Is mastering descendents necessary? (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Is mastering descendents necessary?
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

26 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4

Γρηγόρη�
Tetraglot
Groupie
United States
Joined 4456 days ago
55 posts - 154 votes

Speaks: English*, Greek, Latin, Ancient Greek
Studies: German, French, Russian

Message 25 of 26

23 May 2013 at 6:59pm | IP Logged

Lykeio wrote:

Γρηγόρη� wrote:

Italian is also "the same language plus some centuries," fewer centuries, in fact, than
in the case of Greek. Italian is
just a form of late Latin and is so designated to highlight the amount that it has
changed and to distinguish it from
the other descendants of Latin. If there were no other descendant, we might feasibly
call Italian "Modern Latin."

Is it though? Look at the extent to which it diverges though. This is fuzzy for me
since its been a while since I've looked at, say, Adam's book on the regional
diversification of Latin which I'll check later.

I think some degree of creolization definitely needs to be taken into account, certain
changes are limited to the western half of the old empire which are inundated with non
Latin speakers. Take the formation of nouns, proto-Romance/ the earliest dialects
randomly start forming nouns based on the old accusative, it seems funny how certain
late sound changes have counterparts in some Germanic shifts (e.g the famous /k/ > /ts/
in front of certain vowels is paralleled in Anglo-Saxon takeovers of toponyms) etc.
None of these seem to affect the eastern dialects, which go through their own changes
too.

Why Italian? why not Spanish? why not French? It seems almost arbitrary. Yes Italy is
where Rome was and where several other Italic dialects were spoken but it was also
flooded with Germanic migrants. Likewise despite your counterfactual statement Italian
wasn't the only language which arose. I think a lot more things were going on than
"natural evolution" (I know that sounds Nazi like, sorry) and the level of variety is
quite large. I don't think its that analogous to Greek, which had the advantage
of populous urban centres, a central imperial administration and a habit of co-opting
migrant elites into the Greco-Roman life style.

I do think that in this case linguistics alone don't suffice and the wider social
changes tell a different story.

Greek has has just as much foreign influence over the years from Slavic languages, Albanian, Bulgarian, Turkish,
and Italian (not to mention French and English in the past century). The classicist's standard caricature of
Modern Greek is that it is a bastard hybrid of these languages with little relationship to the ancient language.
Greek did manage to change less than Italian and, thanks to the archaist/katharevousa movement, has jettisoned
much that was borrowed from those languages.

Why not Spanish or French? As someone who knows Latin well and has a fairly good grasp of the daughter
languages (I have to read scholarship in all three), I don't think that there is much question as to which of the
three is closer to Latin. I could give some examples, but I think that that would open another can of worms.
2 persons have voted this message useful

Lykeio
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4245 days ago
120 posts - 357 votes

Message 26 of 26

23 May 2013 at 7:17pm | IP Logged

Yes I agree.

What Spanish scholarship are you reading btw? Are you one of the military history guys?
I don't think I ever really use Spanish other than the Mycenaean dictionary (which has,
alas, replaced Morpurgo Davies Latin one) and a few articles there. Just curious, sorry
if this is too self identifying! I do epic and lyric incidentally and rarely use it.

Well with Latin you're right that that is another discussion. I'm unwilling to trust
generic accounts or my own impressions. I certainly think, along with everybody else,
that Sardinian is the closest overall but proximity and conservatism (which are
relative) don't always say a lot about how the language was derived. As I said I think
there are quite a few external factors, cf eastern and western derivation etc.

Incidentally I pulled Adam's book from the shelf, it focuses from 200bc-600ad and is
absolutely massive, I had forgotten about that. :S Going over the section on Spanish
and apparent conservatism.

Edited by Lykeio on 23 May 2013 at 7:22pm
1 person has voted this message useful

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