Talk:Romance languages

Please add IPA to the written samples

Hi. Just wanted to ask someone to add pronunciation in IPA for the charts, otherwise an uninformed reader might not be able to understand how the modern languages are similar or different. Based only on written forms one could think they're still very similar, since all their spellings are based on Latin, even though pronunciation has changed a great deal.

Romanesci (also cited by Giuseppe Lazarini in other wikipedia articles) is NOT a hoax....

...Hello - first let me apologize for any trouble my inexperience in wikipedia my have caused. I experienced quite a bit of difficulty adding references to other articles that mention Romanesci (pronounced "Romaneshti"). Aromanian is within the same family as Romanesci since it most likely also originated from Latin-speaking settlers of the Eastern Roman Empire (Greece in the case of the Romanae). Romanesci, however, is distinct and provides a very interesting window into the cultural/linguistic history of the common Latin-speaking people that inhabited the Eastern half of the Empire. To not acknowledge Romanesci would be a significant loss in the quest to link what remnants of the common Roman's speech still exist and are alive today. My credentials include 25 years of formal study of Roman history and the Latin language, a B.A. in the Classics (Greek and Roman History and Literature) from North Central College in Naperville, an unpublished thesis on the similarities of Romanesci and Latin (in most ways it is just as close if not closer than any Romance language to Latin), and of course - a lifetime of speaking the authentic Romanesci spoken by the Greco-Romans still living in Greece and many other areas of the former Roman Empire. Please feel free to contact me if there is any interest in testing, proving, and documenting the living language of Romanesci (which literally means "knows Roman"). It would be a terrible shame to not share my findings on this language's link to the Roman past which shaped much of Western culture. As the Romanae still say - S'hai Sanitate (May You Have Health) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tchino (talk • contribs) 06:38, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is written on the basis of reliable sources that are verifiable. Can you provide bibliographic information on the language? I'm afraid Google/Google Scholar turn up nothing useful. Once you have a source for the material, it can be added to the relevant articles. — æk^Talk 10:31, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

"Romanesci"

The Romance language in Greece that you are referring to is normally called Megleno-Romanian. Be aware that the term Romanesci is also a politically charged term in the Balkans due to the controversy over linguistic and ethnic identity in Moldova.

--Bxmuchacho (talk) 13:38, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Translation of tall

I may be wrong, but I'm fairly sure that the translation for High is not the one's listed here, but belongs to the translation for tall.

Could some linguist, or a possessor of many dictionaries, check? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.147.90.103 (talk) 20:18, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Tall - Altus

English uses two different words for height. One is used to describe height for a person/thing and another for a place. The modern Romance languages do not. The word is correct for both tall and high. ex: Spanish - "El es más alto que yo." He is taller than me. "Un sitio muy alto." A very high place. --Bxmuchacho (talk) 12:23, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

May I indicate that in French 'grand' (normally 'big' in English') is normally used in common speech for either 'tall' or 'old'. To prevent confusion 'tall' can translate 'de grande taille' and 'old' 'âgé'?

Acsacal (talk) 15:36, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Angola and Mozambique missing

Angola and Mozambique are missing from the Romance-language distribution map.

Albanian

Removed this reference "Albanian" because Albanian is not a member of the Romance subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European. While Albanian has numerous loanwords from Latin, the English language has even more, yet English is still clearly a member of West Germanic. Albanian's affinities lie with either ancient Illyrian or ancient Thracian (probably with both). Further, the link associated with it didn't link to a language article or research periodical, but to a rather shoddily written student term paper.

As a Romance philologist I find it disturbing that the average layman doesn't know how to tell the difference between what is and what is NOT a Romance language. The Romance languages are among the easiest of European languages to identify just by a cursory glance of their writing conventions.

Rule of thumb:

If a European language uses de or di to mean "of" or "from" (or variations with the contracted forms of the definite article) you can bet your bottom dollar that it's a member of the Romance group. ex: Curtea de Arges, Giro del Veneto, Santiago de Cuba, Notre Dame de Paris, Vilafranca del Penedes, Mogi das Cruzes.

Reference has moved to here, [1], but as stated, it's wrong, anyhow. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:31, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Missing languages

The language tree in the article is missing Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian.

Picard

The translation for Picard seems to include both the forms "thou sayest" and "he says". Seems unnecessary since it's not the case for any other language. Could someone more familiar with Picard check it out? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 01:41, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

"Formal" vs. "register differences"

To some scholars, this suggests that (…) Vulgar Latin (…) was spoken alongside the written Classical Latin which was reserved for official and formal occasions. Other scholars argue that the distinctions are more rightly viewed as indicative of sociolinguistic and register differences normally found within any language. What distinction is this getting at? I'm not really grasping one. "Official and formal occasions" is after all one of the most typical areas of life to have a separate linguistic register. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 22:02, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Samples - Mozarabic

Just for curious, who did reconstruct it and how?, any source?. Ferrandi (talk) 14:33, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Sample - Dalmatian

Using current Wikipedia pages and links on the Dalmatian language, I have almost reconstructed the Dalmatian phrase:

Jala tot de el/la ______ fermua la finiastra aninč de cenur/kenur.

Lit: She all of the (time) secures (Fr: fermer) the window before dining.

Should this be included? Thanks for your input! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.118.61.80 (talk) 22:36, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

nonsense?

Cerlomin deleted the following text:

Catalan is unusual in that it is not the main language of any nation-state, other than Andorra (a European microstate between Spain and France), but nonetheless has been able to compete and even gain speakers at the expense of the dominant language of its primary nation (Spanish); in fact, Catalan is probably the only minority European language whose long-term survival is not under threat. This is due to a strong belief that the Catalan language is a critical component of the ethnic identity of the Catalan people. This has allowed them to resist the assimilationist urges that are in the process of destroying most of the remaining minority-language communities, even those that have strong government support (e.g. Irish language speakers).

It may be unreferenced, but I see no nonsense or pov. Has anybody some numbers about the gaining popularity of the Catalan language?--Sajoch (talk) 23:07, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I disagree, this is not nonsense and separatist at all. Catalan has more total speakers than some official languages of the European Union (total Catalan/Valencian speakers in Europe are not much less than Greek, Hungarian or European Portuguese speakers, and exceed Danish or Finnish speakers), Catalan is both a regional (in Spain, France and Italy) and national language (in Andorra), Catalan is not a threatened or endangered language, and the Catalan language is a true critical compoment of the ethnic identity of the Catalan people.

He was right, Catalan doesn't have 12 million native speakers... When I added 12 million they were mentioning total speakers, rather than native speakers... Jɑυмe (xarrades) 01:14, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

If you want to change that number, you have to provide reliable sources. Ethnologue reports 12 milions: http://www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/distribution.asp?by=size --Grifter72 (talk) 11:44, 11 December 2011 (UTC) The fact that Ethnologue reports 12 million speakers in a region with 7.5 million habitants only demonstrates that Ethnologue is not any reliable source. You should remove the statement and add reliable information when it is available. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.148.74.57 (talk) 07:04, 24 February 2012 (UTC)