoke uniquely valuable to science.
All in all, I’d give us a better chance of preserving the sum total of human knowledge, including all versions of Latin, in fastidiously translating them into today’s dominant languages. This will be true of English too, whenever English stops being the lingua franca.