Which country is the most Latin: France, Spain or Italy?

Guturral shriek   Wed Nov 19, 2008 10:03 pm GMT
Italy. And I don't get why you people seem to be implicitly implying that it is better to be 'more Latin'. The Romans had an empire, but so did the French and the Spanish. And they all collapsed in the end, like all empires...
sin bragas   Wed Nov 19, 2008 10:32 pm GMT
<<Italy. And I don't get why you people seem to be implicitly implying that it is better to be 'more Latin'. The Romans had an empire, but so did the French and the Spanish. And they all collapsed in the end, like all empires... >>

Well said. The Spanish empire was the biggest of the three ones.
CJ   Wed Nov 19, 2008 10:36 pm GMT
<<Well said. The Spanish empire was the biggest of the three ones.>>

I cannot say for certain whether the Spanish Empire was bigger than the Roman, but I do know that bigger isn't always better. The Roman Empire had a much more influential and powerful empire, and it lasted for more than 4 centuries (at least the Western side).
sin bragas   Wed Nov 19, 2008 10:45 pm GMT
Yes, it was considerably bigger. At its peak the Spanish Empire included all South America, Central America, a big chunk of the United States, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, South Italy, Milan, the Philipines and many other parts. These territories exceded easily 15 millions of square kilometers. On the other hand the Roman Empire was probably less than 3 millions. As for the influence of the Roman empire, it had its influence on the conquered territories the same way the Spanish influenced on its own empire. Even more, I would say the Spanish Empire had deeper influence on America than the Romans on Europe. For example the Germans defeated the Romans but Spain conquered successfuly all the territories she wanted in America without any limits. That was a big success even more importat than the Roman Empire.
PARISIEN   Wed Nov 19, 2008 11:16 pm GMT
Of course, Italy is the core, but Spain is (or was) nearly as much.

Surprinsingly many Roman Emperors were born in Spain, from purely Spanish families, and were arguably among the greatest.
Some instances:
- Trajan
- Hadrian
- Theodosius
Leasnam   Wed Nov 19, 2008 11:25 pm GMT
<<Wrong. Arabic is considered a superstrate because its influence is reduced to loanwords. A language is substrate of another when people who spoke the former began to spoke to later and thus leaved a big impact on it. This is the case of Basque but not Arabic .Also Iberian Celtic languages are another substrate of Spanish . >>

No, this is actually correct: Arabic can be thought of as a substratum due to the reconquest/reclaiming of the southern areas of Iberian Pen., which had become Arabic speaking, from the North.

Superstatum does not necessarily have to do with "loanwords" at all per se...
Guesty   Wed Nov 19, 2008 11:30 pm GMT
<<Italy. And I don't get why you people seem to be implicitly implying that it is better to be 'more Latin'. The Romans had an empire, but so did the French and the Spanish. And they all collapsed in the end, like all empires... >>

I agree!
I don't know why some like to think of the 'Roman Empire' as THE Singular Pivotal point in Universal history...it was just ONE of MANY empires (Persian, British, Byzantine, etc). GET OVER IT ALREADY.

If you will, America can be considered an Empire too, and it Way So eclipses that one founded by those Rustic (goat-herding) Romans! Focus on that.
Pivotal point   Wed Nov 19, 2008 11:38 pm GMT
"the 'Roman Empire' as THE Singular Pivotal point in Universal history": it was the real starting point of Christianity and of both most successful inventions ever : the Julian + Christian calendar, and the Latin alphabet.
S. Palin   Thu Nov 20, 2008 12:23 am GMT
<<No, this is actually correct: Arabic can be thought of as a substratum due to the reconquest/reclaiming of the southern areas of Iberian Pen., which had become Arabic speaking, from the North>>

When people in Southern Spain began to speak Spanish instead of Arabic or Mozarabe (Romance writen with Arabic script) , the Spanish language was already formed, hence any influence could only be minimal. Substratum means the influence of other languages in the creation itself of another one. Compare the superficial influence of Arabic with the one of Basque that is really a substratum: Spanish has 5 vowels like Basque, the distinction between ser and star (already present in Latin but reinforced by the contact with Basque), the duplication of indirect object, loss of initial F, Bethacism, etc... These are features of the core itself of the Spanish language that are due to the influence of a strong Basque substrate . On the opposite superstrates a more superficial (hence the name of superstrate) impact on languages. In the case of Spanish these are Arabic and Germanic languages. Like some linguists say, Spanish was created by Basques who wanted to speak Latin. There is also a certain Celtic influence on Spanish, but it is not very clear and as studied like in the case of Basque. Certainly it must exist to some degree since in the Northernmost part of Spain where Spanish appeared, Celtic communities in coexistence with Basques had their homeland.
dkhan   Thu Nov 20, 2008 5:02 am GMT
How about Italy's Cecilia? Well, it was a part of Arabia!
Oh-barmah   Thu Nov 20, 2008 9:53 am GMT
"If you will, America can be considered an Empire too, and it Way So eclipses that one founded by those Rustic (goat-herding) Romans! Focus on that. "

The American Empire hasn't been too successful thus far. Case in point: Iraq.
Guest   Thu Nov 20, 2008 10:56 am GMT
The Latin alphabet was a slight modification of the Greek one. It had nothing special.
global standard   Thu Nov 20, 2008 3:18 pm GMT
"The Latin alphabet was a slight modification of the Greek one. It had nothing special"

.. other than it is now the global standard.
svealander   Thu Nov 20, 2008 3:37 pm GMT
<<Yes, it was considerably bigger. At its peak the Spanish Empire included all South America, Central America, a big chunk of the United States, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, South Italy, Milan, the Philipines and many other parts>>

That's true, the Spanish empire was far bigger in terms of land, but far, far smaller in terms of population.
Mr. White   Thu Nov 20, 2008 4:06 pm GMT
The only evolved part of Spanish Empire was Milan that they lost in few time. USA are the Roman Empire of our time.