Which is closer to Latin

Rolando   Sat Mar 24, 2007 5:22 am GMT
Ok guy's out this 3 languages, which do you think is closer to Latin...?

1. French
2. Spanish
3. Italian
greg   Sat Mar 24, 2007 9:38 am GMT
De quel « latin » parles-tu ?

De toute façon, les 3 langues citées ***SONT**** du latin.
Guest   Sat Mar 24, 2007 9:49 am GMT
Spanish
Guest   Sat Mar 24, 2007 12:21 pm GMT
<< Spanish >>

English, of course!
Guest   Sat Mar 24, 2007 1:22 pm GMT
Italian
French
Spanish


In That order
Josh Lalonde   Sat Mar 24, 2007 1:46 pm GMT
I disagree. French is certainly farther than either Italian or French, due to wide-spread sound changes. I don't know enough to say for sure between Italian and Spanish which is closer, but Spanish did absorb a fairly large Arabic vocabulary, while Italian didn't.
Wallash   Sat Mar 24, 2007 2:25 pm GMT
<< Italian
French
Spanish


In That order >>

Ok, but i think french is the first when you compare the Latin vocabulary (and orthography: similarities with: the Où-Ubi, Non (similar), QUI (similar), QUE (similar), EST(similar), ET (similar), TEMPS-TEMPUS, CORPS-CORPUS, Latin the -Ant terminaisons like ERRANT(similar), TRUCIDANT(similar) words in latin in french )
But in prononciation, clearly the 1st is Italian, Spanish 2nd (because, the pronunciation was influenced by arabic and iberian substractum), and French 3rd (influenced by germanic and a gallic substractum)
Guest   Sat Mar 24, 2007 3:11 pm GMT
<< Italian
French
Spanish


In That order >>

Yes, if you want to say which of them is closer to a dead language.
Guest   Sat Mar 24, 2007 3:30 pm GMT
Eheu! Not this again.
Pete   Sat Mar 24, 2007 3:34 pm GMT
<<Ok, but i think french is the first when you compare the Latin vocabulary (and orthography: similarities with: the Où-Ubi, Non (similar), QUI (similar), QUE (similar), EST(similar), ET (similar), TEMPS-TEMPUS, CORPS-CORPUS, Latin the -Ant terminaisons like ERRANT(similar), TRUCIDANT(similar) words in latin in french )>>

But think about declensions, what you mention are only isolated words. In Italian and Spanish, case system was lost just like in French of course, but many declensions remained the same. We don't only have some words that look like latin, Italian and Spanish have an awful lot of words that are very very similar or very often just the same as their Latin counterparts.

I agree with you about the pronunciation, so for me the order is:

1º Italian
2º Spanish
3º French

Also the porcentage of evolution of French is about 46% while Spanish is 21% and Italian only 12%. The lowest, hence the closest to Latin is Sardinian with only 7% of evolution from Latin.

Kind regards

Pete from Peru
Guest   Sat Mar 24, 2007 3:34 pm GMT
Chinese is the most closer language.
look the similarity:
Bullshitong - Bullshitum
Fuckallting and Fuckallum...
It's disturbing, isn't it?


A latin manuscript:
Si si clarus, que rambladum de lo azblugandos pollas Jennifer Lopez, Pennelope Cruz y Shakira puta nanas chitas chiliconcarne al pimiento fortifero con huevos de tus bollas de mierdas...
Ave Caesar! Fidel Castro y Morituri Cubanos te salutant!
Non Cogito ergo latino sum.

VIVA LA REVOLUCION!!!!!
guest   Sat Mar 24, 2007 3:35 pm GMT
the closest to classical latin is sardinian, sicilian, romanian
Pete   Sat Mar 24, 2007 3:35 pm GMT
<<We don't only have some words that look like latin, Italian and Spanish have an awful lot of words that are very very similar or very often just the same as their Latin counterparts.>>

And I'm talking about writting, pronunciation and usage here.

Thanks

Pete
Guest   Sat Mar 24, 2007 3:53 pm GMT
Oh...as to which (modern) Romance language is 'closest' to Latin...the question must be reformed. In what way?...no one language is 'closest' to Latin in all areas (phonology/phonetics, morphology, syntax). Also...which Latin?: Classical, Vulgar, Late, etc. In my personal opinion--having to work on this constantly--I would put it as follows:

Phonolgy/Phonetics: the closest is probably Sardinian and South-Central Italian and Spanish, since the vowels are pretty much the same (albeit in Sardinian in reduced form) as well as the syllable structure...standard (Florentine) Italian can be thrown in here, too.

Morphology: no one, really. If you want to say that Rumanian is, since it still have a case distinction, ok, fine. In reality, it's highly pared down...no where near the level that Classical Latin, and even Vulgar Latin, had.

Syntactically, Rumanian is 'archaic' in that it retains case distinction (albeit in reduced form from Latin) as well as pseudo-three-way gender distinction (the 'third gender' is often termed ambigeneric since the singular forms are that of the masc.sing, but the plural forms are that of the fem.sing.; this third 'gender' does not have distinct inflection of its own, even on modifiers, and so there is great debate as to whether it is a gender or not...There are substantial 'Balkan' traits to the language the use of postposed articles (so it looks like 'noun-article' all in one word) being one of many areas. Due to the substantial Slavic influence, it is often thought that aspects of them influenced Rumanian.

Lexically, yes there are 'archaic' words in Spanish/Portuguese and Sardinian...basically, 'more archaic' words tend to be used in the periphery of a language community.

Syntax: again, no one really here, either. Classical Latin was a Subject-Object-Verb order, when there was word order in a sentence, with high reliance on case inflection instead of word order and prepositions. Every one of the Romance languages, including Rumanian and the Rhaeto-Romance languages, has high reliance on prepositions and medium-to-high reliance on word order (it's still much more flexible than, say, English). Verbal aspect (perfective/progressive/imperfective) has been greatly reduce in the modern languages, as well.

Evolution from latin {{{Phonology}}}
Sardian 7%
Italian 12%
Spanish 20%
Romanian 23.5%
Portuguese 31%
French 44%

Overall...I really would doubt that any of the Classical writers would be able to read much of any of the modern Romance languages. Even as early as the 10th and 11th century--so ~600-700 years after the fall of the Empire--the morphology and syntax of the Romance languages were vastly different from Classical and Vulgar Latin(s).
Sergio   Sat Mar 24, 2007 5:34 pm GMT
Hi everyone,

An independent question for you:

Is it known when and/or where from the future subjunctive forms used in Pt/Sp (even if quite seldom in Sp now) appeared/derived of?

Is it a verbal form that any variant/stage of Latin had or is it an independent "creation" in some of the peninsular Romance languages?

Why those forms didn't evolve in the other Romance languages, or did they, only to disappear in earlier stages of these languages?