Latin falling into disuse

[Plotinus]

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.

 

[Verbose]

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.

 

[MCdread]

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...

 

[jonatas]

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.

 

[Verbose]

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.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

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.

 

[MCdread]

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.

 

[bob bobato]

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.

 

[Mirc]

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.

 

[Verbose]

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.

 

[Plotinus]

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.

 

[jonatas]

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.

 

[innonimatu]

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

 

[Verbose]

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!

 

[Valka D'Ur]

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! 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?

 

[LDeska]

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?

 

[Plotinus]

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?

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

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.

 

[Verbose]

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.

 

[The Last Conformist]

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.