Nigeria, April 10 -- There are a few countries where lawyers and courts are as gifted in twisting judicial pronouncements as those in Nigeria. It is not merely the wigs and gowns, relics of a colonial past, that make the courtroom forbidding. It is the language, especially Latin, that often turns justice into an elaborate puzzle, hiding meaning in plain sight.

As facts go on trial, so does plain language

Though Latin still features in many Commonwealth countries which inherited the colonial legacy of British jurisprudence, the language itself is nearly dead. Latin is no longer the classical global language of the Roman Empire and is used only in the Vatican City in formal, limited contexts.

Why Latin has retained a constant presence in...