Latin as the universal European language

[Veles]

...The Queen's English is pretty much identical from Christchurch to Aberdeen, but you can find half a dozen distinct vernacular dialects in London alone.

That's what I'm talking aboot: in Russian it's not the case. Frankly, there never was a big variety of dialects here. Historically there were two major dialects: Kievan and Novgorodian, (the latter is considered by some linguists as a seperate branch of East Slavic language). Then there was also ceremonial Church Slavonic based on Kievan, influenced by liturgical Bulgarian. Modern Russian is based on Kievan dialect, and as far as we know, it remained pretty uniform up until Peter, who majorly reformed the tradition of administrative language, so it looked less like liturgical. It changed significantly in 18th century, with new, more "civil" forms of it and later was more firmly established during the "golden age" literature of 19th century.

Nowadays all the difference you have is a few pecularities with pronounciation, a few archaic words here and there, but that's about it. I dunno how that was achieved in particular, but there wasn't too much struggle, iirc.

But that's the thing with Slavic languages: knowing one, you more or less is able to understand all of them in written form, even the dead and obsolete ones. Strange how we manged to keep it that way without much effort.

...The Russians got rid of their dialects and it comes as natural to them to speak standard language and slang only.

True, more or less.

 

[Tahuti]

Nowadays all the difference you have is a few pecularities with pronounciation, a few archaic words here and there, but that's about it. I dunno how that was achieved in particular, but there wasn't too much struggle, iirc.

Is it true that Northern Russians (i.e. St. Petersberg, Novgorod) are unable/unwilling to pronounce the o and say a instead? So that you'll get Maskva, instead of Moskva, for instance.

 

[gangleri2001]

Is it true that Northern Russians (i.e. St. Petersberg, Novgorod) are unable/unwilling to pronounce the o and say a instead? So that you'll get Maskva, instead of Moskva, for instance.

That's what all russians say. The russian o sounds like an a to us.

 

[Lillefix]

That's what all russians say. The russian o sounds like an a to us.

I thought it depended on where it was. I'm sure I've heard Молоко(milk) pronounced Malako.(the last sound pronounced like the vowel in "law")

 

[Leoreth]

English is one of the most irregular languages on the planet and. well, it sucks to learn it for that reason. But I'd still vote for it.

Huh? In what aspect do you consider English irregular? Just because of some irregular verbs? English lacks almost all of the grammatical distinctions a language can be irregular in, like person endings in verbs, grammatical gender, grammatical cases, different syntax ...

 

[Arakhor]

I've heard that said because we have the probably unique situation of using an evolved peasant language, so it quickly lost many of its twirls and cases and genders. Blame the Normans and 200 years of repression!

 

[Lillefix]

I've heard that said because we have the probably unique situation of using an evolved peasant language, so it quickly lost many of its twirls and cases and genders. Blame the Normans and 200 years of repression!

A little offtopic. Why 200 years?

 

[Arakhor]

Well, when the Normans invaded, they spoke Norman French and English was pretty much restricted to the common people. In the mid-13th Century, literature in English began to circulate and in the mid-14th, Edward III addressed his court in English. When you have a language kept alive mostly by the peasantry, it tends to evolve into a much simpler form.

 

[gangleri2001]

I've heard that said because we have the probably unique situation of using an evolved peasant language, so it quickly lost many of its twirls and cases and genders. Blame the Normans and 200 years of repression!

Unique? The whole of the Romance languages were languages created and kept alive by the peasantry for centuries.

 

[Danielion]

Well, when the Normans invaded, they spoke Norman French and English was pretty much restricted to the common people. In the mid-13th Century, literature in English began to circulate and in the mid-14th, Edward III addressed his court in English. When you have a language kept alive mostly by the peasantry, it tends to evolve into a much simpler form.

You even got rid of the thou, thine/thy and the 'ye' plural for the second person. English is okay for a language, but it's everywhere and I tend to like synthetic languages more than analytic ones.

 

[Arakhor]

Unique? The whole of the Romance languages were languages created and kept alive by the peasantry for centuries.

You're missing my point that English lost most of its linguistic pretensions by being an exclusively peasant tongue for 200 years. The nobility spoke French, the church spoke Latin and only commoners (and those who dealt with them) spoke English.

 

[Traitorfish]

Unique? The whole of the Romance languages were languages created and kept alive by the peasantry for centuries.

And what were the aristocrats speaking for all those centuries, exactly?

(Also, just to be picky, it's an important point that English wasn't just the language of the peasants, but the language of what for want of a better word you could call the "middle classes"- merchants, educated commoners, land-owning commoners, professional soldiers, and so on. The aristocracy couldn't have cared less what a lot of bumpkins spoke- plenty of them still spoke Brythonic languages, after all, and nobody ever bothered to learn those- but when the people who make up key elements of the political and economic apparatus are speaking English, it's a different story.)

 

[Leoreth]

Unique? The whole of the Romance languages were languages created and kept alive by the peasantry for centuries.

Which centuries? If I'm not mistaken, the Spanish nobility spoke Spanish, the French nobility French and so on.

 

[Veles]

Is it true that Northern Russians (i.e. St. Petersberg, Novgorod) are unable/unwilling to pronounce the o and say a instead? So that you'll get Maskva, instead of Moskva, for instance.

I'd say it's the other way round: northeners (and Ukrainians, btw) tend to pronounce /o/ clearly, whereas the standart is to pronounce it as /a/ in an unstressed syllable. So it would be 'malako', 'Maskva'. Just like in English you would say 'cahm on' for 'come on'. Pronouncing /o/ (just like pronouncing /h/ for /g/; Czechs and Ukraininas do that as well as south Russians) is considered unprestigiously rural and is slowly going out of use.

 

[Flying Pig]

Which centuries? If I'm not mistaken, the Spanish nobility spoke Spanish, the French nobility French and so on.

In England, the nobility spoke French for a very long time (the Royal Assent is still indicated in Parliament by 'la reine le vult', which is archaic Norman French for 'the Queen desires it). That aside, the dialects spoken by common people were often wildly different to 'proper' language, to the point that they were mutually incomprehensible.

 

[Leoreth]

Of course, but gangleri wanted to make the point that the nobility spoke a different language than the peasantry in other medieval countries as well.

 

[Arakhor]

I don't know any statistics about this, but how many of those languages used by commoners were actually adopted by the nobility, rather than the other way around?

 

[Dachs]

I don't know any statistics about this, but how many of those languages used by commoners were actually adopted by the nobility, rather than the other way around?

French, Spanish, and Italian all were - if you believe the migrationists.

 

[Arakhor]

I take it that you don't think that very likely.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

I'm more inclined to let culture evolve naturally. Trying to dictate things like this in modern times is usually a waste of time.