Why Classical?

[Iohannes Aurum]

Just imagine us learning Cockney, Scots English, Caribbean English-based creoles, etc. instead of the more uniform standard English and you'll get the idea.

...or Ebonics or Singlish

 

[Nooj]

Is there anything wrong with wanting to learn different dialects of English?

 

[yusse]

I think the classical Latin language is standard, because the medieval Latin has many irregularities in grammar(- for exemple: Romae- hic locativus, sed in Roma, apud Romam= Romae)

 

[Quasus]

Is there anything wrong with wanting to learn different dialects of English?

Nothing wrong if one pursues scientific purposes. As for oral communication, I’m not sure if a Cocney would be happy to know that a foreigner learns his dialect. The speakers of a dialect may consider a part of their identity… Anyway, nothing but oral communication: no books, no movies.

 

[root]

But why do you say that fabulari is more common in speech? Just looking through Plautus and Terence, dicere seems much more common, and I couldn't find the obvious forms of fabulari in the Vulgate at all.

Have fabulari and dicere both entered Italian and French? There is a language who inherited both forms: Spanish. Fabulari must have given fablar>hablar = to talk. And dicere, decir = to say.

 

[Imperfacundus]

Nope. Seems that, outside of the Iberian languages, only the extinct Vegliot preserved both. I suppose one might call that one an Italian dialect, though. Certainly it experienced heavy Venetian influence.

 

[root]

Thanks, Infacundus, for your kind reply.

 

[Nooj]

Nothing wrong if one pursues scientific purposes. As for oral communication, I’m not sure if a Cocney would be happy to know that a foreigner learns his dialect. The speakers of a dialect may consider a part of their identity… Anyway, nothing but oral communication: no books, no movies.

i have no problems with immigrants learning my dialect, the australian english dialect, if they want to...

i think movies are oral communication in a way. all our homegrown movies and tv shows are filmed in the (standard) australian english dialect, with some even going into the different sociolects spoken here. and of course that's true for america as well. i had to undertake a crash course in aave when i watched the wire! also music. american rap and hip hop seems to use as much aave as standard american english.

and oral communication is really important...perhaps the most important thing. i've been frustrated with french because the type of french most books teach you is the standard written form. the actual spoken type of french is signficantly different in terms of pronunciation, syntax, vocabulary. i'm much more interested in everyday french than in formal french because that's why i learned the language, to talk to french people.

 

[Manus Correctrix]

Oé, fo po fer tro attention o liv.

 

[Gutavulfus]

Hey, keep calm, hehe.

I'm a native portuguese speaker, and in the portuguese language we have the two forms: Dizer < Dicer* < Dicere and Falar < Fabular* < Fabulare. Generally the students prefer use "dicere" because it have the "central meaning" of "speak" whereas the meaning of "fabulare" is most to "invent a history". It's only an opinion, not the only truth.

 

[Akela]

... "dicere" because it have the "central meaning" of "speak" whereas the meaning of "fabulare" is most to "invent a history". It's only an opinion, not the only truth.

Kind of like говорить and рассказывать in Russian (respectively). Interesting.

 

[Imber Ranae]

Why classical Latin? Because vulgar Latin is barely attested.