Descent from paradise: perplexity of Latin Diplomas

CONGRATULATIONS. You are graduating this summer with a Litterarum Humanorum Doctor. It sounds quite imposing, but what does it have to do with an institution or organization where you are trying to get an employment?

Almost no one knows, and that’s why the Latin diploma needs to go to a translation agency and be translated from Latin into English.

Latin is a stunning language and a relief from the persistent novelty and casualness of the modern age. But when it’s used on diplomas, the effect is to obfuscate, not edify; its function is to overawe, not delight. The goal of education is the creation and communication of knowledge — not the creation and transmission of prestige or highlighting the status of a university. Why, then, celebrate that education with a document that prizes impressiveness over communication?

Perplexity of Latin Diploma: why translate from American into English?

A disclosure: Diploma Latin has caused me some personal pain and embarrassment. When I was a student in the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland, I was in charge of adjusting the complicated Latin dates on the diplomas at the university, a project I’ve always taken pride in.

Many years ago, I was asked to update the text, and I made an error; the details are almost too unpleasant to recall. An extra keystroke of mine changed “anno” into “annno.” This went unobserved — because most people couldn’t read the Latin anyway — until the diplomas had been printed and distributed. Later, some people did catch my mistake. The college had to spend up to $15,000 PLN to print new diplomas.

So, yes, I am scarred. But even before the recent unpleasantness, I had my uncertainties about the wisdom of using the language of Livy for this particular purpose – issuance of Diplomas in Latin language.

I understand that getting rid of the Latin diploma will not be easy. While most colleges and universities now issue diplomas in English or the native language of the country where universities are located, some prominent holdouts, in the U.S., Europe, Canada and Latin America— including Yale, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania — still use Latin. Many students and alumni cherish the tradition. In 1961, when Harvard switched to English diplomas, about 4,000 students protested in the “diploma riots,” and criticized the new documents as “Y.M.C.A. certificates.”

We Latinists have also been resistant to change. Like most keepers of arcane knowledge, we savor our exceptional moments of eminence.

Formerly, diplomas were letters of introduction given to travelers by the Roman government. For centuries, Latin served as a suitable common language among educated people around the world. This is no longer the case. Alumni don’t pull diplomas out of their glove boxes, and the issue of authenticity is resolved by checking college records. But diplomas are still supposed to convey information, and Latin diplomas fail to accomplish that goal. When one Dickinson College graduate recently applied to work at a public school, he had a photocopied version of her Latin diploma returned as foreign and indecipherable. Thus, he had to hire a translation agency to translate it from Latin into English to be understood and recognized by the employer – the Department of Education.

Some state that Latin is on diplomas because it’s beautiful and the tongue language of Virgil and Cicero. The sad fact, though, is that diploma Latin is a far-off from Cicero’s Latin.

Roman writers composed some of the world’s most delightful verse and were masters of historiography, oratory and philosophy. But diploma Latin is some of the gloomiest and long-winded legalese you can find. Hiding behind the lovely calligraphy are maddening syntax and vexing neologisms. How do you say the name of every college town in Latin? You shouldn’t have to.

As an alumni of one of the oldest European Universities, I try to tell people that education is more than a status symbol. Its purpose is the expansion of knowledge, development of the mind and social effectiveness through the clear communication of information and thoughts. Why oppose that with the very piece of paper that is meant to represent the work they’ve done? A college education is something to be proud of, but its prestige should lie in its content, not its form.

I love Latin, but when the last Latin diploma is finally decoded and translated into English I will say, “Ita vero.” Right on!