Talk:Vulgar Latin

"Va" forms

I noticed that most if not all Romance languages use "va" and similar forms in the present tense of the verb "to go". For instance, the third-person singular form of ir in Spanish, aller in French, and andare in Italian is "va", and Portuguese has "vai" for ir. I'm wondering where this comes from. Do they come from a corruption of Latin ire, or somewhere else? In any case, I think it should be noted in the article since this feature is so common. - furrykef (Talk at me) 11:21, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

The va- forms come from Latin vādō, vādere. CapnPrep 11:59, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

To go a bit farther: va - 3rd pers.sing.ind, 'andare', 'ir', 'aller', etc: < Lat. vado, -ere. to go; as often happens in Romance, the less common written classical form 'yields' to the more common colloquial form. Cf It. andare: < Lat. Vadere: thus: Vadimus < Arch.Lat. *wandiymus > LL *andyemus > It. Andiamo. And so on. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 16:32, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

The "va-" forms and the "and-" forms are related? I didn't know that! I had thought that this illustrated the more general phenomenon called suppletion. English has it: go/went, where went is etymologically the past tense of to wend. Also, the various forms of the verb to be are examples of suppletion. I think it's still the case with Spanish ir. —Largo Plazo (talk) 01:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Andare and aller are usually said to derive from ambulare, and the modern Romance conjugations are presented as textbook examples of suppletive paradigms. I'm not sure how this can be reconciled with Jim62sch's proposal above. CapnPrep (talk) 13:12, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

That's it—ambulare's the source I'm used to seeing. But are there other examples of Latin mb > Spanish nd? —Largo Plazo (talk) 15:43, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

While ambulare is the most widely accepted source, it must also be recognized that it did not undergo regular phonetic development. Here's an article (from 1904!) that argues against this dominant hypothesis, and suggests that adnare ('swim to' > annare, with suffixed forms *annitare, *annulare) might be the correct source: The Etymology of the Romance Words for "To Go". CapnPrep (talk) 16:27, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The basic issue is that the forms developed differently in the romance languages, in many cases depending on how early Latin was introduced to the area and various geographic and sociologiocal factors. Recall that I mentioned the Italian model andare, and in Italian we find the following forms:

Pres Ind 1PS, vado, 2PS, vai, 3PS, va and 3PP vanno.

Pres Subj 1PS, 2PS, 3PS, vada, 3PP, vadano.

Spanish and Portuguese ir (ostensibly from ire (eo)) are even stranger, with forms derived from eo, vado and sum.

On the other hand, Catalan anar, derives from only two forms see here for those unfamiliar with Catalan.

Ditto for Sicilian annari

Aller, too, is a hodgepodge of forms: eo, vado and, possibly, a very corrupted form of ambulo, although to me that seems unlikely.

Then there's Romanian, with two forms, voi from vado, and a reflexive se duce from duco.

Of course, "to go" is one of the most irregular verbs in IE languages, next to "to be". "to be" is rather interesting in Romance languages as Latin had only one verb, sum (sto meaning stand) yet Romance languages can have between 1 and 3. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 19:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

But were you seriously proposing Lat. vadere > It. andare? CapnPrep (talk) 19:35, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

If you trace back from Old Latin, there is a linguistic reason to assume so. However, I can see no reason for mb becoming nd, and am aware of no such mutation in Romance languages, nor can I posit a mechanism for such a mutation: I could see either the m or b dropping (most likely the b), but not such a shift as proposed. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 20:27, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

You omitted Spanish fui, fuiste, etc., as the preterite for ir, and likewise in Portuguese. These are identical to the preterite for ser = "to be", but is this definitely known to be suppletion by these forms of ser, or might it be a matter of suppletion by Latin fugio = "to flee", which had the preterite fugi, fugisti, fugit, etc.? Of course, Spanish huir = "to flee" took its own path too, but this could have been a parallel development. The dropping of the "g" is normal, as in huir itself, as in rugitus > ruido ("noise"), etc. —Largo Plazo (talk) 19:46, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I forgot nothing, read again (with emphasis added):

Spanish and Portuguese ir (ostensibly from ire (eo)) are even stranger, with forms derived from eo, vado and sum.

Re fugio -- seems unlikely. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 20:27, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, of course—reading too fast, I didn't connect sum. —Largo Plazo (talk) 23:31, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

And I was a bit short with you, sorry about that. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 19:41, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Conjugation tables

• I think a specific source should be cited for the Vulgar Latin forms, and they should all be marked with "*".
• Why are conditional forms given as imperfect subjunctive in Italian (with inconsistencies in the stem vowel of amare)?
• The compound forms of the subjunctive in Spanish ought to be removed or replaced with historical forms.

Would someone who has adequate sources please have a look? CapnPrep (talk) 10:39, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

• Agreed about sources.
• To tell you the truth, I don't think there should be a column for Vulgar Latin in there, since it never had a standard written form, and probably was regionally heterogeneous, at least in its latter stages. I'm still thinking of removing Vulgar Latin from the table, and moving the tables to Romance languages.
• Maybe the Italian conditional is derived from the Latin imperfect subjunctive. This happened in some Romance languages. See Romance copula.
• I would keep the compound forms. The article on the Romance copula already has a table for morphological (diacronical) comparison. I've been meaning to make another one, for semantic equivalences between the Latin synthetic forms and the modern Romance (often analytic) forms of the verbs. FilipeS (talk) 14:50, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

• I didn't see anything in Romance copula to suggest that some Romance conditionals came from the Latin imperfect subjunctive, only that the Catalan and Sicilian conditional forms in for- come from the Latin pluperfect indicative. On the other hand, the Portuguese inflected infinitives might indeed come from imperfect subjunctives, so they could be added to the table…
• …except that those rows are are already (incorrectly) occupied by the -ra subjunctive forms for Spanish and Portuguese. These actually derive from the Latin pluperfect indicative (amaveram > amara), which is missing from the tables altogether!
• The Spanish -se subjunctives should be in the pluperfect subjunctive row (amavissem > amase), in replacement of the compound forms.
• If Spanish is allowed to have compound subjunctive forms, why not all the other languages? This will enlarge the tables considerably, and irrelevantly, unless someone can prove that such compound forms existed in Vulgar Latin.
• Removing Vulgar Latin would leave a 1500 year gap in the tables. I assume that there are good sources for Vulgar Latin reconstruction, and I wouldn't be surprised if these exact two tables are available in some published source (minus all the errors).

CapnPrep (talk) 15:19, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Why not accusative?

Why are forms other than the acc used as etymological sources? •Jim62sch•^dissera! 00:28, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

The Vulgata Latina

The Vulgate by Jerome is supposed to represent popular Latin as it was at the time that the translation was made. True or not??? Peter Horn 18:53, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

The Vulgate is a conventional rendition of Latin as written at the time; it is not indicative of spoken Latin. Spoken Latin was already dialectical (and much simplified in comparison to classical Latin) and was already well on the way to becoming the various Romance Languages (all 47 of them). •Jim62sch•^dissera! 16:26, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

So the scheme to make the Bible unintelligible for the ordinary people would already have started by then, unless those ordinary people even moderately literate in Latin could actually (still) read it. Would there have been those who would speak both "proper" Latin and "popular" Latin just as today most, if not all, Germans, Swiss and Austrians are "bilingual" in that they speak both "High German" and their local dialect? The local dialects are mostly mutually unintelligible. I do speak High German and have "bilingual" German friends. As a native Dutch speaker I do understand the dialect(s) of Hamburg and Bremen. Peter Horn 22:37, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

As the empire was crumbling and the education system was falling apart, the Vulgate might as well have been in Greek as far as the average Roman citizen went (and those citizens trained in Classical Latin would have grimaced at the errors). The case system was already coming apart as the use of prepositions negated the need for declensions beyond the nominative and accusative, and the introduction of ille and the like as definite articles rather than demonstratives took hold (yes, the declining education system played into this, as well).

Interestingly, German still relies heavily on the case system although it is no longer needed: the codification of German by virtue of the publication of various bibles played a large part in maintaing the case system. Ah, but that's another story. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 20:17, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Vulgar Latin, as in this political graffito at Pompeii, was the speech of ordinary people of the Roman Empire — different from Latin as written by the Roman elites.

What did it say (transliteration & translation) and how would it have been written in classical Latin?. Just curious. Why did ancient Greek not fall appart like Latin? To the extend that I'm able to read the Greek alphabet I'm able to observe that, at least in the definite articles the case endings are alive and well. They appear to be the same as in Koine Greek. What forces kept the Greek language so conservative? What forces kept the Spanish language so conservative so that it is substantially the same as at the time that Columbus sailed? The Spanish language is, except for the cullinary vocabulary, remarcably uniform in all countries where Castellano is spoken. My wife is Mexican & I have had different dealings with some members of the Hispanic community here in Montreal. In times past illiteracy may have been, or was, the norm in Latin America but over some 500 years that did not appear to have had a big impact overall. As Winnie ille Pu said: "Rogo vos et quero id, quid est quod et quod est quid". Peter Horn 00:34, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah yes, as soon as Christianity reached Rome the NT and the OT (Septuagint) wou;d be rendered from Koine Greek into a number (series) of Latin versions, the Vulgate being only one in that series. I find it hard to believe that the early Chtistians would produce translations that were unintelligible by the ones for whom they were intended. It does not seem likely that they would waste their time that way. "Rogo vos et quero id". Vale Peter Horn 00:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Jim62sch's comments about Latin are not very accurate. Classical Latin gradually grew farther apart from the spoken dialect but it would have taken a long time before the classical language would have become unintelligible. Keep in mind that when written Latin was spoken, it would have been spoken according to the local accent. It's likely that the average speaker of vulgar Latin in 500 AD anywhere in the empire would have little problem understanding written Latin. There mere presence of extra case endings in the written language would not make the language unintelligible. As an extreme and illustrative example of this, consider Modern Standard Arabic. There is a close analogy between (A) the positions of spoken dialectal Arabic in 2000 AD, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), and the Classical Arabic of the Koran (600 AD) and (B) those of 1400 AD spoken Romance dialects, Medieval Latin, and Classical Latin (0 AD). In both cases, you can take the classical language as essentially the parent of all the spoken languages, and the time frame (1400 years) is the same, and both sets of dialects (Romance and Arabic) had diverged about equally far from the parent and from each other. Similarly, the difference between MSA and Classical Arabic is much like the difference between Medieval and Classical Latin, and they are (or were) used in similar circumstances -- writing of all sorts, formal speeches, radio broadcasts, formal TV interviews, etc. etc. It takes some education to learn MSA but it's not very hard and most Arabic speakers do -- in fact, you pretty much have to in order to be able to write, since almost nothing is ever written in local dialects. Classical Arabic had 3 cases marked on nouns and adjectives (nom, acc, gen), whereas the modern dialects have none. Properly speaking, since MSA is just a variant of Classical Arabic, is has 3 cases too, but in practice it's always composed without case endings, which are then artificially added later on. This has no effect on understanding. Something similar likely happened with Medieval Latin. Benwing (talk) 08:44, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

He is probably a student and his knowledge of the language itself and its developments is rather limited, as it appears from his talk page and the comments here (especially consider the section "Cicero" below ...) Mamurra (talk) 13:24, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Uh, Jim62sch might be a student and/or might be wrong on some counts, but what's wrong with his comment on Cicero? Cicero did edit his speeches to be examples of the best proper Latin, and Cicero himself describes what he considered the decay of the language at the time... and his attempts to purify the language (in a similar way to the attempts of 19th-century grammarians to create rules for English grammar that didn't necessarily exist) are pretty well-documented. (A number of books from classics scholarship from the past decade discuss this, which I thought had been the prevailing view for about a century, if not more.) What's the problem? Is your familiarity with classics scholarship even more limited than his? And if there is something wrong, why not comment on it where it belongs... in the Cicero section below?? 79.36.124.117 (talk) 22:37, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Because I decided to comment that here. And the comment in question runs thus: Cicero rewrote his speeches to fit the conventions of "proper" Latin., which, being inserted into the talk page for "Vulgar Latin", and thus implying that Cicero edited his speeches to change the "spoken" vulgar version into "written" classical version, forms a palpable nonsense. Please read Asconius on the Miloniana, then you'll learn what was the purpose of editing and what was the extent of it. In any way, this has nothing to do with "vulgar Latin". Mamurra (talk) 15:16, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Classical only words

Some of the classical only words are not classical only. I found four of them in Romanian:

• Latin albus -> Romanian alb (white)
• Latin cogitare > Romanian cugeta (to think)
• Latin equus > Latin equa (feminine) -> Romanian iapă (female horse); qu -> p is a common phonetic change, cf. aqua -> apă (water)
• Latin scire -> Romanian şti (to know)

bogdan (talk) 00:44, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if this is the case, but these words may have survived from the classical vocabulary spoken by the elite. The explanation is probably that the Vulgar latin vocabulary varied. I know for a fact that Rheto-Roman uses a word derived from 'albus' for white. So yes, you are probably right that these words are not classical only, but maybe they were classical only in most of western Europe, rumanian is sort of deviant from the other latin languages anyway, so...--Alexlykke (talk) 13:30, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Latin cogitare has also survived in Spanish cuidar, that nowadays means "be careful", "take care of", "look after". The phonetic development points to a popular use during the Middle Ages, and the shift of meaning is consistent with the presence of pensare as "think". But pensare itself is problematic, because the n in that position should have dropped already in the I century AD, at least in the spoken language. Spanish has in fact the doublet pesar "weigh" and pensar "think". When did the pronunciation get differentiated? When was pensare readopted displacing cogitare from its former role? Sprocedato (talk) 00:46, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

This indicates that pensare was originally a learned word that at some point in the early Middle Ages became adopted as a popular word in most of the Romance area. Note that Old French also has cuidier meaning "believe" and plenty of other seemingly vanished Classical words, e.g. rien "thing", estovoir "to be necessary" (from est opus; cf. Old Spanish huebos es), polle "girl" (Lat. puella), etc. Benwing (talk) 03:53, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Apocope

Unless the definition of this term is different in English than in my language, there's something not quite right here. Apocope is the loss unstressed vowels in the last syllable, not the loss of consonants, as far as I know. I do not know, though, what the appropriate term is. Can anybody help?--Alexlykke (talk) 13:26, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

It can refer to both: In many cases the loss of an unstressed vowel in the final syllable resulted in the lost of the following noun. For example, Latin panem became Spanish pan, French pain, Portuguese pão, Romanian pâine, etc. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 17:55, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Cicero

Beware this sentence: The Latin brought by Roman soldiers to Gaul, Iberia or Dacia was not identical to the Latin of Cicero,.... Cicero rewrote his speeches to fit the conventions of "proper" Latin. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 17:58, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Subordinate clause

The subordinate clause might be of value, but it's not phrased well: For many centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, Vulgar Latin continued to coexist with a written form of Late Latin, which is currenly referred to as Medieval Latin; for when speakers of Romance vernaculars set out to write with correct grammar and spelling, they attempted to emulate the norms of Classical Latin. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 18:26, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Meliores

The article says:

optimos > meliores (Portuguese melhor, Galician mellor, Spanish mejor, Catalan millor, French meilleur, Italian migliore, "best", originally "better"; but cf. Spanish óptimo, Portuguese ótimo, Italian ottimo, French optimal, with the sense of "excellent" or "optimal")

This is incorrect. Migliore does mean "better" in Italian, as in:

"X è migliore di Y" = X is better than Y

It means "best" only if you use it together with the determinative article, but this is true for any other adjective:

"X è il migliore" = X is the best, but also "X è il più grande" = X is the biggest.

I think this is true for French, Spanish and Portuguese too, but I can't guarantee. Lupo Azzurro (talk) 13:53, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Latin had bonus/melior/optimus for good/better/best. The point, I guess, is that "optimus" gave way to the regular construction used for the superlative in the Romance languages. Indeed, it's the same in all the languages you mention. Spanish: "Este es mejor que ese." "Este es el mejor de todos." French: "Celui-ci est meilleur que celui-là." "Celui-ci est le meilleur de tous." And the descendants of "optimus" are used in Portuguese and perhaps Spanish (I don't know), for the absolute superlative, the one usually conveyed in Spanish by -ísimo. —Largo Plazo (talk) 16:11, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for having resolved my doubt, but you missed my point. It is true that optimus is used just for the absolute superlative in Romance languages, and not for the relative superlative. But this hasn't anything to do with melior/optimus, because in Latin there wasn't any difference between the two kinds of superlative. The construction for the relative superlative in Romance languages is completely different than it was in Latin, for any adjective, not just for bonus.

Example:

1. Marcus amicis suis fortissimus est = Marcus is the strongest of his friends (Relative superlative)

2. Marcus fortissimus est = Marcus is very strong (Absolute superlative)

As you see Latin uses the same construction in both cases. Romance languages, on the other hand, use the same construction as Latin for the absolute superlative, while they use plus/magis + the comparative for the relative superlative.

Example:

1. Marco è il più forte dei suoi amici.

2. Marco è fortissimo.

If you say "Marco è fortissimo dei suoi amici" (Latin construction), it's wrong, just as if you say "Marco è ottimo dei suoi amici" instead of "Marco è il migliore dei suoi amici". Anyway, my first point was that the article mistakes when it states that melior means "best" in modern Romance languages. Melior means "better", just as in Latin, but if you add the article "the", it means "best", just with any adjective (as I've just explained above). Lupo Azzurro (talk) 13:57, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

You just got through writing that melior doesn't mean "best" but that, when preceded with "the", it does mean best. It doesn't but it does? This is a confused way of expressing the situation. Yes, (the descendants of) melior do mean "best", when preceded by "the", just as più forte means both "strong" and "strongest", depending on whether it's preceded by il. As for the rest of what you wrote, in no way does it contradict anything that I said, and in fact mostly just repeats it. —Largo Plazo (talk) 15:08, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

The article states that melior turned out to mean "best", while it originally meant "better", and that is wrong. It's the way to construct the superlative that changed, not melior. Why doesn't it cite all these other adjectives, otherwise?

Minore = less - Il minore = the least

Maggiore = bigger - Il maggiore = the biggest

Peggiore = worse - Il peggiore = the worst

By the way, più forte means "stronger" ("strongest" when preceded by "il"), not "strong".Lupo Azzurro (talk) 21:15, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Vulgar Latin adverbs etc.

"This change was well under way as early as the 1st century BCE, and the construction appears several times in Catullus, for example in Catullus 8, line 11: sed obstinata mente perfer, obdura "but carry on obstinately [obstinate-mindedly]: get over it!"

• This is, I believe, overstated. Obviously, Catullus does contain the phrase, and it is quasi-adverbial, but drawing a conclusion, that "the change was well under way" that time is definitely wrong, since an adjective + mente + a verb is a standard way of expressing the state of someone's mind while doing something. Obviously, this very construct is the ultimate source of the Romance adverbs, but seeing it in Catullus is too far fetched. The source of this error is, however, easy to explain, if one takes a look at the English translation of the line: "obstinata mente" can only be rendered naturally in English as an adverb, and so author of the article thinks that this is an adverb in Latin too. However, unlike in today's languages, adding "mente" (or "animo") to an adjective in order to express someone's state of mind or intention is natural in Latin; for example one can say "animo libenti" (or "libenti animo") instead of "libenter". Such usage is purely a question of style, and so do not constitute any evidence of the Romance adverbial system functioning so early. If there will be no further discussion, I will remove or rephrase the sentence, as it is clearly misleading in its present form.

No discussion, so deleted. Mamurra (talk) 13:19, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

• As a side note, the article cites "bellus" as a vulgar equivalent to classical "pulcer", and "comparare" as a vulgar equivalent to classical "emere". But "bellus" is a litterary word as well (recorded in such writers as Cicero, Catullus, Martial etc.), and "comparare" in the meaning of "to buy" is to be found already in Cicero. So I do not think, that these two examples are particularly well-choosen. Mamurra (talk) 11:32, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

You hit here the heart of the topic. You say that Cicero used comparare meaning "buy", but probably a more literal translation of the sentence you are referring to would use "obtain", "procure", or simply "get", because the stress is on having the thing prepared and not on paying a price. The word emere refers unambiguously to there being a price, like English buy and Italian comprare. When Titus Livius sais sex tribunos ad intercessionem [comparare] he does not imply that six tribunes will be bribed to intercede (interpose a veto); they will be gained to intercede, with some convincing argument, not necessarily money. To say that Cicero already used comparare in the meaning of "buy" is an overstatement, to use your own words. Cf. emere domum prope dimidio carius quam aestimabatur "to buy a house at a price about one half higher than it was valued", Cicero De domo, 115.

The example is well chosen because the main word for the meaning "buy" has indeed changed. The difficult point is to assert that it changed during the lifetime of Vulgar Latin. I think so, but I'm certainly not an authority. Don't the Cited Sources say so? Sprocedato (talk) 20:55, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

While I am now tending to agree, that "bellus" is something more than "pulcer" in classical Latin (in afterthought: "bella puella" is not a "beautiful girl", but "top class girl", which is obviously beautiful too, but not exclusively), I must say, that "comparare" seems to mean "to buy" already in classical Latin, and this is why I said, that the example is not very well-chosen. TLL volume III, page 2011 cites "to buy" even as the first meaning of the word: "I. in possessionem suam redigere, plearumque emere (...) A. proprie de eis, quae pecunia sim. acquiruntur. Then citations follow (quas vide). And maybe Suet. Iul. 45: "decreuit tandem, ut debitores creditoribus satis facerent per aestimationem possessionum, quanti quasque ante ciuile bellum comparassent". Then it seems to me, that "comparare" = "to buy" was well established already in classical Latin, and so it can't be said, that it gained new meaning in vulgar Latin. The only thing that happened was that "emere" ceased to be used. Obviously, the Livy's example does not deny this, as "comparare" can be used in other meanings too (listed in TLL in further sections). Mamurra (talk) 14:06, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Ages of Latin

The table at the bottom of the article. To my knowledge, the period of 200-900 is not a period of "Vulgar Latin", but a period of "Late Latin". Late Latin surely consists of Vulgar Latin too, but not solely, as the litterary language did not cease to exist after 200 AD. This is also the cause of some confusions in the article itself, and also in Latin spelling and pronunciation, where one can get an impression, that the authors cannot clearly decide, whether the Vulgar Latin is confined to the vulgar speech of late periods (like III/IV/V century), or it also existed in Classical times. This looks like a major inconsitency. Mamurra (talk) 10:28, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Scholarly Latin

This scholarly Latin, "frozen" by Justinian's codifications of Roman law on the one hand, and by the Catholic Church on the other, was eventually unified by the medieval copyists

What exactly was unified? Mamurra (talk) 12:57, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Pompeian graffitto

What is written on the graffitto? Could I ask for a translitteration? Mamurra (talk) 18:24, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I can see "<AV>RELIVM" and "C LOLLIVM LVSCVM" below. The rest is illegible, but anyways, I don't think that this graffitto can prove, that "spoken" Latin was different than the written one - rather the opposite. Despite tha fact that this seems to be a pretty official inscription. My proposition is to remove the image, then. Mamurra (talk) 13:10, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Compliments for what you managed to read! I agree with you: it's an exhortation to vote some political candidates with nothing "vulgar" in it, except for soiling a wall in the public street. There are some transliterations of Pompeiian Graffiti here. They are indistinguishable, as to the language, from classical Latin. Of course there may be others more representative of vulgar Latin, but I think that Pompeii is the wrong place to search. Sprocedato (talk) 23:41, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I'll remove the image right away then. For the inscriptions, in meantime I have found something, that is prima facie classical, but in wider context it is deviant, as it says "VALETIS" where one would expect "VALETE". So there is some confusion of endings, which is easily observable in late periods, and hence a conclusion is drawn, that this phenomenon occurred already in vulgar speech in 1st century AD. Still, this conclusion is a hypothesis, and as such is debatable, because one can think that a confusion between -etis and -ete may be explained differently, for example by Greek substratum (where there is no difference between indic. and imperat. praes act. in 2nd. pl.). Anyway, there is no place here to discuss such details. Mamurra (talk) 14:12, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Jacomos

Jacọmọs mẹ ´lẹvrọ dẹ ´patre dat. - are these forms actually attested for imperial period, or they're purely restored from the Romance? In either case, for which century they're supposed to be valid? Mamurra (talk) 09:40, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

De foris

we find St Jerome writing si quis de foris venerit ("if anyone goes outside").

Sure, that de foris actually means "outside" in this place? venire is not "to go", but "to come", and de foris looks much like the classical foris, i.e. "from outside". So I suspect that the suggested translation may be wrong, it should be "if anyone comes from outside". And this in turn, shows no parallel to the Romance examples adduced in the relevant section. Mamurra (talk) 09:45, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Replaced with a better example. Mamurra (talk) 13:19, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

So did I have the feeling that this phrase meant "if anyone comes from outside", and I was disturbed by the translation. --Plijno (talk) 23:32, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Foru

*(h)omo stat in foru - the asterisk means that the sentence is hypothetical, but I think that it is also made hyper-vulgar, as foru is acc. But this section is about copula, and not about the confusion of cases, so this bit rather looks like someone was trying to amuse himself with the violation of syntax. I think writing in foro instead is okay, and the sentence remains vulgar enough just by the usage of homo instead of vir. Mamurra (talk) 10:04, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Corrected. Mamurra (talk) 13:19, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Retention of vowel length distinctions

Has any Romance language retained latin's vowel length distinctions?

In Friulian there is phonemic vowel length distinction, but this is a later development unrelated with the vocalic system of latin. In most Romance languages the vowels in open stressed syllables are longer than in closed stressed syllables. In Friulan this difference happened to become phonemic, probably when long consonants were lost.

For example, the minimal pair given in the article about Friulian language

lat (milk)

lât (gone)

is likely to derive from older Friulian

*latte

*allado

Thus, it is not correct to say that Friulian has retained vowel length distinctions. It has reintroduced them at a later time in a different phonetic system.

I propose to drop this claim from the article. Sprocedato (talk) 13:41, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I just did this. The phonemic length distinction in Middle French (and still indicated in spelling, with a circumflex) is likewise a secondary development, stemming mostly from /s/ that dropped before another consonant but lengthened the previous vowel in the process. Benwing (talk) 04:01, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Vulgar Latin vocabulary - sample table

Classical Latin	Vulgar Latin	English	Meaning of VL word in CL
bellum	*guerra	war	(Germanic origin)
cogitare	pensare	think	weigh, ponder
edere or esse	manducare	eat	chew
emere	comparare	buy	arrange, settle
equus	caballus	horse	gelding, nag
feles	catta	cat	(unkown origin)
hortus	*gardinus	garden	(Germanic origin)
ignis	focus	fire	fireplace
ludere	jocare	play	joke
omnes	totos	all	whole
os	bucca	mouth	cheek
pulcher	bellus	beautiful	pleasant
urbs	civitas	city	citizenship
verbum	parabola	word	comparison (from Greek)
vesper	sera	evening	late

What about adding a column to the table? I'm concerned with the fact that almost every entry in the table has a note reporting the original meaning of the word used in Vulgar Latin. Since shifts of meaning are relevant to the subject, why not put them systematically in the table itself? Sprocedato (talk) 16:09, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any objections except what I expressed above (that the entries of bellus/comparare as being vulgar, and opposed to pulcer/emere as being classical are doubtful IMHO). Mamurra (talk) 16:18, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

esse and edere

I see that a dispute has started about the infinitive of edo "eat". It's not central to this article, but I quite understand the desire for precision. I think that every sudent of Latin has learned the peculiarities of the verb edo, with its contracted or athematic forms. Seldom is our attention drawn to the existence of "regular" forms parallel to the "irregular" ones.

If edere is postclassical we should cite the infinitive in the table as esse (edo), or something very similar. If it's also classical we should put both forms esse or edere.

Interested people can quote or reference the dictionaries available to them.

Ferruccio Calonghi, Dizionario Italiano Latino, 3rd Ed., Rosenberg & Sellier, 1950, reports the entry as "ĕdo, ēdi, ēsum, ĕdĕre and esse -> estur, Plaut.; essetur (ederetur), Varr. - subj. edim, edis, etc., Plaut.; perf. eserim (esserim), Apul.; partic. estus, Placit." According to the conventions used in the dictionary this implies that the infinitive in classical Latin could be both edere and esse, but it's not explicit about that, and the forms of the present active indicative are strangely not dealt with.

Lewis & Short, 1879, is available online as part of the Perseus Project, and here's the direct link to edo. It says that there is an occurrence of pres. ind. uncontr. edit in Cic. Att. 13, 52; there is no mention at all of edere, but the sentence "the contracted forms are very frequent" is ambiguous, because it says nothing about the frequency of uncontracted forms.

The Oxford Latin Dictionary (1968-1982 edition), has "edō esse ēdī ēsum (essum) Forms: pres. ind. edo, (es), est, edimus, estis, edunt; pass. estur. Pres. subj. edam or (less common in class. and later Latin) edim. Impf. subj. essem (but ederent Gel. 19.2.7); pass. essetur cj. in Var.L.5.106. Imp. es (or esto), este. Pres. inf. esse; pass. edi. essum, essurus, etc. (= esum, esurus) Pl.Cur.228, Men.147, etc. Pros.: -i- of pres. subj. presumed long on analogy of sim, sīs, etc., though quantity actually certain only in Pl.Poen.537 (and by cj. in Nov.com.6)." Here inf. edere is altogether absent, therefore considered unattested in classical Latin.

Although none of the above sources is sufficiently explicit, I'm inclined to think, at least provisionally, that edere cannot be considered classical. -- Sprocedato (talk) 22:08, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Thesaurus Linguae Latinae explicitly says that "edere" is found first in Tertullian. So as long as it isn't proven wrong, I think that this has to be considered decisive. Mamurra (talk) 13:37, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Showing similarity to Italian

I am about to revert this edit. The reason being, that much of the features of vulgar Latin (incl. such words as "guerra") was deduced from Romance languages, incl. Italian. So, showing similarity of it to Italian (or any other Romance language) seems completely pointless and looks like a circular reasoning. Objections? Mamurra (talk) 23:17, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Spanish diphthongization

Hello. The article is very good indeed. I have just got a suggestion: talking about the diphthongization of VL short e and o in Spanish, it is said that "Spanish ... diphthongized in all circumstances." It would be a good idea to stress that this takes place in accented syllables only: morir (to die) - muero, mueres, muere (I die, you die, s/he dies), mortal - muerte (death); vejez (old age) - viejo/a (old man/woman), pelaje (fur) - piel (skin). I am a native Spanish-speaker, so I know what I am talking about. Best wishes!--Alpinu (talk) 22:10, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

The title of the section where that statement appears is "Stressed vowels" and the role of stress/accent is already repeated several times throughout. I am more puzzled by the second part of the sentence: "… resulting in a simple five-vowel system in both stressed and unstressed syllables". I don't see what that has to do with diphthongization. CapnPrep (talk) 22:51, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

This is correct. Italo-Western Romance had seven stressed vowels and five unstressed vowels. Spanish converted two of the stressed vowels into rising diphthongs, best analyzed as sequences of two phonemes; hence only five vowels left. Benwing (talk) 04:04, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Phonology: hypercorrection?

"hostiae non ostiae", although note that this is a hypercorrection

How this can be a hypercorrection? "hostiae" ("the victims") is not a hypercorrect form, it is simply correct. Mamurra (talk) 20:37, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Comparing Classical and vulgar Latin

I was reading the section that compares sentences in Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin and while I do not know Vulgar Latin the sentences in Classical Latin are a poor illustration of Classical Latin. The translations into English while successfully retaining approximate meaning completely change the usage of words so that the English objects are not the same as how they are declined in Latin. --Tempestswordsman (talk) 01:05, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Late Latin and Low Latin

The terms Late Latin and Low Latin both redirect here, but neither is defined here. The term Late Latin is even used several times, but the reader is never told what it means. --Zundark (talk) 08:40, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

The redir of "Late Latin" pointing to here is definitely wrong, as the Late Latin is the litterary language after 200 AD, whereas Vulgar Latin is the spoken language over all periods, so these are two different things. Mamurra (talk) 12:35, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the Late Latin redirect seems wrong to me too. (I'm not so sure about "Low Latin", as that seems to have more than one meaning.) So what's the best solution? Make a new article for Late Latin? --Zundark (talk) 22:05, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Definitely. Late Latin is a much more important thing than the Vulgar Latin (and much better defined, sourced, substantial, too). Mamurra (talk) 11:11, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any such article, what's holding you up? Is this "why don't the rest of you work" day? This is getting to be like education: it isn't the teacher who does the educating it is the student. Without the student's management of and participation in the education it isn't going to happen. Nothing ventured nothing gained. The gauntlet you have to run may be painful but you can't get to the other side without running it.Dave (talk) 14:36, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Don't despair

This article has the makings of a good article; there is a lot of good material here. However, it suffers from over-zealousness on the part of one or more editors needing improvement in their understanding and technique. One of the biggest deficits is erring on the side of guesswork. The editors need to understand that if you don't know and can't substantiate an item it is far better not to include it. Anyone can make up a story filling in the details as required. That is not what we are doing here. As you tell the story and gaps occur you turn to the resources to fill them; you don't guess. Truth is in fact stranger than fiction and typically you can't guess it. If the gaps can't be filled you start taking about the lack of knowledge and the debatability. Not taking that approach is the main cause of the many fact templates put on this. It is also much too long for the topic. I'm going to be editing now for a while weeding out unsupported statements, looking for duplicate material, cross-referencing and thinking of ways to improve the format. Then I will look at the numerous comments and suggestions of this discussion to see if they all have been addressed.Dave (talk) 13:49, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Book reviews

It isn't customary to put editor reviews in the bibliography, as first of all, it is book report material and is the editor's personal assessment, and second it doubles the length of the bibliography. The article is about the subject, not the books, and even if it were about the books, you couldn't give your personal opinion.Dave (talk) 19:38, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

the People and the Folk

German Volk and English folk although related etymologically are not exactly the same thing. I KNOW Dietz used Volksprache, but we aren't Diez and we aren't explicitly German. It was the great Deutches Volk in whose name the chancellor of the 3rd Reich committed all his depravities and conceived the Volkswagen (now the sport Wagen of only the rich Volk). In a nutshell Volk is about equivalent to people, but we don't do things in the name of the people if we can possibly help it except on a constitutional level (the American people). We don't take as great an interest in being sacrificial lambs for the people, as we are in fact the people (in contrast to other ideologies). We find the wholesale suicide required of the Volk in recent times a bit horrifying. We haven't yet got out from under its black shadow. Now, the English folk are a different story. You can find them hiding under rock somewhere all dressed up in fairy suits as elves should be, or drinking away in a pub in the most rustic villages of merry old England, or trying to use those wierd beakers the beaker folk are supposed to have used. They certainly aren't to be confused with any English-speaking population such as brought the Stuarts under constitutional control, won a major war against the Volk or built a constitutional democracy in the new world. Folks don't do that sort of thing. If you're the boss you can call people folks or if you are talking family to a friend you might use the term "my folks" if you get along with those folks, or if you want to sell someone something and desire to establish a rapport you might pretend hypocritically that they are folks, to the total disgust of those aforementioned folks. Volk is not folk and neither is the vulgus. So I am going to remove the Volk/folk from the article and you phil-Germanists can find some other basis for getting along. We don't need any 60-year-old propanganda.Dave (talk) 15:58, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Sociolinguistic excursions

Passage deleted from article:

The term itself predates the field of sociolinguistics, and research into the history of Vulgar Latin was in some ways a precursor to sociolinguistics.^{[citation needed]} The latter studies language variation associated with social variables, and tends not to view variation as a strict standard–non-standard dichotomy (for example, Classical–Vulgar Latin) but as variations. In light of fields such as sociolinguistics, dialectology, and historical linguistics, Vulgar Latin is the sociological, geographical and historic variations in Latin that excludes the speech and the writings of the educated classes.

These sociolinguistic ramblings don't have a thing to do with the topic. What are you saying, you don't like standard-non-standard dichotomies? So what? If vulgar Latin is one, how can it be a precursor to sociolinguistics, which abhors it? Sorry, I don't see any logic in this or any reason for its being there. How have sociolinguists helped us here, or are you just throwing around educated words? Moreover, we've been over the educated class bit three or four times already. Your additions have to fit the article, we don't care if you personally look educated or not.Dave (talk) 12:09, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

For many centuries

For many centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, Vulgar Latin continued to coexist with a written form of Late Latin, Medieval Latin; for when speakers of Romance vernaculars set out to write with correct grammar and spelling, they attempted to emulate the norms of Classical Latin. This scholarly Latin, "frozen" by Justinian's codifications of Roman law^{[citation needed]} on the one hand, and by the Catholic Church on the other,^{[citation needed]} was eventually unified by the medieval copyists;^{[citation needed]} it continued to exist as a Dachsprache in the Middle Ages, and a lingua franca well beyond them.

This is pretty much incomprehensible; for example, Medieval Latin is after Late Latin except that some authors tag it as a brand of mediaeval. And what do you mean "continued to exist with a written form ... Vulgar Latin is not written. And so on. Most of it is tagged and since we aren't likely to find sources for this editorial hamburger, out it comes. Dave (talk) 13:18, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Basilectal Latin features

The amusing slaves of Plautus and Terence may be using some vulgar latin items in the inventory but there is no evidence at all that they were speaking or ever spoke a creole. Most people have no idea what a basilect is (and neither do you) so they don't know enough to tag it. I would say, either undergo a course of study to find out what you are talking about or stop with the incomprehensible patois.Dave (talk) 13:27, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Reichenau glosses

Some of this material is in the vocabulary article, some not. I have the present article down to 69 kB and that continues to be too long. The Reichenau glosses section is actually set up so it could be the stub of a new article. I'm inclined to do that and I don't think I need a special request. I need a few moments to get my courage and enthusiasm up. Meanwhile if you have any thoughts sound off. It could be merged in with the vocabulary article but then it would lose its unity. The other article is for "select" vocabulary and does not currently contain all the Reichenau Glossary. For all the categories and what not I would just copy the current as is relevant.Dave (talk) 18:00, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. CapnPrep (talk) 21:47, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Changes and Replacements

Throughout this article and its spin-offs is the notion that vocabulary was "changed" in early Romance languages and Vulgar Latin words "replaced" classical words. There were no changes, no replacements. None of those documents were ever in classical Latin so how could anything be replaced in them? Classical Latin did not "change" into Vulgar Latin, it changed into Mediaeval Latin. Nothing changed, except Vulgar Latin into Romance Languages. I have no idea where this alteration concept came from, except possibly from some philological hypothetical expectation of seeing classical words in the documants, which was "changed" when Vulgar Latin words were discovered there, or else out of the editor's imagination. Deal with it as you may, I'm not letting the error stand..Dave (talk) 13:14, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

The photo of the inscription

I am not sure if the photo of an inscription corresponds properly to the statement expressed somewhat below that the vulgar Latin as a language was "unwritten". Mamurra (talk) 15:45, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. The language was and was not unwritten. There is little or no continuous prose in it and no one consciously sat down to write "Vulgar Latin." But, when they did write Latin sometimes they used vulgar expressions, The point is made later but perhaps it needs to be made earlier. I altered the text to respond to this comment. Understand, this article needs much more work, but I see nothing wrong with making this small fix until we get around to the rest of it.Dave (talk) 10:13, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Latin profanity

Not to be confused with Latin profanity.

Oh, no… Is this a joke? Would anybody actually get these confused? —Wiki Wikardo 12:40, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

You know, this hatnote has long bothered me. The article on Latin profanity started out as something rather scurrilous with mainly references to body parts and practices more or less repressed by our society; certainly not polite. The profanity article was more or less thinly disguised porn. But, I've encountered porn on WP before. In fact in some locations the editors were listing porn sites as references. I did a lot of railing against it. A whole movement developed of scholarizing deviant sexuality or publishing porn under the disguise of WP articles. Such terms as pederasty were given sexual connotations. It was suggested that the a major contribution of the Dorian people to Greek culture was the sexual abuse of children. It seemd pretty clear that unless something were done these people were going to take over WP. The administration did not know what to do about it. At first Jim tried removing the scurrilous stuff. Then suddenly he became aware of the protection of free speech so he stopped removing it. It was I who pointed out that much of this material was actually criminally illegal. Suddenly there was a concern for legality. I had really to stop involving myself. When WP reached the point of our having to deal with this material on a regular basis then I was going to quit WP and abandon it as ruined and regard it as a failed experiment. Then there was a great explosion of articles. The administration must have done something as I believe there has been a decline of scurrilous material. The articles to which I objected were altered, fine distinctions were being made. That is the background. Now, I knew I would not be allowed to remove this scurrilous hatnote. I would be taking on the panderers full tilt (panderers, according to Dante there is a special place in the afterworld for you). There is after all a scurrilous side to Roman society, nowhere so evident as at those pleasure cities, Pompeii and Herculaneum. When the Roman soldier flung one of those heavy darts they used sometimes it accompanied a note that it might find its way to a certain anatomical part of the enemy commander. That stuff should be documented, but in polite language. So, here is what I did instead. I brought some of the Pompeii frescos to public attention by putting them up front in the article. These are on Commons; anyone can view them. They are what amounts to French postcards, as we used to call them. Well, wouldn't you know it, they were removed! That is not what the public wants after all. They don't want us to be panderers. Not only that but the whole existence of the article has been seriously questioned. I've jumped in on what I consider the right side. Let's either rise to a scientific or medical level on this or else let's put all this stuff back in the closet. The article is not about Latin profanity. It has to go as such. Therefore this hatnote has to go. I have slightly more authoriy now than I had then so I am just removing it in the hope that you will leave it out. People who are interested in Latin language should not have to be redirected at the top to an article on Latin scurrilous language. You didn't want to see Pompeii pictures there. Why would you want to read all about bodily functions? Is that what the Roman people were all about? No more than any other people, I dare say. This is an encyclopedia. Let's keep this material distinct and not inflict it on serious researchers.Dave (talk) 10:53, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

The range of Latin, 60 AD

The image in the information box shows the extent of the Roman Empire. In half of those territories the main language was greek. Hence the article is bullshit. 201.252.49.96 (talk) 18:00, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

My dear sir, your language is very colorful. It sounds like vernacular New England, which in its formative stages was once concerned with cleaning the stalls of cattle at 4:00 in the morning. In my youth I actually had a job doing that on a farm long since sold off and rendered into condos. Here, however, you are too hasty. We never said Latin was exclusively spoken there. It was spoken by some elements of society, mainly Roman officialdom. In fact the Byzantine Empire used a lot of Latin words rendered into Greek. But why stop there? Almost the whole range included populations that spoke other languages. We are trying to improve WP here. This is a process of gradual modification. We cannot get to every piece of BS instantaneously. You seem attracted to WP, otherwise you would not be giving us your feelings on it. Why don't you consider contributing? I think however you will have to stop pampering your impatience. It takes a lot of patience to work on WP. Rome was not built in a day.Dave (talk) 11:08, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

This is inaccurate for the most part, notwithstanding the amusing dialectical analysis. Latin may have been spoken by societies as far east as Moesia, where vulgar forms of Latin would eventually oust the native parlance due to the fragmented nature of the pre-Roman culture, but it was certainly not spoken by any significant group in the ancient developed regions of the orient such as Syria and Phoenicia. The Romans for the most part preserved the inner mechanisms of the Hellenistic world which they gradually absorbed from the 3rd century b.c. onward, in many cases even appointing members of the local aristocracy to govern the subjugated peoples. Even Greek, the eastern mediterranean's lingua franca which had nine centuries from Alexander to the Arab conquests to take root in Egypt, never spread far past Alexandria. Thus, to argue that the higher levels of society were Latin speaking as far east as Mesopotamia is completely absurd. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Excelsius (talk • contribs) 07:02, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Just curious, but I was wondering about the choice of this map. Wouldn't it be better to find one with the empire at its greatest extent, say after Trajan's conquests in AD 117, as is typically used for many topics like this? That would incorporate all the areas where Vulgar Latin was spoken and the modern Romance languages descend from. Word dewd544 (talk) 04:52, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Latin or only Italic language

To 70.82.96.170, who argues that Vulgar Latin is an Italic language separate from Latin, because it has different syntax from (literary) Latin:

Latin is distinguished from other Italic languages not by syntax, but by consonant development. Vulgar Latin shows the same consonants as Latin, just with a few sound changes added on.

Specifically, Latin has different consonants from Osco-Umbrian and from Faliscan:

1. Latin qu (quis) — Oscan p (pis)
2. Latin h-, -d- (ho-die) — Faliscan f-, -i- (fo-ied)

Vulgar Latin and the Romance languages have the same consonants as Latin, just with some sound changes. So we see French /ki/ for "who", and /om/ for "man" (from accusative hominem), not /pi/ or /fom/, which we would have if Vulgar Latin were a separate Italic language from Latin.

Now that I've explained, I'm going to re-remove "Italic" from the intro, since it's misleading: VL is most specifically Latin, not Italic. — Eru·tuon 19:52, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I am not even a dilettante linguist. I happened to find this article. After reading some Faliscan inscriptions and part of the Iguvine Tables, I think this gentlemen who started the study of vulgar Latin did not make  a thorough investigation. While the consonants are Latin (in most cases) many forms came from other Italic languages: see e.g. the conjugation of the verb to be esse. Also one should mention Varro's Lingua Latina which preserved invaluable information. On the h-f in Faliscan: it is true also the opposite, cf. Latin Falesus, futicillum and Faliscan Halesus, huticillum.Aldrasto11 (talk) 12:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Huh, which Vulgar Latin forms of "to be" came from other Italic languages? I thought they were newly created forms. (Sadly I have not found Faliscan inscriptions online to look at them.)

Halesus is Greek (from Halaisos), not native Faliscan, according to my lexicon (see here: Halesus), so Faliscan sound changes do not affect it. Faliscan consonant changes affect Proto-Indo-European consonants: PIE gh- became Fal f- and Latin h-. — Eru·tuon 21:24, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the attention and sorry for the delay. I am not a linguist but I think many forms of the conjugation of esse cannot derive from Latin. I happened days ago to have a look at an article by Philip Baldi who was exultant about the find of an inscriptin in Auruncan territory that would prove the form sei (cf. Italian) could derive from Latin. If you wish to read Faliscan inscriptions online there is the new book by Bakkum 2009: F.150 years of scolarship. Halesus may be Greek but futilis futicillum huticillum is Latin-Faliscan (Italic). Also why not mentioning Festus besides Varro? Look how many Sabine and Oscan words he preserved. E. g. strenia = salus, from which strenuous. Hoie, hontus are Umbrian corresponding to Latin folia fontus but by chance Latin has also Helernus, (h)olus/eris, so the changes look quite casual.Aldrasto11 (talk) 08:46, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Planning to move lots of stuff to Romance languages

"Vulgar Latin" is a slippery term, but it seems to me that it can be thought of approximately as the common speech during the Roman Empire, and somewhat similar to "Proto-Romance" (given the caveats I added in the section on Proto-Romance). Given this, a lot of the current discussion in this Vulgar Latin article is inappropriate, since it covers changes over much longer periods, basically all the changes leading up to the modern Romance languages. The article Romance languages seems a much more obvious place to put this. Currently there's a quite random separation of subject matter with a great deal of overlap. I'm planning on moving much of the discussion of sound changes, grammatical changes, etc. to the Romance languages article, since there isn't really any obvious way to separate out the developments during the Roman Empire from later developments; nor would you want to.

Scholarly works bear me out on this. Discussions of sound changes, vowel changes, loss of case, etc. usually go in works titled "The Romance Languages" or similar. Works titled "Vulgar Latin" are much more limited in their focus, and have greater detail. They attempt to specifically reconstruct the speech of the common people during the Roman Empire using documentary evidence (e.g. works like the Appendix Probi, works with misspellings and other "vulgar" works).

Compare e.g. Germanic languages with Proto-Germanic.

Comments?

Benwing (talk) 05:59, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Bulgar vs Vulgar

Seems too coincidental to me: the closeness of the regions, the relevant historical periods, the distinctly similar pronunciation of these two terms. Yet no mention at all anywhere that I can see of any connection between the words. Am very curious and would like to see discussion by any linguist or historian with knowledge to share about any relationship between them.

Tariqa1153 (talk) 18:03, 27 December 2011 (UTC) tariqa1153

The origin of 'Bulgar' isn't precisely known, and is often connected to the river Volga. But in early Bulgarian sources the people refer to themselves as 'Blugarinu', which is different from Volga. The Latin word 'vulgar' comes from Latin vulgaris, which meant 'common, ordinary' and derives from vulgus, which meant the 'common people'. That is why it refers to the ordinary spoken Latin of the Roman empire, the Latin of the 'vulgus', of the common people. CodeCat (talk) 20:07, 27 December 2011 (UTC)