| Dancastro, there isn't really a "Latin Academy", so we have to look for precedent and modern usage. If something is attested in a classical source, it is usually accepted, although even they sometimes had numerous spellings for foreign names (but, for example, "Africa" or "Britannia" are good classical words). Medieval and early modern precedents are also used, often taken from scientific literature ("Canada", "America" - for example, the Latin adjective "canadensis", "Canadian", goes back to at least the seventeenth century). Sometimes, if the Vatican publishes something in Latin, or the Finnish/Latin radio station Nuntii Latini, it will be accepted as a standard word/spelling. (My favourite example is that there is a Latin vocabulary for birth control, because the Popes have written so much against it!) Modern names are generally left alone if they don't break any Latin rules (like "Vanuatu"), or if they just can't be Latinized (not on this quiz, but I have seen "Fredericus Nietzsche"). Latin Wikipedia tries not to create new words, so there should be a precedent for everything they use, but when they have to pick one possibility over another, whichever spelling they pick sets another precedent, just from the fact of being used on Latin Wikipedia. So it's kind of "ad hoc" and not entirely regulated...just like English vocabulary. |
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