Are there Romance languages descending from Classical Latin?

À propos, la langue grecque est encore vivante dans certaines localités de l'Italie méridionale et, jusqu'à hier même, elle l'était en Corse, dans les alentours de Cargèse. À Pâques, j'y ai entendu des corses descendants de grecs crier "Khristós Anesti!" (le Christ est réssucité).

Au début du siècle dernier (XX), il y a eu, sur la côte nord de la Catalogne, une immigration de grecs, la plupart des pêcheurs de corail. Aujourd'hui encore, on y trouve des prénoms insolites dans le restant du territoire, Nestor par exemple.

<<How come Greek didn't evolve as much as Spanish or Italian from Classical Greek?>>

Because in the case of Romance Languages, the invaders took control of the areas conquered. They learnt the Latin as a second language, and spoke it as their own.


After some time, the native speakers immitated their conquerors and learnt their simplified manner of speaking. By this time, the Latin was so badly corrupted that it was essentially a new speech.

<<In Spanish there is "cabeza", which derives from capitia. Also testa is used in some dialects in informal situations. For example: Estás mal de la testa! (You are crazy). >>

Perhaps not in this particular instance, but a majority of the words in Romance, when they correspond to Classical Latin, are the result of later borrowing by the Romance language from Classical Latin in the same way English did.

Keep in mind that most if not all Romance languages maintained contact with Latin throughout their recorded histories, either through administration, higher learning or the Church.

Had this contact NOT been maintained (including orthographical artificialities), and had the later borrowings not occurred, the Romance languages would hardly be recognizable today as descending from Latin.

They would bear resemblance to one another, but if linguists happened upon them in the 20th Century...with no written records of their progression through time, I doubt that any of them would even classify the Romance group as Italic in the IE family (with Oscan, Umbrian, Latin, etc).

They might garner a family all their own: the "[-(fill in the blank)-] family"

<<After some time, the native speakers immitated their conquerors and learnt their simplified manner of speaking. >>

What do you mean by that?


Think Latin was an imposed language, I'm not sure it was ever implemented as a second language? I was under the impression that after the Roman Empire fall, when it happened, regions started to develop/ regain some speech specificities, accentuating the differences between themselves.

<<What do you mean by that?>>

What do I mean by that? Let's take the case of the Franks in Northern Gaul. They adopted Latin but it was spoken as a second language by them, Frankish was their primary. It's for this reason that French SOUNDS like German to other Romance speakers. A teacher of mine in college, who came from Eduador, said French was not like Spanish or Italian...it sounds like German! It kinda shocked me to hear that. If you think about it, it's kinda true. I always have a hard time telling a Frenchman from a German (speaking English of course) and oftentimes falsely mistake the Frenchman for a native German.

Take for instance the French use of "on" meaning "they/one" as in "they speak French in France".
Although the word comes from "hom" <fr. "homme" <fr. Latin "homo/homin-" the word is a literal translation of the German "man" as in "man sagt das". French is the only romance language that uses Latin "homo" like this. The origin is Latin but the use of the word is German. This is what I mean by that.

No , the Spanish word "cabeza", despite its Classic origin, was not later borrowed from Latin, it is a Spanish word since the first days of this language. Take into account that this words already exhibits some corruption : "b" instead of "p" for example, which proves that it is part of the vocabulary's core and was not taken from Classical Latin in the Renaissance or something like that. Spanish has many words directly taken from Classical Latin but this is not one of them.

<<No , the Spanish word "cabeza", despite its Classic origin, was not later borrowed from Latin, it is a Spanish word since the first days of this language. Take into account that this words already exhibits some corruption : "b" instead of "p" for example, which proves that it is part of the vocabulary's core and was not taken from Classical Latin in the Renaissance or something like that. Spanish has many words directly taken from Classical Latin but this is not one of them. >>

Whoa...I didn't say it was...you need to chill out : )

I was using the post as an example to introduce words that were borrowings (and they DO exist)...whether or not "cabeza" was one of them I couldn't readily ascertain. It's all good dude...CHiiiiiill

I didn't say you assured it, I only wanted to clarify that it was not borrowed from Classical Latin. You need to chill out.

<<French sounds sweet>>
HaHA not really. I agree with the post that says French sounds kinda harsh and has funny sounds like 'oeu' and 'u'...

Also, French doesn't have as many vowels in relation to consonants (vowel to consonant ratio) as say Spanish and Italian do. There are more consonant clusters in French as well.

Then there's the near ubiquitous final vowel of Italian and largely of Spanish (-o, -a, -e, -i)...this happens only sporadically in French, and if it's a '-u' it's that weird umlaut-type of "u" again..."paraplu"

Ooops, that should be 'parapluie'

my bad

make that 'reconnu' and you still see my point :]

<<You need to chill out. >>

I'm always chilled...

<<Another wrong idea again, French has a fairly high vowel to consonant ratio. I don't know if it is lower than than the Spanish one, but it crearly is much higher than in the case of German of other Germanic languages, and clearly denotes its Romance origin. >>

Wrong and Wrong again:
1). The comparison was between French and other Romance languages like Italian and Spanish. German was never included. Read before you...nevermind...

and
2). Vowel to consonant ratio is NEVER a measure of whether a language is Romance or not. Otherwise, Japanese and Hawaiian would be Romance languages.

This does not change the fact that French holds a unique position among the Romance languages, being the one most influenced by it's germanic neighbors... traversez-le!

Ok, but I stil don't find the similarity between spoken French and German. You say that it is because it has lower vowel to consonant ratio than Spanish or Italian. But still it is much higher than in the case of German. French was influenced by Frankish? Maybe, why not. But It does not soud like German, it is a nonsense.

<<But still it is much higher than in the case of German.>>

That's definitely for sure. We can agree on that! : )

Heck, ENGLISH (and the Scandinavian languages) have a higher vowel ratio than German!

<<But It does not soud like German, it is a nonsense. >>

Well, that's what my profesora said...it was her opinion maybe.

I just have a hard time distinguishing between accent when I hear a Frenchman speaking English and a German speaking English--to me they still sound alike...that's just *my* opinion :)

Peace...

To me French is the quitessence of sweet sounding languages and German is the opposite. I think that many people will agree with me.

percontator : « One of the main topics in this thread is the separation of Classical Latin from Vulgar Latin...

Do we have any real proof of this? I mean, are there any historical texts or references from the Latin speakers themselves that say that there were differences in the language? Or did this Classical/Vulgar separation happen centuries later when people starting studying and classifying it? Did the peoples who spoke Latin use these terms? »

Oui, une preuve (tardive) est donnée par l'Article 17 du Concile de Tours de 813 :

« Visum est unanimitati nostrae, ut quilibet episcopus habeat omilias continentes necessarias ammonitiones, quibus subiecti erudiantur, id est de fide catholica, prout capere possint, de perpetua retributione bonorum et aeterna damnatione malorum, de resurrectione quoque futura et ultimo iudicio et quibus operibus possit promereri beata uita quibusque excludit. Et ut easdem omelias quisque aperte transferre studeat →→→ in rusticam *Romanam* linguam ←←← aut Thiotiscam, quo facilius cuncti possint intellegere quae dicuntur. »

Voici deux traductions italiennes glanées sur la toile :

« All’unanimità abbiamo deliberato che ciascun vescovo tenga omelie, contenenti le ammonizioni necessarie a istruire i sottoposti circa la fede cattolica, secondo la loro capacità di comprensione, circa l’eterno premio ai buoni e l’eterna dannazione dei malvagi, e ancora circa la futura resurrezione e il giudizio finale, e con quali opere possa meritarsi la beatitudine, con quali perdersi. E che si studi di tradurre comprensibilmente le medesime omelie nella lingua romana rustica o nella tedesca, affinché più facilmente tutti possano intendere quel che viene detto. »

« E’ parso opportuno a tutti noi che ogni vescovo pronunci omelie che contengano gli insegnamenti necessari all’educazione degli inferiori, cioè della fede cattolica, perché se ne possano impadronire, della perpetua ricompensa dei buoni e dell’eterna dannazione dei malvagi, della resurrezione e del giudizio finale e di quali azioni e opere possano garantire la vita eterna e quali invece causarne la perdita. Ed anche [è parso opportuno a tutti noi] che quelle stesse omelie ciascuno di essi [i vescovi] si applichi a tradurle apertamente nella lingua latina parlata dai ‘rustici’ ovvero in [lingua] tedesca, affinché tutti senza eccezione possano comprendere senza difficoltà ciò che viene detto loro. »

On parle bien de « langue *romaine* ordinaire » ou de « langue *romaine* des paysans » et non pas de "langue latine ordinaire" ni de "langue latine des paysans".
La seconde traduction italienne traduit « in rusticam Romanam linguam » par « nella lingua latina parlata dai ‘rustici’ » alors que la première opte pour « nella lingua romana rustica ».




Mallorquí :
« "Quisquis ama, valia,
peria qui nosci amare,
bis tanti peria quisquis amare vota." »

Ce que tu nous indique là, c'est une variation affectant le scriptolatin de l'ère préchrétienne. En aucun cas il s'agit d'orolatin, ni a fortiori d'ororoman (ou « italien ancien », pour reprendre la terminologie de Cortez).




Mallorquí : « L'empire romain d'orient, de langue grecque (à l'excepcion de régions excentriques) avec capitale à Constantinople, a perduré encore mil ans. Peu ou prou, la capitalité culturale de Constantinople a empêché, partiellement, la langue grecque de suivre la même destinée que la langue latine. »

N'oublions pas que les Romains hellénophones gérés Byzance après la chute de Rome en 476 appelaient leur État « Βασιλεία Ρωμαίων », soit "Basileía Rômaíôn", c'est-à-dire « l'Empire romain », tout court. Je crois que jusqu'à l'avènement d'Héraclius (610), le latin était la langue officielle du Βασιλεία Ρωμαίων, avant d'être remplacé dans cette fonction par le grec. Il existe donc au moins un État antique dont la langue officielle (le scriptolatin) ne coïncidait ni avec les vernaculaires (toutes les variantes de l'orogrec) ni avec la la scriptolangue la plus répandue (la koinè) et ce pendant au moins 134 ans (entre 476 & 610), c'est-à-dire après la disparition de Rome en tant que centre politique majeur. Cortez ne prétend pas autre chose pour l'Empire romain (de Rome) à partir du IIe s. av JC : coexistence du scriptolatin officiel (avec forte concurrence du scriptogrec) avec l'ororoman (ou « italien ancien »), langue vernaculaire de la péninsule (parfois concurrencée par le grec : immigration à Rome + hellénophones autochtones en Grande-Grèce → Magna Græcia = Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς).