I read an article a number of years ago on Latin's fall into disuse. The article mentioned that Roman texts were examined, and civic authorities saw how different their Latin was from Roman Latin. To prevent the language from changing completely, they codified the rules and tried to make it a fixed, unchanging language. Since human beings modifiy languages for their uses, Latin fell into disuse and the three "romantic" languages took over the vernacular in Europe.

I may be remember things incorrectly, but that was the impression I have of it, and I would very much like to read it again.

Which are the three Romantic languages from Europe? ;) Last time I checked there were 5 official ones, 6 important ones in total, and over 10 if we count the small ones.

Back on topic, I really, really don't see how this explanation would be plausible... :)

Edit: Made a stupid mistake in my post. :crazyeye:

French, Spanish, Italian are what he is talking about I assume. Though Romanian, and Portuguese are also important. Catalan, Venetian, Sardinian, Sicilian, Romansh, Galacian are much smaller but also moderatly important.

Yes, I was thinking of the biggest three. Sorry for that gaffe. :lol:

Back on topic, I really, really don't see how this explanation would be plausible...

Any particular reason? I don't know if I explained my question well enough; the idea of the article was that the people rejected an unyielding language and didn't use it except when necessary. As a result, their own regional vernaculars became more and more different from the language that they developed from.

I don't see it plausible just because I feel there are better explanations, this one is very simple, it's hard to believe that Rome would impose an unchanging language to its people, and it sounds speculative, at least to me.

With the splitting of the Roman Empire into the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire ceased speaking Latin just because the now called Byzantine empire was mainly Greek, influenced by Greek culture and speaking the Greek language (the only exception being Romania, which was not in the Byzantine Empire as Rome had retreated from Dacia in 271 AD, thus it continued speaking a latin language).

Now, the Eastern Roman Empire existed for about 1000 years more than the Western One, falling in 1453 under the attack of the Turks. In this time, the Western Roman Empire had fallen, long ago (it's hard to define the year, many people consider the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 471, the year of the sacking of Rome by the Vandals).

So for a period of time, there was absolutely no authority in the area. Soon, because of the love of the Ostrogoths for Roman culture (known fact), when the first principalities emerged in that area, Roman culture was not lost. But there was absolutely no authority for some time. That's the moment when the 4 western Romance languages split. So what happened is exactly the opposite, because of the fall of the Roman Empire, when there was nobody to impose Latin, its accents became dialects, and then dialects became separate languages.

It's anyway known that Italian is mutually intelligible with Spanish, Spanish with Portuguese, Spanish with Catalan, most French can understand Italian, any Romanian understands Italian and Latin, and any Sardinian understands Italian and Latin.

That's my explanation, and I think it's much more plausible as it's actually backed up by historical facts, while that article seemed mostly a speculation. :)

Well, the Church was there to provide some of the centralized authority that fell after the Roman Empire. So there were still forces that were driving Latin use, albeit probably more weakly.

Yes, I was thinking of the biggest three. Sorry for that gaffe. :lol:


Biggest three? Portuguese is way more widely spoken than italian or french. ;)

I'd say that everyday latin, ie vulgar latin, was always distinct from literary latin at any point, and certainly quite divergent even during the Empire. I think there are 2nd century writers that already complain of that fact and that notice that even their more literate latin was different from Cicero's.
Literary authorities though kept reading, writing and teaching in reference to the classic works, while vulgar latin continued to evolve differently. Even today, in an era of standardized languages and universal education, the way languages are applied on the street is quite different from what you read on literary works.
Therefor, and in a way, latin didn't really fall into disuse, it is still alive and kicking today as modern romance languages are really the product of the evolution of vulgar latin, ie, they're like different dialects or different versions of Modern Latin. It also should be noticed that the modern languages are artificially more different among themselves due to political reasons and the centralization of modern states, as just a couple of centuries ago, you'd see a more homogeneous continuum of dialects within the romance speaking world.

I don't know if I explained my question well enough; the idea of the article was that the people rejected an unyielding language and didn't use it except when necessary. As a result, their own regional vernaculars became more and more different from the language that they developed from.

This seems wildly unlikely. How could "the authorities" actually transform a previously evolving language into a an unyielding one? And how could most people react to this by starting to speak a different language instead? Surely what would happen is that they would completely ignore the orders and continue to speak the same old language, but allow it to evolve naturally. Which is in fact precisely what happened, since, as has been pointed out, the Romance languages just are developments of Latin. However, these had become the common vernacular long before there was any attempt to "fix" Latin. Even scholarly Latin itself changed and evolved throughout the Middle Ages, for example.

When, precisely, is this event described in the OP supposed to have happened, anyway? And where?

Actually the "unyielding" phase of the history of Latin was the Renaissance. Medieval Latin was a very useful language, with simplifications like the vernaculars (word-order carrying meaning etc). You could write anything with it, use it for all kinds of tasks, from the highest to the lowest.

The Renaissance Humanists held up Cicero's Latin as the acme of Knowing Your Latin meant. Well, Cicero has cartloads of style, but his language isn't necessarily simple.

This Renaissance attempt to "purify" Latin, "corrupted" as they saw it by all these Medieval monks they held nothing but scorn for, seems to have worked against it. It became a playground for the Classical Antiquity trivia crowd of Humanist scholars, thumbing their nose a the more functional Latin the Middle Ages.

Right. But that, of course, was some time after Italian, French, and so on became the day-to-day vernacular of common people. Francis of Assisi was writing in Italian in the early thirteenth century, long before anyone tried to turn back the clock with Latin. So I don't see how it's possible to argue that the latter was the cause of the former.

So for a period of time, there was absolutely no authority in the area. Soon, because of the love of the Ostrogoths for Roman culture (known fact), when the first principalities emerged in that area, Roman culture was not lost. But there was absolutely no authority for some time. That's the moment when the 4 western Romance languages split. So what happened is exactly the opposite, because of the fall of the Roman Empire, when there was nobody to impose Latin, its accents became dialects, and then dialects became separate languages.


The breakdown of central secular authority and decline in regional trade and travel helped speed the divergence of the vernaculars, yes, but it seems differences were creeping in already. The preservation of Latin as a common scholarly language was in part due to the church of Rome and various monastic orders, and in part due to educational sponsorship efforts by the first Frankish emperors around the year 800. It seems that written use of the vernaculars was on the rise prior to Charlemagne and if not for his efforts they might have come to displace Latin soon after that time.

I know I've posted about this subject here before and I dislike repeating myself, but there are transitional phases for Latin languages in Southwestern Europe before we can speak of modern forms. If you want to know what happened to Latin, read Occitan. It's closest relative today would be Catalan, but comprises a series of dialects which stretched from Italy through Southern France and into Iberia in early middle ages and is the vernacular which would have risen up after the fall of the Empire. It uses many words from French, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish and Latin all in one language. It's interesting because you can see all modern latin languages encapsulated in it before they became separated and defined.

Trobadors began the modern literary tradition with Occitan and it accordingly holds great literary prestige with figures such as Guillaime X (I think it's the X) of Aquitaine, Jaufre Rudel etc... Dante would call it "the mother of poetry" and was hugely influenced by Arnault for example. Interestingly enough the Occitan trobadors did not draw on Classical sources directly in their work, something Dante would later do. But Occitan is what you should be looking at if you are interested in knowing what the earliest vernaculars would have been like, though of course there were more primitive variations before Occitan as we know it.

How is Latin falling into disuse? The Vatican still uses it in their offical documents and Latin words and phrases has snuck into the English language ;).

double post

If you want to know what happened to Latin, read Occitan. It's closest relative today would be Catalan, but comprises a series of dialects which stretched from Italy through Southern France and into Iberia in early middle ages and is the vernacular which would have risen up after the fall of the Empire. It uses many words from French, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish and Latin all in one language. It's interesting because you can see all modern latin languages encapsulated in it before they became separated and defined.
Quite!
Iirc it has a monster vocabulary of something like 400.000 words.

Quite!
Iirc it has a monster vocabulary of something like 400.000 words.

Yes it does with innumerable mutually intelligible dialects. There is one particularly good wiki article on Occitan literature from what I remember which really goes into its linguistic history. Something else to consider is its centrality of location in Southwestern Europe, which accounts for its uncanny resemblance and intelligibility into the various modern latin tongues and of course its descent from the original vulgar latin. Not to mention it was the vehicle for an apex of medieval art and a fascinating culture.

:D

I know I've posted about this subject here before and I dislike repeating myself, but there are transitional phases for Latin languages in Southwestern Europe before we can speak of modern forms. If you want to know what happened to Latin, read Occitan. It's closest relative today would be Catalan, but comprises a series of dialects which stretched from Italy through Southern France and into Iberia in early middle ages and is the vernacular which would have risen up after the fall of the Empire. It uses many words from French, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish and Latin all in one language. It's interesting because you can see all modern latin languages encapsulated in it before they became separated and defined.


Sorry I misunderstood you. :)

:D



Sorry, but that's not true. Closest in vocabulary is Sardinian and closest in grammar is Romanian. :p
Catalan is considered one of the modern ones, actually.
(I can prove it if you want, both by links and also by phrases and comparisons between sentences and short words) :)

You must be confused by what I was referring to. I know Catalan is modern, I was saying Catalan is Occitan's "closest relative today". Catalan is essentially Occitan descended through time.

In Western European languages, Occitan predates modern French, Spanish etc.. So I was saying that if someone is interested in learning about what the transitional periods from vulgar latin to modern languages were, they should look at Occitan. I don't pretend to be an expert on Eastern European Latin languages. Are you satisfied?

Ah, OK, I thought you meant closest to Latin. Will edit my post. :D (anyway I had the inspiration to put a big grin smiley just in case I misunderstood ;))

Ah, OK, I thought you meant closest to Latin. Will edit my post. :D (anyway I had the inspiration to put a big grin smiley just in case I misunderstood ;))

It's ok, I know you're a good guy Mirc ;)

But Occitan is still spoken today in southwestern France, is it not? I've met (very old) Occitan speakers. Or would modern Occitan be considered a form of Catalan? No doubt it would be different from the medieval language.

But Occitan is still spoken today in southwestern France, is it not? I've met (very old) Occitan speakers. Or would modern Occitan be considered a form of Catalan? No doubt it would be different from the medieval language.
When they first started counting them in the 1860's 90% of the people in the traditional Occitan areas (incl. dialects, Gascon etc.) spoke it as their first language and most didn't even understand French.
In 1920 about 10 million out of 13-14 million people in the area still understood it, and used it in everyday situations, but French was now the national language.
These days Occitan has the status of a "regional language" and some 2 million people understand and use it (still out of 13-14 mil.).

Attempts to revive it, like the "filibrège" society, started already in the 19th c., but haven't been doing too well it seems.
It's been said that the filibrège went about the defense of Occitan in a much to high-brow fashion, making literature rather than directly defend everyday use. Though out of it Occitan did get a Nobel Prize winner for literature in Frederi Mistral.

But nowadays don't they call it more usually as simply Langue d'Oc? I mean, there were several Langues d'Oc, or is it understood that Occitan is the aggregated or loosely unified form of all the different dialects/languages d'Oc, eg, Provençal, Gascon, Aranese, etc.?


In 1920 about 10 million out of 13-14 million people in the area still understood it, and used it in everyday situations, but French was now the national language.


More than once, I've read claims that at the outbreak of WWI, about a third of the french population had trouble understanding french (possibly more less assessed by the difficulty of the officers in communicating with soldiers during the war. The total population of the country by then should be around 40/45 million people, so that would give some 13 to 15 million still largely speaking occitan, breton, franconian, basque, picardian, corsican, etc. at the expense of french, though the Langues d'Oc/Occitan would get the greater share I guess.

It's been said that the filibrège went about the defense of Occitan in a much to high-brow fashion, making literature rather than directly defend everyday use. Though out of it Occitan did get a Nobel Prize winner for literature in Frederi Mistral.

I guess the more aggressive and less tolerant approach of the french state towards the regional languages as compared to what happens in other western countries (like Spain or the UK) doesn't help either...

But Occitan is still spoken today in southwestern France, is it not? I've met (very old) Occitan speakers. Or would modern Occitan be considered a form of Catalan? No doubt it would be different from the medieval language.

Yes you are correct but the relevance/presence of Occitan in Toulouse is less than that of Catalan in Barcalona for example. So it is still present, but lacking in the political and cultural relevance which Catalan possesses and is in decline. But you are right, it's still spoken.

Occitan and Catalan belong to the same close family. Occitan was and has always been dispersed into various mutually intelligible dialects and Catalonia was a very close neighbour to the Midi. But people sometimes will refer to them as separate languages because of traditional nationalistic boundaries and history particular to regions etc. Still very close relatives.

But nowadays don't they call it more usually as simply Langue d'Oc? I mean, there were several Langues d'Oc, or is it understood that Occitan is the aggregated or loosely unified form of all the different dialects/languages d'Oc, eg, Provençal, Gascon, Aranese, etc.?


Langue d'Oc and Occitan are both used. Provencal sometimes too in English. For me, Occitan means all mutually intelligible dialects of that family and I would classify Catalan as part of this greater family.

I guess the more aggressive and less tolerant approach of the french state towards the regional languages as compared to what happens in other western countries (like Spain or the UK) doesn't help either...
No it wouldn't, but otoh it's not as if Gaelic and Welsh are doing better than Occitan, Breton or Basque. Not to mention Corsican, which is still the majority language iirc.

I read an article a number of years ago on Latin's fall into disuse. The article mentioned that Roman texts were examined, and civic authorities saw how different their Latin was from Roman Latin. To prevent the language from changing completely, they codified the rules and tried to make it a fixed, unchanging language. Since human beings modifiy languages for their uses, Latin fell into disuse and the three "romantic" languages took over the vernacular in Europe.

I may be remember things incorrectly, but that was the impression I have of it, and I would very much like to read it again.

I don't know where you get this idea from, but it's basically bogus.

Latin standardization didn't really come about until the Renaissance at the earliest, and it was only through the efforts of philologists, not native speakers. What you may be referring to is that later in the Empire, spoken Latin in the provinces had diverged considerably from written Latin such that they became unintelligible. Eventually, these differences produced the Romance languages, which, btw, are far more than 3. Written Latin faced the same problems as many languages, in that its written form became fixed by grammarian custom while the spoken language continued to evolve. But this was not a deliberate process by Romans. Perhaps had the Empire survived longer, there may have been reforms that never happened.

Mind you that Latin has had different incarnations. There has been archaic, classical, and medieval Latin, each with its own peculiarities. The Latin that is usually learned in school is classical.

The same problems occur in many languages, including English, Russian, and Greek. Written English bears minimal similarity to its spoken form. There have been calls for years for spelling reform, as there is evidence that English speaking children take longer to learn literacy than other children. Greek is still written with the same characters as has been written for the past 2500 years, even though the language is considerably different. Russian is one example where spelling reform was forced upon a language that had deviated considerably from its written form over 900 years.

No it wouldn't, but otoh it's not as if Gaelic and Welsh are doing better than Occitan, Breton or Basque. Not to mention Corsican, which is still the majority language iirc.

But they hit the bottom and are now probably better than they were some decades ago, or at least were granted official and protected status, though we can argue to what extent does that status actually helps a language to recover. In France otoh, they're still declining, and despite recent attempts to change attitudes and the language paradigm in the country, the revolutionary and centralist aversion to regional diversity is still felt. Anyway, it is just my perception, it may be wrong.

It's anyway known that Italian is mutually intelligible with Spanish, Spanish with Portuguese, Spanish with Catalan, most French can understand Italian, any Romanian understands Italian and Latin, and any Sardinian understands Italian and Latin.

:)
Ummm.. No. I know french and a bit of portuguese, and while I catch a word here and there, or at least get a bit of the gist of it, I do not understand italian. Im sure that's the same for most people.

Well, as you can see from my post, I've never said all can understand Italian, but the ones I met did. And anyway, these two are the least related from those I posted there. :)

But they hit the bottom and are now probably better than they were some decades ago, or at least were granted official and protected status, though we can argue to what extent does that status actually helps a language to recover. In France otoh, they're still declining, and despite recent attempts to change attitudes and the language paradigm in the country, the revolutionary and centralist aversion to regional diversity is still felt. Anyway, it is just my perception, it may be wrong.
Well, I hope you're right.:)

To be honest, I don't really see the motivation for preserving or resuscitating regional languages. Of course it's important that knowledge of these languages is kept alive, at least by scholars, partly because of the intrinsic value of the knowledge, partly because of the light it sheds on history, and partly so that texts in those languages can be read. But what is the reason for keeping them going as living, first languages? This just causes problems. If different people speak different languages, this is a barrier to communication. Why would it be preferable for people from Toulouse not to speak French as their first language, or for the Welsh not to speak English as theirs? A language is just a human construct - it has no intrinsic value like an endangered species or something.

To be honest, I don't really see the motivation for preserving or resuscitating regional languages. Of course it's important that knowledge of these languages is kept alive, at least by scholars, partly because of the intrinsic value of the knowledge, partly because of the light it sheds on history, and partly so that texts in those languages can be read. But what is the reason for keeping them going as living, first languages? This just causes problems. If different people speak different languages, this is a barrier to communication. Why would it be preferable for people from Toulouse not to speak French as their first language, or for the Welsh not to speak English as theirs? A language is just a human construct - it has no intrinsic value like an endangered species or something.

Places such as French speaking Canada (Quebec, Acadia) or the Catalans in Spain certainly deserve to retain their language culture. Acadia for example was simply ignored, French had no official status. In effect Acadians had second class status as citizens historically. When you have one group mandating what another should do, it is often not a matter of "everyone coming together for unity" but rather one group controlling, neglecting and disrespecting the other. This has been repeated countless times. A country does not need to have just one official language (Canada, Switzerland etc). In short I view the Catalan claim as legitimate, in the same way as I view the French claim in Canada.

The Vatican is expected to call for the return to the latin mass next week. I guess latin is not totally dead yet.

To be honest, I don't really see the motivation for preserving or resuscitating regional languages. Of course it's important that knowledge of these languages is kept alive, at least by scholars, partly because of the intrinsic value of the knowledge, partly because of the light it sheds on history, and partly so that texts in those languages can be read. But what is the reason for keeping them going as living, first languages? This just causes problems. If different people speak different languages, this is a barrier to communication. Why would it be preferable for people from Toulouse not to speak French as their first language, or for the Welsh not to speak English as theirs? A language is just a human construct - it has no intrinsic value like an endangered species or something.
The speakers of huge languages rarely do...;)

It's not as if English has any particular intrinsic value either, it's all just a matter of convenience and scale.

The point isn't that people should be monolinguistic, but that these regional languages need to maintain themselves as active languages in as many linguistic "domains" as possible, or they will disappear. That's why they need things like TV-stations of their own.

They do represent a particular way of being and a peculiar regard on things. If we all turn into monolingistic English speakers I'll be bored to tears!:p

Mind you that Latin has had different incarnations. There has been archaic, classical, and medieval Latin, each with its own peculiarities. The Latin that is usually learned in school is classical.
What are the timeframes for these incarnations? I'm curious, because I've been trying to learn to read Latin (on my own, since the local college doesn't offer it). What I really want to do with it is be able to read the poetry and histories in their original form (as much as possible).

Written English bears minimal similarity to its spoken form. There have been calls for years for spelling reform, as there is evidence that English speaking children take longer to learn literacy than other children.
True. I had a heck of a problem the first time I read Lassie Come Home because some of the dialogue was written in dialect. I found some parts of it very hard to understand. And this is why so many people can't stand Shakespeare -- they see the written plays and the words make no sense. But when one hears the words spoken aloud, it's much easier to understand.

Back in the '80s there was a wonderful documentary series called The Story of English on PBS. It was an 8 or 9-part series that traced the history of English from its earliest origins all the way to the modern technological age, in every major region of the world. Episode 3 has a sequence where British actress Mary Tamm (the first Romana, for Doctor Who fans! ;)) is being taught to speak the correct Middle English dialect so she can do some recordings of The Canterbury Tales. It's really fascinating, the way the language has drifted. And I found out something about myself: normally I can't do accents to save my life. But I discovered that I can actually pronounce the Middle English words without too much difficulty. Maybe it's because it seems so lilting and musical to me; it was a language meant to be spoken and heard, more than read.

To be honest, I don't really see the motivation for preserving or resuscitating regional languages. Of course it's important that knowledge of these languages is kept alive, at least by scholars, partly because of the intrinsic value of the knowledge, partly because of the light it sheds on history, and partly so that texts in those languages can be read. But what is the reason for keeping them going as living, first languages? This just causes problems. If different people speak different languages, this is a barrier to communication. Why would it be preferable for people from Toulouse not to speak French as their first language, or for the Welsh not to speak English as theirs? A language is just a human construct - it has no intrinsic value like an endangered species or something.
Yikes. Don't let the sovereignists around here read this! :eek: People actually have committed terrorist acts in Canada because of language laws.

Why should we preserve regional languages? Why keep all that baggage that takes up room on computer disks and uses up trees? Why spend the money on running language programs in schools? We don't use them in everyday life now, so what good are they?

Simple. They are a part of who we are. Languages are how humans have communicated ever since they evolved the anatomy necessary to make oral sounds. Languages pass along our history, customs, morals, beliefs, instructions on what, when, and how to do what is necessary to survive, and when they're preserved, their speakers can communicate with the future. I think it's tragic when a language becomes extinct because all those who used it either died without passing along their knowledge, or others didn't think it worth preserving.

Every time a language goes extinct, all who used it are rendered mute, and their culture dies a little more surely than it had before. And who knows what we've missed out on through the years because a language was tossed on the trash heap?

The Vatican is expected to call for the return to the Latin mass next week. I guess Latin is not totally dead yet.

Good joke, I can't imagine even listening to mass in Latin - to stand and understand nothing? :) Hmm... but once I took part int such mass - when Benedict XVI was in Warsaw last year - I only knew what was happening because I recognized some keywords :)

Maybe you were thinking about acceptance for mass in Latin, which will be (or was) issued to include 'lefebrists' into Church?

I once attended a Latin Mass. I hadn't been told beforehand that it would be entirely in Latin, or I wouldn't have gone!

Forgive me for going OT here on the question of minority languages. I take the point that people's languages are part of their culture. However, I don't think it's true that, when a language stops being spoken, all those who spoke it before are rendered mute. We can still read Plato and Cicero today. We can even enjoy them in the original languages if we bother to learn them. You don't need people to be speaking Latin and Attic Greek on the street for that to be the case. Similarly, would it be boring if everyone spoke the same language? I don't see why! Only those who are lucky enough to be good at languages would think that. Those of us who struggle hard to learn foreign languages, without great success, would surely find it easier to learn about and share in foreign cultures if there were only one language. I can't get much out of (say) a Buddhist religious ceremony as it is, because it's conducted in a language I don't speak. Wouldn't there be more mutual understanding and appreciation if there were only one language?

Even if all that is wrong, what I find most hard to understand is the idea of resuscitating dead or nearly dead languages. Welsh is an example. Half a century ago, not so many people spoke it; legislation since then has effectively promoted it, for example by making it compulsory to teach it in schools. Now it's the first language of many people, and all official documents in Britain have to be in two languages. How does that help anyone? If your language defines, in part, who you are, then the drive to resuscitate Welsh changed everyone in Wales just as much as if it had been the other way around - that is, just as much as if Welsh had been the main language and there had been a drive to kill it off. No doubt if Welsh had been forcibly replaced by English there would have been an outcry about linguistic imperialism; why is it OK to do the reverse?

Of course I'm not saying that speakers of minority languages should be forced to learn majority languages or anything like that. Clearly that would not be very good. What I am saying is that I don't see it as particularly upsetting when, through purely social factors, a language passes out of common use. I don't think that languages have any intrinsic value. Why not just let people speak what they want?

What are the timeframes for these incarnations? I'm curious, because I've been trying to learn to read Latin (on my own, since the local college doesn't offer it). What I really want to do with it is be able to read the poetry and histories in their original form (as much as possible).

Archaic Latin is basically anything before 200 BC. Latin didn't even have a written language until the 3rd century BC. Between 200 BC and about 200 AD is classical Latin. Nearly all the Roman literature studied in schools and universities is classical Latin. After 200 AD, Latin drifted considerably from classical because of local dialects that formed throughout the Empire, so some people cite the Latin from 200-400 AD as "Late Latin". It had a similar grammar to classical, but had lots of borrowed vocabulary. Medieval Latin is everything after the fall of the Western Empire. It's Latin on paper that was bastardized by local languages, like Italian.

Forgive me for going OT here on the question of minority languages. I take the point that people's languages are part of their culture. However, I don't think it's true that, when a language stops being spoken, all those who spoke it before are rendered mute. We can still read Plato and Cicero today. We can even enjoy them in the original languages if we bother to learn them. You don't need people to be speaking Latin and Attic Greek on the street for that to be the case. Similarly, would it be boring if everyone spoke the same language? I don't see why! Only those who are lucky enough to be good at languages would think that. Those of us who struggle hard to learn foreign languages, without great success, would surely find it easier to learn about and share in foreign cultures if there were only one language. I can't get much out of (say) a Buddhist religious ceremony as it is, because it's conducted in a language I don't speak. Wouldn't there be more mutual understanding and appreciation if there were only one language?

Even if all that is wrong, what I find most hard to understand is the idea of resuscitating dead or nearly dead languages. Welsh is an example. Half a century ago, not so many people spoke it; legislation since then has effectively promoted it, for example by making it compulsory to teach it in schools. Now it's the first language of many people, and all official documents in Britain have to be in two languages. How does that help anyone? If your language defines, in part, who you are, then the drive to resuscitate Welsh changed everyone in Wales just as much as if it had been the other way around - that is, just as much as if Welsh had been the main language and there had been a drive to kill it off. No doubt if Welsh had been forcibly replaced by English there would have been an outcry about linguistic imperialism; why is it OK to do the reverse?

Of course I'm not saying that speakers of minority languages should be forced to learn majority languages or anything like that. Clearly that would not be very good. What I am saying is that I don't see it as particularly upsetting when, through purely social factors, a language passes out of common use. I don't think that languages have any intrinsic value. Why not just let people speak what they want?
Well, social factors in the case of Welsh, and lots of languages beside it, have included direct supression.

Language goes to the heart of peoples identities. These are forever changing, that's true, but when a language passes away a certain form of life and identity goes forever.

The greats of Latin and Greek may still be around, ok, and that's good enough? A language that doesn't produce a Plato or Cicero is in vain, and nothing to fret about?

You seem to have this exquisit English antiquarian view of language and culture? You really are the perfect young Oxbridge don in the making?;)

An alternative is something like Herder's view of all languages and cultures as equally valuable as expressions of the state of being human, especially the folk culture of everyday life.

But in modern societies languages that are relegated to be only spoken around the home will die. To survive they must have currency in the public sphere as well. That's what the fight is about: should they go willingly into the night due to lack of access to things like modern media, or are they valuable enough to get it? Such access was deliberately restricted in the 19th and 20th centuries. The objective was to kill "non-modern" languages like Welsh for being generally useless. They nearly did the job too.

These days the proliferation of media might actually work in favour of these regional languages as the monolinguistic nation state is no longer as monolothic as it was in the 19th and 20th centuries. We'll se how it all turns out.

As for people not speaking more languages than one: It's only people in countries speking one of these huge world languages who tend to find it hard.
Your loss, I'd say.:)

It may be noted that as late as the ninth century, Frankish writers refered to the vernacular as lingua romana, ie. Latin, yet structurally the spoken language was by that time much closer to the written Old French of later medieval times than to contemporary written Latin.

The Vatican is expected to call for the return to the latin mass next week. I guess latin is not totally dead yet.

This is probably a good spot to advertise the Latin News by Finnish Broadcasting Company, they're downloadable from http://www.yleradio1.fi/nuntii/

Archaic Latin is basically anything before 200 BC. Latin didn't even have a written language until the 3rd century BC. Between 200 BC and about 200 AD is classical Latin. Nearly all the Roman literature studied in schools and universities is classical Latin. After 200 AD, Latin drifted considerably from classical because of local dialects that formed throughout the Empire, so some people cite the Latin from 200-400 AD as "Late Latin". It had a similar grammar to classical, but had lots of borrowed vocabulary. Medieval Latin is everything after the fall of the Western Empire. It's Latin on paper that was bastardized by local languages, like Italian.

True, all Roman literature from that time is classical Latin, but in that time, the language spoken by the masses of people was called Vulgar Latin (or popular Latin), as the classical Latin was a bit more difficult and polite and used by the elites, politicians, writers, and phylosophers. The people spoke an easier variant of Latin, a bit closer to most Romance languages today.

Which are the three Romantic languages from Europe? ;) Last time I checked there were 5 official ones, 6 important ones in total, and over 10 if we count the small ones.

Back on topic, I really, really don't see how this explanation would be plausible... :)

Edit: Made a stupid mistake in my post. :crazyeye:
Yeah, like Romansch is becoming almost an endangered language. To my knowlege, the only country on Earth that counts it as one of the thier official/national languages is Switzerland. It is quite sad.

But I am learning French and Latin, and Latin has helped me in numerous ways, so many that I can't explain. It has really opened my eyes to language and helps me understand even English better.

True, all Roman literature from that time is classical Latin, but in that time, the language spoken by the masses of people was called Vulgar Latin (or popular Latin), as the classical Latin was a bit more difficult and polite and used by the elites, politicians, writers, and phylosophers. The people spoke an easier variant of Latin, a bit closer to most Romance languages today.
Yes; "non-classical" Latin, or Mediaeval/Medieval Latin, was used, as you can infer, during the Medieval Ages and was almost more like a Romance language than Latin. Soon after, during Chaucer's time, the Angol decendents spoke a form of English, called Old English, that was a "blend" of French and English. Although some words are recognizable from Old English, most of the text, as you can see if you ever try to read "Canterbury Tales", looks like a foreign tongue.

Shakesphere's English, which is oft confused and thought to be "Old English" (because some associate "Old" as an adjective), is simply a "formalized" version of English, with different sytaxes and pronouns (thou, thy, etc.) and verb tenses (cometh).

Actually, I believe the English of Chaucer's time was "Middle English," with "Old English" being the language of the Anglo-Saxons (which morphed in to Middle English under heavy influence from the Normans after 1066). You're right, though, that Shakespearean English, as different as it may seem, is still modern English.

Language goes to the heart of peoples identities. These are forever changing, that's true, but when a language passes away a certain form of life and identity goes forever.

The greats of Latin and Greek may still be around, ok, and that's good enough? A language that doesn't produce a Plato or Cicero is in vain, and nothing to fret about?

I didn't say that! I didn't say that some languages are somehow superior to others. I said that I don't see any languages as intrinsically valuable. Of course the knowledge of all languages should be recorded, just as all knowledge should be; and one of the reasons for this is so we can continue to read texts written in those languages. But I don't see any intrinsic value in having them as living languages; I certainly don't see any value in trying to change or influence what languages people speak. It's cultural imperialism, and bad, to try to force speakers of a minority language to change to speaking a majority language - everyone agrees on that; but I think it's equally pointless to try to preserve a minority language, as if it's an endangered species. You say that when a language passes out of common use a way of life - or a part of a way of life - goes forever; but really, so what? Cultures change constantly. That's just life. You can't cling on to the past for ever.

So I would agree with Herder, at least as you represent him. There's no more intrinsic value in some obscure minority language than there is in Mandarin. There's no more intrinsic merit in people speaking Gaelic than there is in speaking English. Because there's no intrinsic value in any of them.[/QUOTE]

Actually, I believe the English of Chaucer's time was "Middle English," with "Old English" being the language of the Anglo-Saxons (which morphed in to Middle English under heavy influence from the Normans after 1066). You're right, though, that Shakespearean English, as different as it may seem, is still modern English.
Pardon! Hey, anyone can get confused once in a while (speaking of confusion).:lol:

But yes, you do get my point; it is very hard to talk to someone about Old English, since they think that you're going to start talking about Hamlet and Othello!

But I am learning French and Latin, and Latin has helped me in numerous ways, so many that I can't explain. It has really opened my eyes to language and helps me understand even English better.

try Esperanto as a bridge to understanding language(s) :)
http://www.esperanto.net/info/index_en.html

try Esperanto as a bridge to understanding language(s) :)
http://www.esperanto.net/info/index_en.html
Although Esperanto is an "international language" built upon grammar from a combination of many languages, one does not learn "Esperanto roots" in his English class, does he?

The point is that many things in life, including medical and law jargon, English roots, and the foundations of Romance languages, are impacted by Latin. Even some Indo-European languages, such as Turkish, were slightly impacted (mostly due to the Byzantine/Eastern Roman empires).

For an extension, one could say that Indonesian is a bridge to understanding language; all languages share many of the same philosophies, and even learning Croatian could help you understand Japanese whilst learning it. For me, however, Latin was my choice, helping me learn a language for knowledge of grammar instead of focusing on conversation (e.g. as in French or modern languages).

This is probably a good spot to advertise the Latin News by Finnish Broadcasting Company, they're downloadable from http://www.yleradio1.fi/nuntii/
However, every day hundreds of traditional Catholic churches are abolishing Latin masses in replacement of English (or another modern language). Although almost every word relating to Christianity (e.g. candle, alter, priest) are Latin, the language is slowing slipping away from today's Christian communities.

On the other hand, Hebrew, the traditional language of Judaism, is being taught to members of the Jewish faith regularly as part of almost every worshiper's experience as a Jew, both in its classical and modern forms. I believe that Latin should be a part of young Christians' education, much like Hebrew is in Judaism.

Actually, "priest" along with very many other words relating to Christian belief and practice, is originally Greek. In this particular case, from Gr. presbyteros "elder".

Actually, "priest" along with very many other words relating to Christian belief and practice, is originally Greek. In this particular case, from Gr. presbyteros "elder".
Oh, sorry. But when Christian Missionaries came to the New World, they did spread many Latin religious words.

I'd say that if all Christians were to learn a foundational language connected to their religion, it should clearly be Greek, not Latin. Not only the New Testament but all of the works of the early church fathers were written in Greek, even the ones living in Rome. Not until the time of Tertullian do you get Latin Christian literature, and not until the time of Jerome do you get anything approaching a standard Latin Bible. Moreover, only the Catholic and Protestant churches have a Latin heritage worth speaking of at all.

But I don't see why Christians should have to learn any languages, at least from the point of view of being Christians. Christianity is a "translating religion" that has rarely attached much importance to what language things are in; it is not like Islam, which regards Arabic as a specially holy language because it is the language of the Koran.

I'd say that if all Christians were to learn a foundational language connected to their religion, it should clearly be Greek, not Latin. Not only the New Testament but all of the works of the early church fathers were written in Greek, even the ones living in Rome. Not until the time of Tertullian do you get Latin Christian literature, and not until the time of Jerome do you get anything approaching a standard Latin Bible. Moreover, only the Catholic and Protestant churches have a Latin heritage worth speaking of at all.

But I don't see why Christians should have to learn any languages, at least from the point of view of being Christians. Christianity is a "translating religion" that has rarely attached much importance to what language things are in; it is not like Islam, which regards Arabic as a specially holy language because it is the language of the Koran.
But Jews learn Hebrew to preserve the language. And Judaism is arguably to most reformed Western religion, and certainly is the most open one.

Plus, was it not the presence of Christianity in the Holy Roman Empire that led, after a series of events, including the fall of the Western Roman Empire, that led Europe to the Medieval Ages? And I am not trying to have Christians learn just the language I say; I wish that Christians would try to preserve their roots more carefully. To an extension, Christians could learn Aramaic; but besides for the fact that Jesus spoke it, it had little impact on Christianity today. Although Christianity is a "spreading" religion in that a fundamental belief of its worshippers is to spread the religion, it cannot turn its face upon its heritage. In my opinion.

Certainly Christians ought to be more aware of the history of their own religion. Certainly, also, people in general ought to be more aware of history and of the role of Christianity, as well as other traditions, in their history. And certainly their roots should be preserved, as you put it, but they are being preserved anyway - that's the task of scholars. I don't see what difference it would make if all Christians learned Latin or Greek. What would be the point? Should all English people learn Anglo-Saxon? People can always learn these things if they want to, but it is of only antiquarian interest. When it comes to learning about the history of their own traditions, there are more important things to know than the languages, which are necessary only for specialists.

I wonder if anyone knows what sort of Latin the noblemen spoke in Poland in fifteenth-sixteenth century?

I'm guessing that medieval Latin, the same that was used by the Catholic church. I might be wrong though. :)

I'm guessing that medieval Latin, the same that was used by the Catholic church. I might be wrong though. :)
I don't know, but you're probably right. Medieval (Mediaeval) Latin became sort of a "universal Latin," taught to many children in many Western European countries. It was used as a formal language, sometimes for official situations. (I'm sure you, Mirc, know this; I'm just getting it out there for others).

Nearly all the Roman literature studied in schools and universities is classical Latin.

The Roman literature, sure; however, that is not to say that post-classical/medieval Latin literature is not also heavily studied. When I took Latin, the intro courses used about equal amounts of classical and medieval texts, and then later there were separate courses focusing on different periods.

I didn't say that! I didn't say that some languages are somehow superior to others. I said that I don't see any languages as intrinsically valuable. Of course the knowledge of all languages should be recorded, just as all knowledge should be; and one of the reasons for this is so we can continue to read texts written in those languages. But I don't see any intrinsic value in having them as living languages;
I know you didn't. I was drawing out a very nasty possible conclusion, but not a necessary one. Since it was me pointing it out here, I certainly won't try to hold you to it.
I still think you tend to overemphasise the written word though.
I certainly don't see any value in trying to change or influence what languages people speak. It's cultural imperialism, and bad, to try to force speakers of a minority language to change to speaking a majority language - everyone agrees on that; but I think it's equally pointless to try to preserve a minority language, as if it's an endangered species. You say that when a language passes out of common use a way of life - or a part of a way of life - goes forever; but really, so what? Cultures change constantly. That's just life. You can't cling on to the past for ever.
What has been going on is that the modern nation state has spent the last two centuries killing diversity. The nation states are utter bullies in this respect. It's what they do.
It will work out for some languages who become vehicles for a national project, but not for those which don't. Linguistic nations like Welsh caught under a bigger neighbour like England needs to get out from under there and establish a national project of their own asap. Same thing with for instance Finnish and a lot of other languages. We can of course adopt a kind of social darwinist approach to this and say "So what?" and claim that if they fail to become the vehicle for national modernity it's their fault. But I think that would be to misunderstand how modern states operate and what they do to minorities. There's nothing neutral or inevitable about these processes.

As for "clinging to the past" these languages are completely contemporary. There's nothing to indicate Welsh or Sami or whatever can't be an excellent vehicle for modernity, it they're just allowed to be that. The figure of thought relegating them to represent "the past" is always current among the people with the language perpetrating their strangulation. It assumes that history has a progressive direction, and these languages aren't part of it. One can hardly be surprised their speakers tend to fight back as best they can, preferably setting up their own independant nations if possible. When they are inhibited to do so, they tend to languish.
So I would agree with Herder, at least as you represent him. There's no more intrinsic value in some obscure minority language than there is in Mandarin. There's no more intrinsic merit in people speaking Gaelic than there is in speaking English. Because there's no intrinsic value in any of them.
I think Herder would claim they all have equal intrinsic value. It's a culturalist thing.

I still think you tend to overemphasise the written word though.



He surely does. And Plotinus, the thought experiment you proposed couldn't even exist if everyone spoke the same way. That exotic culture you're interested in wouldn't exist. What's next, should we all eat the same food and listen to the exact same music, because it doesn't matter anyway? Language is inextricably tied to culture.

And I don't view all languages as equally valueless and interchangeable: I know for a fact my persona changes according to the language I speak. I think you overgeneralize based on your own experience, I assume. In anycase this discussion has become tedious. All I can say is I disagree with you.

What has been going on is that the modern nation state has spent the last two centuries killing diversity. The nation states are utter bullies in this respect. It's what they do.
It will work out for some languages who become vehicles for a national project, but not for those which don't. Linguistic nations like Welsh caught under a bigger neighbour like England needs to get out from under there and establish a national project of their own asap. Same thing with for instance Finnish and a lot of other languages. We can of course adopt a kind of social darwinist approach to this and say "So what?" and claim that if they fail to become the vehicle for national modernity it's their fault. But I think that would be to misunderstand how modern states operate and what they do to minorities. There's nothing neutral or inevitable about these processes.

I'd entirely agree with you. Of course that sort of thing is bad. My point is simply that it doesn't follow from that fact that trying to do the reverse - ie artificially create diversity - is therefore good. The reason why the attempts to stamp out minority languages was bad is that it was cultural imperialism: trying to force people to change, against their will. It's not because having lots of languages is intrinsically preferable. It would be just as bad to force speakers of a majority language to switch to a minority one. That is, the wrongness lies in the compulsion, not in the final result. At least, that's how I see it. And if that's so, I don't see any value in trying to reverse the process; it doesn't stop the wrong from having been perpetrated.

As for "clinging to the past" these languages are completely contemporary. There's nothing to indicate Welsh or Sami or whatever can't be an excellent vehicle for modernity, it they're just allowed to be that. The figure of thought relegating them to represent "the past" is always current among the people with the language perpetrating their strangulation. It assumes that history has a progressive direction, and these languages aren't part of it. One can hardly be surprised their speakers tend to fight back as best they can, preferably setting up their own independant nations if possible. When they are inhibited to do so, they tend to languish.

Now I didn't say that these minority languages can't be contemporary. By "clinging to the past", I didn't mean the languages themselves; I meant the situation in which they were more commonly spoken. I haven't been given a good reason to think that a situation where more languages are spoken is intrinsically preferable to one where fewer languages are spoken. It seems to me that much of the motivation behind preferring the former to the latter is that it is felt necessary to preserve the current or past state of a culture. But of course you can never do that.

I don't think that history is progressive or that those languages that are now the majority ones are intrinsically better than the others, or that it is right to try to wipe out the minority ones, or anything of the kind!

I think Herder would claim they all have equal intrinsic value. It's a culturalist thing.

But that's exactly what I was trying to say. They all have equal intrinsic value, because they all have no intrinsic value. In my opinion, at least.

He surely does. And Plotinus, the thought experiment you proposed couldn't even exist if everyone spoke the same way. That exotic culture you're interested in wouldn't exist. What's next, should we all eat the same food and listen to the exact same music, because it doesn't matter anyway? Language is inextricably tied to culture.

I'm not so convinced by that, to be honest. It's certainly possible to have very different cultures speaking the same language. Having different food and music doesn't create barriers between people in the same way that having different languages does. And I'm always suspicious of "slippery slope" arguments of that kind anyway. You can't argue against a position simply on the basis that a more extreme version of it is wrong.

In anycase this discussion has become tedious.

Now there I can agree with you at least. This can always move to OT if anyone wants to talk about it further.

Pragmatically, I think minority languages (say welsh or basque for example) for example are for speaking at home, speaking at public with someone when you dont want to be understood by other people (like my friends who speak guarani when they dont want me to know what they are talking about), or for songs/music.
while others (english, spanish, french etc) are useful-work-international languages with vocabulary for deep complicated subjects.

By the way, Paraguay is an almost completely bilingual country (Spanish and Guarani), probably the healthiest native american language altough quechua ahs more speakers (but also different not mutually understandable dialects)

'falling',into disuse? Sorry, but youre about 1000 years outdated.

Latin is falling into disuse by clergymen, physicians and scientists, who theoretically are still using it.

In Sweden it was noted lately that even students studying history do not learn Latin in sufficient numbers.