Latin as the universal European language

[Dachs]

No, you wouldn't get any of that. If Latin was introduced as a common language for Europeans to communicate with each other (everywhere - in real life, on the internet, etc.) and nobody spoke it as their first language, it would remain in a fairly frozen state.

If people are using a language, it doesn't remain in a fairly frozen state.

 

[Leoreth]

But if you have high literacy, it stays quite viscous and doesn't vaporize (man, that was an overextended metaphor).

 

[Danielion]

That's why Spanish isn't disintegrating into even more Romance languages. Well, it could happen. The Dutch language did in Dutch and Afrikaans. This was due to political reasons. A Nationalist impuls caused it to happen. Interestingly, though, I only talk Dutch to Afrikaans-speaking people (never English). I also know enough about Afrikaans peculiarities to rule out communication problems too.

Latin only disintegrated with the fall of the Empire and the transition to the Early Middle Ages. The great open border zone of yore didn't exist no more and mobility of people decreased, as did literacy and population quantity. Centuries before, the language wasn't suffering any danger of disappearing.

 

[Winner]

If people are using a language, it doesn't remain in a fairly frozen state.

If the language is essentially a tool that people learn in schools as opposed to learning whatever funny dialect their parents speak at home, then it changes veeeery slowly. Each new generations learn the same language, because there is an established standard.

Now, sure there would be some development, especially if we introduced a dead language into everyday use among half a billion Europeans. However, since this would be basically a huge social engineering project, I expect there would be something of a central authority deciding what's "proper" Eurolatin and what is not. You know, something that English (sorely) lacks. (In Czech, there is the Institute of the Czech Language which is the ultimate authority that determines the norms.)

That would depend on how fast the national identities would vanish. Language is the main factor that keeps them alive.

Of course you'd still get dialects, but a differentiation into mutually not understandable languages isn't very likely with modern literacy.

Not even dialects. At best (worst), you'd get regional variations in pronunciation (which already exist in Latin anyway). With proper schooling and considering that nobody would speak Latin as their native tongue, there would hardly be any reason why any dialects should arise. Especially since the main benefit of the language would be the ease of communication with other Europeans. Those who don't want/need to talk with the Germans or French or Spaniards or Swedes would just forget most of what they learned in school ( ), while those actively using the language would be forced by circumstances to conform to the norm in order to understand and be understood by the foreign speakers.

Maybe some sort of "net-Latin" would develop to serve the needs of the online community, but I would hardly qualify that as a dialect.

 

[Danielion]

You know, something that English (sorely) lacks.

The spelling corrector always has to tell me that 'anymore' isn't a word in English and that has to be 'no more'.

Maybe some sort of "net-Latin" would develop to serve the needs of the online community, but I would hardly qualify that as a dialect.

That would be 'slang'. Not sure what Latin equivalent one can use for 'slang'. My language doesn't even have one (Bargoens is 'thief' slang, and that doesn't cover it neither). In French you have the word 'argot'...

Something like that must slowly develop. Hebrew didn't have any cursing until they started borrowing from Arabic.

 

[Winner]

The spelling corrector always has to tell me that 'anymore' isn't a word in English and that has to be 'no more'.

Yeah. I hate my MS Office Word because it refuses to acknowledge that English (United Kingdom) is the bloody default setting. It keeps switching to English (United States), which vexes me to no end

But seriously, in English, pretty much anything is allowed once a lot of people start saying/doing/writing it. In Czech, it isn't so - if you keep writing crap that isn't allowed according to the book, you'll eventually be ridiculed into obedience and conformity (Which is why we have this concept of "spisovná čeština", a "literary Czech", which nobody ever speaks, but everyone is required to be able to write things down in it.)

 

[Arakhor]

Well, "any more" is perfectly acceptable on most instances. "No more" has much more limited usage.

For instance, "you can't use incorrect written Czech any more", but "there are no more unread posts on CFC right now".

 

[Winner]

I think he meant "anymore", written as one word.

 

[Traitorfish]

Now, sure there would be some development, especially if we introduced a dead language into everyday use among half a billion Europeans. However, since this would be basically a huge social engineering project, I expect there would be something of a central authority deciding what's "proper" Eurolatin and what is not. You know, something that English (sorely) lacks. (In Czech, there is the Institute of the Czech Language which is the ultimate authority that determines the norms.)

What benefits do you think that the British (or Americans, or Australians, etc.) would draw from such an institution?

 

[Leoreth]

II expect there would be something of a central authority deciding what's "proper" Eurolatin and what is not. You know, something that English (sorely) lacks.

Ugh, now that would probably justify every cliche there is about the European Union. Please no centralisation of language.

 

[Winner]

Ugh, now that would probably justify every cliche there is about the European Union. Please no centralisation of language.

Oh come on, I am sure Germany has something similar to the Czech institute I mentioned earlier, as well as practically any other nation state in Europe.

 

[Traitorfish]

Noting that this has more to do with the standard forms of most European languages having been arbitrarily constructed by nationalist intellectuals, rather than it being particularly sensible policy.

 

[Quackers]

I don't think the English language has any institute like Académie française

It again just demonstrates the uniquerness of our culture. We want our language to evolve organically through use by the entire population, in contrast to an elite group of unelected intellectuals determining "proper" words, "proper" usage like in France. UK: 1, Europe*: O

.the countries with language academies.

 

[Traitorfish]

As long as the population aren't Scot, black, or any other sort of degraded colonial race that are capable of producing only "dialects", and not contributing to the language itself, of course. We have some standards.

 

[Danielion]

English is also a standard one has to abide, but less official. Also, countries with language academies have their proper issues in the anti-intellectual masses butchering their language (not just by using slang, but by deterioration the grammar and by shrinking the vocabulary, think about Newspeak).

 

[Danielion]

As long as the population aren't Scot, black, or any other sort of degraded colonial race that are capable of producing only "dialects", and not contributing to the language itself, of course. We have some standards.

I would be worried when it spreads to middle class whites via the chav population speaking their adopted Jamaican patois which seems to be the trend over there in the UK.

 

[Traitorfish]

English is also a standard one has to abide, but less official. Also, countries with language academies have their proper issues in the anti-intellectual masses butchering their language (not just by using slang, but by deterioration the grammar and by shrinking the vocabulary, think about Newspeak).

"Butchering the language", in this case, meaning something approximate to "speaking it in a way which they've been doing for a thousand years, but which some intellectual in the capital has deemed to be improper".

I would be worried when it spreads to middle class whites via the chav population speaking their adopted Jamaican patois which seems to be the trend over there in the UK.

Yes, imagine the idea that Afro-Caribbean are capable of contributing to British culture. Whatever would Mosley Churchill think!?

 

[Danielion]

"Butchering the language", in this case, meaning something approximate to "speaking it in a way which they've been doing for a thousand years, but which some intellectual in the capital has deemed to be improper".

One has to be honest and just state the fact that the language they speak is poorer and less fit for expressing ideas. It lacks depth.

 

[Traitorfish]

One has to be honest and just state the fact that the language they speak is poorer and less fit for expressing ideas. It lacks depth.

Well, yes, that's why I propose abolishing their silly academies and turning the whole business over to the common people.

 

[Danielion]

Well, yes, that's why I propose abolishing their silly academies and turning the whole business over to the common people.

Academy or not, society foresees what is suitable in how a language should be spoken and it actually falls together nicely provided the language is alive and booming culturally. This doesn't, however, prevent common people speaking it in a less expressive way, more inefficient way.
English isn't prone to change that much over the course of years, because civilisation keeps it together, but common people have little say in that. Ghetto proles, thugs and chavs maybe, if you don't contain their influence.