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I just saw a video asking like how would one say I just had an avocado toast and thought about some of the new stuff that didn't exist back then. How would we integrate new words into the Latin language.

For example, computer or a car or television or I have an Xbox One

From the last 2 weeks that I have spent learning Latin I have fallen in love with it and really wanted to be able to fluently speak it and write it but these type of questions make me doubt sometimes that the Latin language could be used like English or Spanish for example.

Are we limited to what was known or spoke in the Roman times? I asked as well how would one say good morning in Latin but the answers I got were that they didn't really had any time greetings, just salve but couldn't we maybe be able to come up with a good morning sentence in Latin since the modern days that's how we usually greet in the morning?

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    Nobody's going to stop you, but if you're willing to make up whole new ahistoric idioms, not just out of necessity coin a few words for things that didn't exist in Antiquity, I'm not sure what the point of the exercise is.
    – Cairnarvon
    Commented Apr 25, 2021 at 18:40
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    Paulum dē hāc rē hīc lege, plus Anglicē hīc.
    – Ben Kovitz
    Commented Apr 25, 2021 at 19:59
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    You also might want to see this answer from Sebastian Koppehel. I would say this in Latin but I'm still learning like you. ;)
    – Adam
    Commented Apr 25, 2021 at 20:28
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    Don't blindly translate Good morning to Latin. That's like our Duolingo users complaining that the translation of Dobrý den must be Good Day and cannot be Hello. Different languages have different greetings.
    – Vladimir F Героям слава
    Commented Apr 26, 2021 at 8:00
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    @AustinHemmelgarn i thought latin really is dead and just not extinct? if not, then ok not dead and not extinct but then what? Edit: wait the wiki article actually says 'In contrast, a dead language is "one that is no longer the native language of any community", even if it is still in use, like Latin' --> so either it's wrong or it has a different definition from you?
    – BCLC
    Commented Apr 26, 2021 at 11:24

3 Answers 3

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You seem to be addressing several issues in this question.

To start from the bottom line: Latin is already being used right now as a daily casual language. Not even a small reserve about this statement.

The external world changes, and new words are born. It happens in every language and Latin is no exception to that. New words are finally integrated into the community - the question of how this process happens is different question. Thus "the community" (As far as I can speak of a "community") has pipiatorium for Twitter (from the verb pipio) and Tutubum for YouTube.

I personally wouldn't be compelled at all to have good morning that is not salve. Morning, it seems, did exist in antiquity already, but no "good morning" different from "good evening" was used. Actually, I would actually oppose any attempt to incorporate the innovation into the language (but as a living language, at the end something is settled), simply because, for me at least, those differences are part of the beauty in languages. In short I wouldn't like to speak English in Latin, but to speak Latin.

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  • The process of adding new words is what I would like to know. Do you know any article for this?
    – Johhan Santana
    Commented Apr 25, 2021 at 19:55
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    @JohhanSantana Alter fōns est Lexicon Recentis Latīnitātis, nexūs ad alterōs hīc incipiunt.
    – Ben Kovitz
    Commented Apr 25, 2021 at 20:17
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    Tutubum is even better than the original name!
    – Peter - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Apr 26, 2021 at 6:12
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    Why are company/website names translated? You can't go to pipiatorium.com or tutubum.com.
    – Barmar
    Commented Apr 26, 2021 at 14:39
  • @Barmar, That's a good question. But as a matter of fact they got translated. Latin has declination system for nouns, so that might be a good reason to have a Latin name so the words will fall about a declination category.
    – d_e
    Commented Apr 26, 2021 at 14:59
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Latin is used regularly within the Vatican and Catholic Church, so depending on what you mean by daily usage I think that fulfills that requirement. There are also a lot of loan words that make their way into modern Latin, both historically and currently. For example, Vicipaedia, the Latin version of Wikipedia.

Latin is also used regularly on this site for casual conversation within chat, not to mention some questions are also written and answered entirely with Latin.

While I don't see myself ordering groceries in Latin, I do see myself using Latin on a daily basis for the rest of forever (or as close to it as I can get).

Regarding what you are limited to, it really depends on what your goal is. Are you looking to only use Latin as it was known within a specific time frame like the first century common era, or are you open to adding in loan words or novel constructions? There's really no right answer with this as long as it's grammatically correct. It's just personal preference, really.

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  • Loaning of words? How would that work? And from which language could we loan words from?
    – Johhan Santana
    Commented Apr 25, 2021 at 19:14
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    Loan words can come from any language. The Romans themselves incorporated words from across the whole empire and beyond, not unlike almost any modern language. How this is done varies of course, and I can think of a number of different ways a word can make its way into another language, by design or by chance. You could post another question specifically about methods of transition words from another language into Latin, if you wanted.
    – Adam
    Commented Apr 25, 2021 at 20:10
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    An awful lot of Latin words were lifted from Greek; historia etc. Anything with th or ph.
    – RedSonja
    Commented Apr 26, 2021 at 6:47
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There's Dr Ammondt singing Elvis songs in Latin, for some idea of how picking up modern terms and usage might work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II5Zvt6xJ-g

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