Language desk
< August 25	<< Jul \| August \| Sep >>	August 27 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

August 26[edit]

Classificaton of proto-languages[edit]

Is Proto-Romanian itself an Eastern Romance language or it is better to say that the Eastern Romance languages group comes from it? I'm asking this from a point of view that excludes Italo-Dalmatian languages from the Eastern Romance languages leaving only Daco-Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian in it.
Is Proto-Germanic classifiable as a Germanic language? Basically, is a Proto-X language an X language? --151.41.160.11 (talk) 09:41, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Basically, I think not. Two languages are said to be in the same group if they are descended from a common ancestor. Latin is an Italic language (descended from Proto-Italic), but Italian, Spanish and Romanian are Romance languages (descended from Latin) - as well as Italic, as well as Indo-European. --Theurgist (talk) 12:42, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I understand that logic, but I would argue the contrary. Proto-Romanian is a form of Romance spoken in the eastern portion of the former empire, so it makes sense to call it Eastern Romance. And proto-Germanic was spoken by Germanic peoples, so you could call it a Germanic language. I think Romance language / Latin is a special case. Latin had, and still has, a large presence of its own, so it makes sense to maintain a strong distinction in the terminology, whereas proto-Germanic and proto-Romanian are reconstructed, and can be easily grouped with their descendant languages. Lesgles (talk) 15:59, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm inclined to agree with Theurgist, but generally my answer to this sort of question is "If you have a context where it matters, make a decision. I don't care whether you count Proto-Germanic as Germanic or not". But I would caution Lesgles about arguing from peoples to languages. --ColinFine (talk) 16:08, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that was a bit clumsy of me. I suppose I meant to say that, given that the word Germanic (Germania, Germani, etc.) existed among the Romans as an ethnic, geographic, and linguistic classification at the time of Proto-Germanic, it seems silly to me not to call it a Germanic language (it was the Germanic language). Romance, although it comes from the same root as Roman, has been differentiated enough that it refers only to descendants of Latin, and not to Latin itself. It's ambiguous enough, though, that it makes sense to explicitly choose a definition when writing about these cases. Lesgles (talk) 19:45, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Usage excludes Latin from the Romance languages, because the Romance languages are defined as those languages which descend from Latin, broadly defined. This is a unique case for historical reasons. There is no reason to say that proto-Germanic is not Germanic. It's simply not an extant Germanic language, while Latin is still in minimal use. And various works do refer to the Romance languages as belonging to the Italic branch of Indo-European. μηδείς (talk) 20:00, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Romance languages are the descendants of Vulgar Latin. The Italic languages also include Classical Latin, Osco-Umbrian and others. —Tamfang (talk) 07:34, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Sardinian language is supposed to have started to differentiate from Latin in the 3rd century BC, well before the vulgar period, and retains many classical features. I have not heard anyone deny it is Romance. μηδείς (talk) 19:08, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, then I can be the first! Yow! ;) —Tamfang (talk) 21:28, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thinking specifically of Sardinian, I used "broadly defined" deliberately. I have spoken Spanish since before I can remember, can easily read if not quite understand spoken Portuguese, studied French in high school, Catalan on my own enough to read and understand it, and took Latin in college. So I almost always think of Romance in terms of Western Romance: Romance_languages#Classification_and_related_languages. It is fascinating how deeply different the eastern dialects and Sardinian are. I offered to pay one of my high school teachers who spoke Romanian natively to tutor me in it. Although I find it quite beautiful, she refused, insisting with quite bitter disgust that it was a "gutter language", in her own words. I always thought that bizarre; but she was a Holocaust survivor with a rather obvious concentration-camp tattoo on her arm, and this was while Ceaucescu was still alive. I do so remember celebrating his comeuppance. I suppose she had her reasons. μηδείς (talk) 02:04, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]