when did latin die?

[Alessandra]

You actually think so?
You think it's much more likely that these languages-despite their incredible similarity to Latin- simply popped out of nowhere?

Ah, if only you had read what I wrote, you'd see that it has nothing to do with claiming that any language simply pops out of nowhere.

Marcus Elenae florem dat.
Marcus dà un fiore a Elena.

So if you take all this into account I think it's safe to say that Latin kind of "evolved " to form the romance languages.
It seems very unlikely that the languages resemble each other so much without being derived from Latin.

Your own example above works against your theory. Syntacticly, there are great, fundamental differences between the Latin and the Italian.

 

[Pacifica]

Linguistic borrowing rarely extends to the most simple and basic of everyday words, and would never involve the vast majority of such words.​

So it seems to me.

It's sadly true that we have few traces of the real vulgar Latin for the reasons AS said, but we have a few hints to later Romance evolution here and there in inscriptions (and in some late authors); for a few examples, the confusion of cases - mainly ablative and accusative, with accusative absolutes etc. -, the increasing use of prepositions - ad + acc. instead of the dative, de + abl. or acc. instead of the genitive -, the loss of gender distinction in the relative pronouns - [female name] qui vixit annis... and such things aren't rare in inscriptions -, various morphologic/orthographic (and so hints to pronunciation) changes, and even a trace of the new Romance future tense (coming from infinitive + habere) which supplanted the classical latin one - I remember one inscription that combines both this and a "normalized" form of the verb esse, in fact already the Italian one: quod sumus, essere habetis... "What we are (i.e. bones...), you have to be = you will be".

 

[Alessandra]

There may be no written evidence of an increasingly vulgarised Latin gradually loosing its morphology and being therefore forced to change its syntax, but there is no written record of this supposed alternative Romance Mother Tongue either.​

That's not what Carme Jiménez Huertas says.

In any case the idea of a parallel language being so very much like Latin at the level of its most basic vocabulary is very difficult to credit.

I don't see why that would be, since we're talking about the same geographic region.

Marcus Elenae florem dat.
Marcus dà un fiore a Elena.

In fact, regarding the example above, German, English, and all the Romance languages have the same syntax. But not Latin - it's completely different than this entire group of geographically neighboring languages.

 

[Abbatiſſæ Scriptor]

Much like what German linguists call a sprachbund.
In any case it is normal for a Language to loose syntactic freedom as it looses morphology and needs to rely on syntax to carry the burden of grammer; and when syntax needs to be limited to a set pattern, there are really not that many patters to choose from.

 

[Lyceum]

That's not what Carme Jiménez Huertas says.

It's what every reputable linguist says however. I'm all for mind shattering new theories like when we found the Indo-European language family, or oral theory, or were able to read hithero unreadable Italic documents and so on and forth...it has to be strongly evidence based.

What a lot of people don't understand is that philology is empirical and predicative to the point where we're able to decode and read new languages. I'm tired of petty arguments.

Also as for the Latin > Romance shift (talking to the sane people here) we do have rather a lot of evidence spread out. Firstly we have a good amount of Romans talking about their language(s) which is wonderful, we also have a LOT of colloquial Latin from around the empire. Everybody cites Pompeian graffiti and thinks that's it. No, we have lots of stuff from Britain, as in letters, legal documents, curses and so on. Egypt is an absolute goldmine of actual Latin too. This isn't mentioning scholia, literature with a colloquial bent etc either.

The only controversy is that linguists have traditionally been unwilling to examine substrata, creolisation and so on with connection to our western languages until recently so the traditional modern is Romance = modern Latin which is increasingly not being seen as the case. Rather they're Latin derived, but there's been a lot of input from their respective environments.

If you want some book recommendations I would recommend the following: J.N Adams "The Regional Diversification of Latin". It's a wonderful textbook, the most up to date. It also goes well with his other work on register and bilingualism (both important for the development of Latin); Dickey and Chahoud "Colloquial and Literary Latin" not as directly applicable but more approachable if you're not 100% up on linguistics and doesn't bombard you with sheer amount of evidence cited, its very much literary in orientation so that's good.

 

[Matthaeus]

Thanks for that last title, Lyceum. Rather pricey on amazon....

 

[Alessandra]

Alessandra says: That's not what Carme Jiménez Huertas says.​

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Lyceum says: It's what every reputable linguist says however.
==========

I don't care about reputation in that sense that adulation by others is no guarantee of one's ability to think or to question anything. I'd be more interested to know why she is saying what she says.

Also as for the Latin > Romance shift (talking to the sane people here) we do have rather a lot of evidence spread out. Firstly we have a good amount of Romans talking about their language(s) which is wonderful, we also have a LOT of colloquial Latin from around the empire. Everybody cites Pompeian graffiti and thinks that's it. No, we have lots of stuff from Britain, as in letters, legal documents, curses and so on. Egypt is an absolute goldmine of actual Latin too. This isn't mentioning scholia, literature with a colloquial bent etc either.

Is that all? Because, first, that is no evidence at all from Portugal, Spain, France, or Italy. You say there is evidence of colloquial Latin -something that was never questioned - but what evidence do you have that shows what you claim is the in-between stage of Latin and Portuguese or Spanish, for example? This in-between language would be neither Latin, nor Portuguese; neither Latin, nor Spanish - and it would only be spoken for a a few centuries. What book do you know of that specifically shows proof of this magical language transition all across Western Europe during the 4-th to 8th centuries? And why didn't this same magical language transformation take place in Northern Africa, for example? Or in many other Latin/Roman conquered places? Did Egypt generate a language that is derived from Latin? Which language is that?

If I understand you and your claim correctly, you believe this profound and radical transformation of colloquial Latin spoken **everywhere** simply popped out of nowhere in the 4th century - for no discernible reason, without being imposed from above - and then, in many ways, it simply comes to an abrupt end four centuries later. For example, I, no specialist, can read many texts from 800 years ago in the Romance languages. That's 800 years - no major radical change. And yet you claim there was a radical transformation of Latin **all around Europe** in three to five hundred years - while the official language imposed and stressed upon continues to be Latin! And then, in the Iberian Peninsula, for example, you have the same period of conquest from a people with another language (4 to 7 centuries). Why didn't this same magical transformation of all the autochthonous languages take place generating new languages that were neither Latin, Romance, nor Arabic - but Arabic-derived? Languages which were 90% based on Arabic vocabulary?

Please continue addressing "the sane people here," what you call sane notions are quite amusing.

 

[Pacifica]

In fact, regarding the example above, German, English, and all the Romance languages have the same syntax. But not Latin - it's completely different than this entire group of geographically neighboring languages.

English used to have a case system as well, and lost it as well, even later than Latin/Romance did.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English
And German still has a case system, so, though I don't know it, I don't think it has the same syntax as Romance languages.

 

[Lyceum]

Alessandra says: That's not what Carme Jiménez Huertas says.​

==========​

Lyceum says: It's what every reputable linguist says however.
==========

I don't care about reputation in that sense that adulation by others is no guarantee of one's ability to think or to question anything. I'd be more interested to know why she is saying what she says.

Yes because clearly ones ability in an area is defined by adulation right? As for your other question, ineptitude is the most logical answer.

Is that all? Because, first, that is no evidence at all from Portugal, Spain, France, or Italy. You say there is evidence of colloquial Latin -something that was never questioned - but what evidence do you have that shows what you claim is the in-between stage of Latin and Portuguese or Spanish, for example? This in-between language would be neither Latin, nor Portuguese; neither Latin, nor Spanish - and it would only be spoken for a a few centuries. What book do you know of that specifically shows proof of this magical language transition all across Western Europe during the 4-th to 8th centuries? And why didn't this same magical language transformation take place in Northern Africa, for example? Or in many other Latin/Roman conquered places? Did Egypt generate a language that is derived from Latin? Which language is that?

Sigh. Yes we have rather a lot of evidence from those places too. I don't understand what you find magical about the transformation? languages change and the major changes in Latin, collapse of some dipthongs, simplification of the verbal system, prepositions replacing the need for case usage and so on are not only easily accounted for but quite common in all inflected languages throughout history. Also, if you really don't know what happened to Egypt to keep there from being a modern spoken Romance language there well...you really have serious gaps in your general education.

If I understand you and your claim correctly, you believe this profound and radical transformation of colloquial Latin spoken **everywhere** simply popped out of nowhere in the 4th century - for no discernible reason, without being imposed from above - and then, in many ways, it simply comes to an abrupt end four centuries later..

Well clearly you don't understand. Moreover, If you think there's been no appreciable change in the Romance languages for the past 8 centuries...well I don't know what to say, there is an appreciable change from the first Beneventine inscriptions to Dante to modern Italian, likewise from Old French to the modern vernacular. A passive intelligibility doesn't mean there's been no change. I can pick up and read Digenes Akritas without any medievalist training, doesn't make it modern Greek.

Please continue addressing "the sane people here," what you call sane notions are quite amusing.

No, what I call sane as notions corroborated by an unimaginable wealth of evidence constantly reviewed and challenged by several highly trained linguistics across several disciplines for a few centuries now. Please don't confuse your lack of knowledge for some sort of...profound iconoclasm. In fact, I've cited two or three good books and there are several others out there, feel free. Or otherwise stop wasting everyone's time.

 

[Abbatiſſæ Scriptor]

It would be much easier to carry on here if we could know how Alessandra sees the relationship between Latin and Romance. Does she suppose them to be sister languages? If indeed they be sisters, by her analysis, how and when did they diverge, and how should we account for their similarities as well as their differences?

 

[Alessandra]

Yes because clearly ones ability in an area is defined by adulation right?

There has often been a clear confusion between ability and adulation, between being right and being capable of questioning what is blindly accepted as so.

Yes we have rather a lot of evidence from those places too.

Where? Could you point me to a book that chronicles all this evidence regarding a specific language. Let's take Portuguese or Spanish. I asked you for such a book, and you refused to answer. You know of no such book then? There is nothing?

prepositions replacing the need for case usage and so on are not only easily accounted for

But why not? Your great thesis says this happened all at the same time for millions and millions of people! And yet, where is the evidence?

Also, if you really don't know what happened to Egypt to keep there from being a modern spoken Romance language there well...you really have serious gaps in your general education.

Why only Egypt? Let's take every single conquered territory of the Romans - which according to your thesis must for no reason at all suddenly start to change profound syntactic mechanisms, in the same way, at the same time across an area of the size of Northern Africa.

Here you have a brief account of the Roman occupation of North Africa:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa_(Roman_province)

How many Romance languages developed from the "vulgar Latin" spoken all across North Africa - such as you claim is exactly what happened in Europe - and for no reason? You are right, you need to enlighten us. Which Romance languages evolved in Northern Africa out of the vulgar Latin there? Surely, you must know of one or two!

If you think there's been no appreciable change in the Romance languages for the past 8 centuries...well I don't know what to say, there is an appreciable change from the first Beneventine inscriptions to Dante to modern Italian, likewise from Old French to the modern vernacular. A passive intelligibility doesn't mean there's been no change.

Ah, but I didn't say there has been no change.

No, what I call sane as notions corroborated by an unimaginable wealth of evidence constantly reviewed and challenged by several highly trained linguistics across several disciplines for a few centuries now.

Such an unimaginable wealth of evidence and yet when I ask you for all this evidence, here's what you say: "prepositions replacing the need for case usage and so on are not only easily accounted for." Oh! So all you have is a tremendous wealth of imaginary evidence! Perhaps when you were referring to ability above, you meant a solid imaginary ability as well?

Please don't confuse your lack of knowledge for some sort of...profound iconoclasm. In fact, I've cited two or three good books and there are several others out there, feel free. Or otherwise stop wasting everyone's time.

I took a quick look at "J.N Adams "The Regional Diversification of Latin"" and interestingly enough it has nothing of what I asked you for! I didn't find a "whole wealth of evidence" chronicling this intermediary language you claim existed between Latin and and the Romance languages from 400 and 800 AD. If his book goes up to 600AD, and you claim it's between 400 and 800 AD that all this Romance language transformation and creation took place - creating completely separate languages from Latin - it means that from 400 to 600 AD, that's half the time of your Great Romance Language Creation Period. And yet what Adams basically talks about is Latin, Latin, and more Latin. Where is the interval language? Maybe you should read his book before recommending it!

Or did I misunderstand you? Is your great thesis that Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Italian were all created in 200 years, meaning from 600-800 AD, just like that? I'm sure you must have an even greater wealth of imaginary evidence that proves that!

It would be much easier to carry on here if we could know how Alessandra sees the relationship between Latin and Romance. Does she suppose them to be sister languages? If indeed they be sisters, by her analysis, how and when did they diverge, and how should we account for their similarities as well as their differences?

Seems to me that it's more logical to think of Latin as the Aunt, not the Mother. As to when, how, and why - that's what I would like to know. As you can see, I'm not satisfied with all the imaginary evidence that is claimed for the "vulgar Latin is the Mother and it all happened in 400 years" theory. The gap between Latin and the Romance languages (even a lot of the old texts) is quite profound.

ETA: I guess one would have to have a better idea of all the local languages across Europe before the Roman conquest to start putting the puzzle together. What happened to these languages?

 

[Abbatiſſæ Scriptor]

Seems to me that it's more logical to think of Latin as the Aunt, not the Mother.

I may not agree, but at least I have a clearer idea of your position now, so thank you

 

[Alessandra]

English used to have a case system as well, and lost it as well, even later than Latin/Romance did.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English
And German still has a case system, so, though I don't know it, I don't think it has the same syntax as Romance languages.

Ah, but I never said all of these languages have the same syntax.

And I am yet to see any Romance language having the same case system as its touted Latin Mother language! As the wiki page says, Old English has more to do with classical Latin in terms of grammar than the Romance languages. Why would that be? Isn't it curious? I don't speak German, but it would be my guess that the "Latin" grammar of Old English comes from its Germanic grammar roots. Would this similar grammar in Old German have some kind of same root with Latin at some point in their pasts?

Another thing that is interesting is the period from 700-1400 AD regarding Old/Middle English because of the intense changes.

 

[Pacifica]

Ah, but I never said all of these languages have thesame syntax.

You did... Here:

In fact, regarding the example above, German, English, and all the Romance languages have the same syntax. But not Latin - it's completely different than this entire group of geographically neighboring languages.

And I am yet to see any Romance language having the same case system as its touted Latin Mother language!

No Romance language has the same case system as Latin, no one will say the contrary. But it doesn't mean they don't come from it. I talked about Old English to give an example of another language which lost its case system, to show that the loss of case system from Latin to Romance languages was not something unseen elsewhere, since the same happened from old to modern English. So unless you also deny modern English comes from Old English, there's nothing unique about a child language having a different syntax than its mother. On the other hand I think it's impossible to have several languages with about 99% (way of speaking, I don't know the exact percentage but it mustn't be far from it) of their vocabulary obviously coming from a more ancient and common one, as is the case with Romance languages and Latin, without their directly descending from it.

Something strange also is that you seem bothered by the relative "lack of evidence"* from the period of transition from Latin to Romance, but you advocate for the existence of another common ancestor for which we have no evidence AT ALL, not a single trace!

* Though it's true the remains of vulgar Latin are scarce because those who wrote the most were the educated, had literary pretentions and classical Latin was the written standard one tried to imitate more or less successfully, we do have traces of the changes. If you read an author like Cicero and then late authors, you see some changes and you see it gets closer on some points to romance languages. Then there are also inscriptions I've already talked about.

 

[Alessandra]

Alessandra dixit: ↑

Ah, but I never said all of these languages have thesame syntax.​

You did... Here:
Alessandra dixit: ↑

In fact, regarding the example above, German, English, and all the Romance languages have the same syntax. But not Latin - it's completely different than this entire group of geographically neighboring languages.​

==============
Oh heavens, PP, read the whole sentence. I'm referring to the sentence given in the example. In all the languages cited, the syntax is the same - for the sentence in the example!

 

[Pacifica]

Ok, apologises, I misunderstood you, didn't read carefully enough I guess. Since I don't know German, I can't judge with regards to that particular sentence.

 

[Alessandra]

Something strange also is that you seem bothered by the relative "lack of evidence"* from the period of transition from Latin to Romance, but you advocate for the existence of another common ancestor for which we have no evidence AT ALL, not a single trace!
==============
In part because the transition period is the latest period. I don't know what evidence exists for these dozens and dozens of ancient European languages. It seems clear to me that you don't know either.

I found this very enlightening however - grand ol' wiki comes to the rescue:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgar_Latin

The broad term Vulgar Latin should not be confused with the more specific term Proto-Romance, which refers specifically to the theoretical common ancestor to the modern Romance languages, as such Proto-Romance may have been only one of the Vulgar Latin languages and only a very late stage of that language branch.

................
It cannot be supposed that the spoken language was a distinct and persistent language so that the citizens of Rome would be regarded as bilingual. Instead, Vulgar Latin is a blanket term covering the popular dialects and sociolects of the Latin language throughout its range from the hypothetical prisca latinitas of unknown or poorly remembered times in early Latium to the death of Latin after the fall of the empire.

................
Right there, this covers such a long period of time and a wide geographic area that the initial question that must be asked is: what are all these dialects and sociolects? This period is about 1000 years!

Around 200BC, you have dozens of languages spoken in Western Europe. Where was Vulgar Latin spoken then? Who spoke it? Between 200BC and 1AD, you have a great Roman expansion. So then you would have all these non-Latin languages competing with Latin. For some reason, all the local languages are completely abandoned with the arrival of the Romans conquerors? Only basque survived? Doesn't it seem a bit weird? They say that citizens of Rome couldn't be regarded as bilingual - but what about everyone else? Why didn't the disappearance of the original language happen in so many other places that have had a similar occupation - including the Iberian Peninsula - which was conquered after the Romans? Why didn't it happen in Africa?

There is also another point: I guess "Vulgar Latin" is used to refer to dozens and dozens languages (or sociolects) in so many different stages of development for such a long time, that I was thinking of the term in a much more restricted sense.

 

[Bestiola]

There has often been a clear confusion between ability and adulation, between being right and being capable of questioning what is blindly accepted as so.

You confess of not being an expert on the matter of Latin philology, but for some strange reason you have decided to blindly follow someone who has just as much classical training as high school students.

Why only Egypt? Let's take every single conquered territory of the Romans - which according to your thesis must for no reason at all suddenly start to change profound syntactic mechanisms, in the same way, at the same time across an area of the size of Northern Africa.

I am not sure whether you are even aware of the number of romance languages that died out.

These are just a few:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pannonian_Romance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Latin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalmatian_language

Then there is IstroRomanian which will most likely die out very soon, and some others, some extinct, some still alive that formed in the areas of the Roman Empire, about whom I doubt the author of the book you are quoting even heard anything, and even less studied enough to make a proper judgment:

Aragonese
Aromanian
Asturian
Bergamasque
Corsican
Emilian
Extremaduran
Franco-Provençal
Friulan
Galician
Judaeo-Spanish
Ladin
Leonese
Ligurian
Lombard (west.)
Mauritian Creole
Milanese
Mozarabic
Neapolitan
Norman
Occitan
Picard
Piedmontese
Romansh
Sardinian
Sassarese
Sicilian
Umbrian
Venetian
Walloon

How many Romance languages developed from the "vulgar Latin" spoken all across North Africa - such as you claim is exactly what happened in Europe - and for no reason? You are right, you need to enlighten us. Which Romance languages evolved in Northern Africa out of the vulgar Latin there? Surely, you must know of one or two!

You seem very fond of quoting wikipedia - so here you go - chapter on African Romance:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Romance

I took a quick look at "J.N Adams "The Regional Diversification of Latin"" and interestingly enough it has nothing of what I asked you for! I didn't find a "whole wealth of evidence" chronicling this intermediary language you claim existed between Latin and and the Romance languages from 400 and 800 AD.

That book has more than 800 pages. Unless you have magical powers you won't be able to find anything "by taking a quick look".

I'm sure you must have an even greater wealth of imaginary evidence that proves that!

And your "abundance of evidence" seems to amount to randomly chosen Wikipedia articles and a book by an author with very disputable knowledge and no credentials whatsoever.

 

[cinefactus]

This thread does seem to be going around in circles.
I have heard your position argued by an eminent scholar Alessandra, so I won't dismiss it out of hand. If you want to carry out a reasoned discussion in this thread, however, you should provide concrete evidence supported by published references.

 

[Alessandra]

This thread does seem to be going around in circles.
I have heard your position argued by an eminent scholar Alessandra, so I won't dismiss it out of hand. If you want to carry out a reasoned discussion in this thread, however, you should provide concrete evidence supported by published references.

Are you saying that I cannot ask any questions? In your view, asking a question is not part of a reasoned debate?

If you had actually looked at the Adams book that was referred to in the thread, it's clear it doesn't answer any of my questions. Perhaps this is why you say the thread is going around in circles. The people who claim to have the answers cannot provide them or sustain their arguments with concrete evidence supported by published references.

That is certainly not anything we can call "reasoned." But it seems you just want to close down the questioning. In that case, any excuse will do.