this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2025
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I love how some Latin-based words are fancy and complicated in English while being totally normal in Romance languages. In Portuguese, Latifúndio is like a basic word everybody uses when discussing agribusiness. Same goes for plenty of medical stuff. English speakers go to the ENT if their throat hurts. We go to the otolaryngologist, otorrinolaringologista or just otorrino.
The English translations and study of Freud use id, ego, and superego. All latin forms to denote how sophisticated and sciencey he must have been. The concepts declared as academic abstractions, special terms to learn.
In Freud's actual writing, they are Es, Ich, and Über-Ich: "it", "I", and "beyond I". In normal language, in his own tongue of German. Sure, he capitalizes them to make it clear they are dedicated concepts, but they are not Latin. That was English language academics trying to make it sound sufficiently academic.
The English language already uses a capitalised I by default in common language, so attempting to use the same conventions would be at best unnecessarily confusing.
Maybe it didn't strictly have to be Latin, but it easily makes sense to invent discrete terms.
In English you could just write "Self" and be fine. The urge to Latinize comes from a tradition of academics trying to make something even more academic and, historically, required the "standard" education of learning Latin (and some Greek) at substantial expense of your parents. Snooty people for hundreds of years would not consider you educated (read: part of their in-group) unless you could come up with a new university motto.
Pro Ecclesia, Pro Texana