Talk:Vulgar Latin

Article Format / Section on Proto-Romance

The second paragraph of the article begins with the sentence: "The broad term Vulgar Latin should not be confused with the more specific term Proto-Romance..." No Problem. Thank you very much for that particular info. BUT, immediately following the second paragraph is the article's Table of Contents, and following that, lo and behold, the FIRST section that should be dealing with specifics or details as to what Vulgar Latin is, is the section dealing with "Proto-romance".

Since the second paragraph of the article (quoted above) clearly states that Vulgar Latin and Proto-Romance are two distinct items I think the entire section on Proto-Romance should be moved to the end of the article altogether or made an article or stub of its own with a link from Vulgar Latin to get to it, perhaps directly from the second paragraph where the concept is referred to first. My reasoning for this change is simple. Not everyone coming to this page will be a linguist, English major or Latin language specialist. Chances are they will want to know about the article's primary raison d'etre, and I find it foolish to have detail posted about something else altogether in the lead-off paragraph immediately following the Table of Contents. Ultimately, if what the article currently says about Proto-Romace is true, it seems that Proto-Romance is another subject altogether or is some sort of lateral "sibling" concept or derivative of the subject of this article, so therefore it should be posted at the end of this article as a "see also" or something to that effect.

To have an article about another subject, not to mention with dubious sources or lack thereof (as noted in the Proto-Romance heading), is hardly good article formatting / Editing. I'm not about to re-write this article as I am not an expert on this (these) particular subject(s) or WikiPedia programming, so I'm requesting that another more capable editor will take it upon them self to move the Proto-Romance section en masse to where they think is a more appropriate place in the article on Vulgar Latin further down in the article's details, or at the end of the article or make it it's own article or stub altogether as I suggested above. But to leave "Proto-Romance" where it currently is, (immediately following the Table of Contents), only serves to confuse the definition of Vulgar Latin which is the primary purpose of this article. Therefore it's just foolish and - dare I say "unprofessional" - to have "Proto-Romance" inserted where it currently is. The current article format shows a lack of "Capital E" Editorial clarity and purpose as regarding the subject at hand. Thank You. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bblegacy (talk • contribs) 05:36, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

I can't agree with this criticism. The writer's aim is to draw out the distinction between Proto-Romance and Vulgar Latin while leaving it clear that he or she is asserting (and I think ably demonstrating) that the two are intimately interconnected. I found nothing strange or difficult about this placement, and think that the proposed move of this section to the end, or its removal to a separate article would be counterproductive.Fergus Wilde (talk) 13:24, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

"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. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^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. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^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. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^dissera! 20:27, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The Italian verb "andare" seems to stem from "ambitare", a word originally used in horse riding. The i in the verb was a short one, so it eventually fell, giving *ambtare and then andare when the bt nexus underwent lenition. Pan Brerus (talk) 23:08, 25 June 2012 (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. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^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. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^dissera! 19:41, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Of course "andare" does not come from "vadere", but its present singular and 3 P pl very much and rather obviously do so (vado, vai, va, vanno), they're almost regular seen under that respect. (I came to find that in casual Italian conversation when you haven't instinctivized your forms yet, it is very tempting to use "vadere" for infinitive, which is understood too, but obviously incorrect.)--131.159.0.47 (talk) 21:36, 29 July 2014 (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? &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^dissera! 00:28, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Because sometimes the Romance forms do not go back to the accusative, e. g. French pâtre 'shepherd' < Latin nominative pastor; Spanish nombre 'name', apparently from ablative nōmine. Also because sometimes scholars prefer to quote the Latin forms in the basic (= nominative) form rather than the accusative, when speaking of the word and not of its form. --Zxly (talk) 21:27, 27 December 2012 (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). &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^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. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^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)

Though Cicero, and a great many authors after him, consistently used what he called alliterations, which I can well immagine that others at the time would have called "adliterations" and seen as decay of language (they are completely lacking in Sallustius).--131.159.0.47 (talk) 21:40, 29 July 2014 (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)

Of course albus, cogitare, equa, scire are not "Classical only", they are simply Latin. Their substitution with blank, pensare, iumentum, sapere took place too late to embrace the whole of the Romance-speaking world. Rumanian is not deviant here, but it faithfully continues the Latin use. --Zxly (talk) 21:40, 27 December 2012 (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. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^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. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^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. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^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)

And -- perhaps partly as a result -- neither [e]/[ɛ] nor [o]/[ɔ] can form contrasting minimal pairs in Spanish (as they can in, for example, Italian).96.42.57.164 (talk) 01:54, 13 May 2017 (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)

There are two usages of the term Late Latin. One refers to the literary language only, post approximately 200 AD; the other is to Latin as it naturally developed, written (by no means necessarily literary) and spoken, but before those charged with writing finally gave up and tried to write the language they actually used. See Roger Wright's 1972 book, Late Latin and Early Romance in Spain and Carolingian France, Liverpool: Cairns.70.176.80.120 (talk) 14:59, 28 March 2017 (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. 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)

Granted that the passage deleted is a bit much and needed reworking, but sociolinguistics has everything to do with the topic of Vulgar Latin (better labeled Popular Latin, but we seem stuck with the traditional term). Before ranting, note that your own declarations can be strange: whence the idea that (the field of?) sociolinguistics abhors Vulgar Latin? Note also that while, with time, a dichotomy between natural native speech and the prescribed standard did arise as the standard became ever more archaic, at the time of, say, Cicero, we have to assume a diastratic continuum of registers in Rome (with, for Cicero, some degree of agility in diatopic differentiation between Rome and Arpinum). In short, sociolinguistics at every turn, omnipresent.70.176.80.120 (talk) 15:43, 28 March 2017 (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 on the one hand, and by the Catholic Church on the other, was eventually unified by the medieval copyists; 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)

My dearest Dave, You are absolutely correct. This is an encyclopedia. People want to refer to it for knowledge. In this context, your assertion that because this article is not about Latin profanity, the link to the Latin Profanity article should not be there, is entirely wrong.
A few people are not clear on the meaning of the word Vulgar in the historical context of Latin, and may be coming to this page with a preconception resulting from taking the word in its modern English sense. The hatnote clarifies that right at the start. It also directs people genuinely looking for information on Latin profanity to the correct article if they came to this page by mistake. The hatnote should indeed be there.
One can't help but notice your conflation of "scurrilous" with "profane" and hyperventilation about "what the Roman people were all about." Please. Spare us the exaggerations and patronizing assumptions- to wit that people can somehow be propogandized by a page on profanity to have an entirely one-track view of Roman society. We really can process information and incorporate it into a bigger picture all by ourselves, thank-you-very-much. We really won't be converted into raving, perverted, monistic maniacs by the "incorrect" sort of information that yanks your WASPish, moralistic chain.
There are people who want specific information about Latin profanity, for various reasons, and a link to the right place is important. No serious researcher who is without moralistic preconceptions will feel that anything is being "inflicted" on them. Above all, please, let's try to restrain any Bowdlerizing tendencies. Thomas and Henrietta belong to an unfortunate period long past.(Ellogo (talk) 06:36, 2 February 2013 (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)

But even if one or a few forms of the verb esse were influenced or borrowed from Faliscan or Oscan rather than created within Latin, that would change nothing to the fact that the Vulgar Latin language derives from Latin. Verbal forms may be renewed in any language (cf. English worked substituting earlier wrought, snuck substituting earlier sneaked). Borrowed material does not change the pedigree of a language, just like words like attention, delay, linguist, form, conjugation, derive, article, exultant, inscription, territory, prove, line, scholar, etc. do not make English a Romance language. --Zxly (talk) 21:51, 27 December 2012 (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)

Agree. I made the same comment below. 108.254.160.23 (talk) 18:04, 17 May 2014 (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)

The loss of neuter

From the main article:

Fagus ("beech"), another feminine noun ending in -us, is preserved in some languages as a masculine, e.g. Romanian fag(ul) or Catalan (el) faig; other dialects have replaced it with its adjectival forms fageus or fagea ("made of beechwood"), whence Italian (il) faggio, Spanish (el) haya, and Portuguese (a) faia.

Note in Spanish haya is feminine, despite using the article "el", to avoid cacophony ("el" is used when the following word starts with "a", as in "el águila" but "las águilas" where there is no cacophony. And "el haya" (as the h is silent), but "las hayas".

Maybe another example can be chosen.

186.58.188.139 (talk) 23:28, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

OK, I removed the articles from that part of the sentence. Another solution would be to use the indefinite article, but it seems to me like unnecessary clutter. CapnPrep (talk) 08:12, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

quiscentis

The cluster [kw] ⟨qu⟩ was simplified to [k] in most instances. In 435, one can find quiscentis instead of quisquentis ("of the person who rests here").

That's wrong. The word which is meant is "quiescentis". So perhaps the examples are reversed, i.e. there is "quiesquentis" on the inscription as a hyperurbanism for the correct "quiescentis"? -212.87.13.78 (talk) 23:42, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, you were right! I've just corrected it. Thanks!--Fauban 11:34, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Essere

The copula (that is, the verb signifying "to be") of Classical Latin was esse. This evolved to *essere in Vulgar Latin by attaching the common infinitive suffix -re to the classical infinitive; this produced Italian essere and French être

Essere, especially in the light of être does not look like it was esse + re (which would be a development not only particularly absurd, but also exceptional). It totally looks like it was a descendent of exsistere: exsistere -> exstere -> esstere -> essere (in Italian), and exsistere -> exsitre -> essitre -> estre -> etre in French. -212.87.13.78 (talk) 00:08, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Could be, but I still haven't found anything. Esse was likely regularized to essere (In the Romance languages, irregular infinitives are uncommon, and I haven't heard one without an r ever). There's no doubt that Italian essere comes from Latin esse However, the existere > être in French could be complex. Old French had 2 copula verbs like Spanish or Italian, so the common evolution of the verbs esse and stare in Romance seems much more plausible, with some analogies added in a later stage. Also remember that you must consider the whole verb paradigm, not only the infinitive. The paradigms of Old French estre - ester derive from esse and stare. However, we all know that both verbs have merged in Modern French, so it seems that the descendant of esse was simply becoming closer and closer to the descendant of stare. See: [1]--Fauban 11:40, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

No, Italian essere and French être cannot possibly be form exsistere. Think of the place of the accent! In late Latin, essere was the most natural way of normalizing the old esse, since all other present infinitives ended in -re. --Zxly (talk) 21:58, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

The development was probably esse > essere > essre > estre > être. The -t- is epenthetic, and there are several other verbs in French (and Catalan) with such an extra consonant, such as moudre < moldre < molere, pondre < ponere. CodeCat (talk) 03:29, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, at least in (standard) Catalan, clusters like nr, lr, sr are impossible, and I think that in Old French they were too.--Fauban 20:07, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

I find that hard to believe, that anyone could attach a -re to esse. Not that they were so aware of the morphology (esse = es + inf. ending already), but primarily that the rule seems to be that words used very often, do not change. That's why ferre, velle, nolle, malle and esse have not been normalized in classical Latin (where the regular inf. ending was -are, -ere, -ire for centuries). Now, esse is a word which is used _very_ often, just think about the acc./nom. c. inf. syntax and all the verbs which require direct object to be an acc. or an inf.: esse debui, esse non potui, esse volui... such a total rebuilding of the inf. form would require first that all such phrases went out of use so that the infinitive became scarce. As I said above, I find it hard to believe. At the other hand, a tendency to replace esse with exstare or exsistere can be observed in medieval Latin, this is why I suspect essere comes from them. -212.87.13.78 (talk) 20:49, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Again, there's no RS saying this. Also you must consider the whole paradigm: The conjugated forms of to be in Romance do derive from Latin esse.--Fauban 14:04, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I think there is a bit of a flaw in your logic above, 212. Latin exsistere was stressed on the second syllable, so it is very unlikely that the -i- would have syncopated like you suggested. I think if it had survived into French, it would have evolved as Latin exsistere > Old French essistre > French essître (the i was short, though, so it might have become /e/ in Romance). CodeCat (talk) 14:40, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds convincing. Thanks. -212.87.13.78 (talk) 22:37, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

There's also no way in Central Italian historical phonology to delete the /t/. Italian essere is clearly esse + inf marker.70.176.80.120 (talk) 02:52, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Latin quadraginta is stressed on the second syllable (qua-dra-GIN-ta), but this does not prevent it from being syncopated in Italian quaranta. Similarly: quin-qua-GIN-ta > cin-quan-ta etc. Where is the stressed "gi"? 89.65.87.100 (talk) 18:01, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

The phonological development wasn't really syncope. Intervocalic /g/ weakened and deleted, leaving a stressed syllable with diphthong, -rain-. The difficulty is /ai/ > /a/, rather than the expected /e/.70.176.80.120 (talk) 02:52, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

In quarainta or cinquainta the "in" is still stressed. And, to come back to the original question, grant that "esse" was normalized by adding the redundant inf. marker. What happened all of sudden, that it needed/was possible to be normalized so, though there was no such pressure on normalization during several past centuries, when it was all the time being equally abnormal and exceptional? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.135.42.69 (talk) 14:56, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Sure, stress remains on the penult. Once the /g/ is weakened to null, /a'i/ is expected. But notice what happens e.g. in Spanish even today: those who order the sherry Fino La Ina frequently pronounce it [fino 'laina], rather than [fino la'ina]. Subtract high literacy and overt knowledge of the lexical/morphological structure represented by the diphthong, et voilà: Spanish "makes historical phonological sense" in having /ai/ > /e/ -enta in its '40', '50', etc. (but Italian -anta, not so much). // On redundancy, see the long tortured history of 'whence' from UNDE to de dónde as in ¿De dónde eres?. There's no reason to claim or assume that esse > essere took place all of a sudden. If you mean why did so many people continue writing <esse> for so long after it must have actually been essere in normal speech, see Appendix Probi -- presumably in essence the usual conspiracy of inertia + the variegated effects of what someone once called "the dead hand of standardization." (I still write things like <knife>, though my pronunciation contains nothing that even hints at /k/ or /e/, and the internal vowel could just as well represent the stressed vowel of machine or police.) 96.42.57.164 (talk) 18:07, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Do you really believe that all these centuries before the Romance period people were only just writing esse while saying essere? If so, I am afraid that you have to prove it. In any case, current behaviour of people who are ordering a sherry is no proof for what was happening 1500 years ago, I am afraid. So the (historical) syncope of the stressed syllable in quadraginta > quaranta still remains an analogous case for a supposed syncope of the stressed syllable in exsistere > essere.

"Do you really believe that all these centuries before the Romance period people were only just writing esse while saying essere?" No. Nor did I say or imply that I do believe such a thing. There is no syncope in the case of quadraginta > quaranta, just as there is no syncope of the nucleus of the stressed syllable of exsistere. Exsistere > Fr. être and exsistere > It. essere are impossible derivations. This is too basic to waste time and space on here, but if you want to come to some understanding of what was going on, try this: 1) find out how many, and which, Latin infinitives lacked -re; 2) find out (by reading scholarship, not by making up implausible scenarios that fly in the face of the accomplishments of 150 years of Historical Linguistics, elementary articulatory phonetics, etc.) what happened to them, how, and why. If you need help with the basics, find a copy of Peter Boyd-Bowman's From Latin to Romance in sound charts. Enjoy. 96.42.57.164 (talk) 00:26, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

I am afraid, Mr. 96.42.57.164, that I know very well, and, I guess, better than you, "how many and which Latin infinitives lacked -re". The reason being just because I know Latin very well, which you do not. Vereor me optime scire, et melius quidem, quam tu scias, quot infinitivi Latini quique privati sint illa "-re" desinentia. These are: esse, ferre (fer-se), velle (vel-se), malle (mag-vel-se), nolle (non-vel-se). Conclusion: get back to your schoolbooks before you interrupt someone's else discussion. -89.70.153.186 (talk) 21:03, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Puerility aside, you've managed to find the verbs. Good. Now, continue the task. An easy one to start with (other than esse, which is by far the easiest to deal with) would be velle -- trace it into modern Italian volere, less messy than vouloir. Don't panic when you run into your inevitable "I find that hard to believe"; just keep plugging and you'll eventually discover what happens in real-world language change. And you'll learn a lesson applicable to esse > essere. Just for fun, you'll discover even more if you figure out how the Catalan futures and conditionals got their forms. Savor. 96.42.57.164 (talk) 03:13, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

English equivalent of this French book title

In the section regarding Origins the book title: Grammaire comparée des langues de l'Europe latine dans leurs rapports avec la langue des troubadours. Is it possible to get this book title, translated into English. I am just learning to speak French, and thought that someone else that may not speak any French, might need to see English equivalent title. Can an English equivalent be added to this section Cmurdock1955 (talk) 17:21, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Ambulare

The section about verbs mentions that the verbs andar(e) in many Romance languages derives from ambulare. I find this very unlikely... why did -mbul- develop into -nd-, and not into, say -mbl-? I have found other explanations of this in other places, which mention that the origin is not ambulare but ambitare. That makes much more sense phonetically: -mbit- > -mbt- or -mbd- > by assimilation -nd-. CodeCat (talk) 12:52, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Syntax Section Needed

A brief section with references is necessary on the general transition from VSO to VSO and less flexibility. John Holly (talk) 05:48, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Not to nitpick

"As early as 722, in a face to face meeting between Pope Gregory II, born and raised in Rome, and Saint Boniface, an Anglo-Saxon, Boniface complained that he found Pope Gregory's Latin speech difficult to understand, a clear sign of the transformation of Vulgar Latin in two regions of western Europe." I'm not sure this is a good example as wouldn't Boniface speak Latin as second language? So he would have learned something more formal perhaps even "classical" Latin, vs the pope who would have spoken vulgar Latin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.66.145.0 (talk) 17:54, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

"quisque ama valia"

I'm not sure if the interpretation given in this article is really indisputable. In Oscan, there is a clear distinction between the two inherited types of ending: the primary ending -t and the secondary -d. Secondary endings appear in all subjunctive forms. Final -d was lost after unstressed syllables in Latin (like in the ablative singular), and the secondary ending -d is still found in some Old Latin texts I believe. So it's quite possible that valia actually is an archaism here, and reflects the loss of -d rather than of -t. This doesn't apply to ama of course, but in classical Latin the primary -t eventually replaced the secondary -d/ø, and there's no reason as such that in vulgar speech the analogy couldn't work the other way around too. That is, amat lost its ending to conform to valea, which had lost it regularly. CodeCat (talk) 21:03, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I wish that before starting theoreticizing on these forms, scholars took a look at the source of that inscription, its general credibility and the reliability of the widespread reading. I especially recommend CIL and the comments the editor has left there. -89.65.254.38 (talk) 18:25, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Vulgar Latin vs. Proto-Romance

I feel that the article is mixing these two up. Vulgar Latin, as I understand, should refer to a group of dialects spoken alongside Classical Latin in ancient times. When we cite examples from 722 and 842, I think that's too late for us to be speaking of Vulgar Latin - at that point, it's reached the point of Proto-Romance. (Indeed, the article Oaths of Strasbourg refers to it as Old French.) 108.254.160.23 (talk) 17:56, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

No suggestions here, just a comment that that's an interesting observation, on various levels. Vulgar Latin is, pretty much by definition, Proto-Romance (in terms of real-world linguistic evolution, not P-R as a reconstruction exercise). As natively spoken Latin, it just continues. The Strasbourg Oaths are French-ish, and they're old, but it's more than a bit iffy -- on grounds of syntax, morphology, phonology, and lexicon -- to label the language therein Old French, if by that is meant the linear precursor of what we think of as Middle French and Modern French. That quibble aside, yes and no: by 842 we have clear evidence that Vulgar Latin has evolved to the point that it is recognizable as Romance (but well past proto stage) when an effort is made to write it. I'm not sure how much of the confusion is conceptual, and how much is due to labeling, assuming that the two can be teased apart.70.176.80.120 (talk) 18:07, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Sacerdos?

In the section "Loss of distinctive length and near-close mergers", the passage "In the 3rd century AD, Sacerdos mentions the tendency..." requires disambiguation. According to this source, Sacerdos is a Roman grammarian, the same identified by this other source] in full as Marius Plotius Sacerdos. There is an article on the Slovak Wikipedia (sk:Marius Plotius Sacerdos) if anyone would like to translate. In the meantime I have replaced the disambiguation link with an interlanguage redlink. Ivanvector (talk) 16:27, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Erropr in 7.1 - Italian articles

Article states "in the Romance languages, becoming French le and la, Catalan and Spanish el and la, and Italian il and la." But for Italian is this incomplete. Italian articles are :

singular:

1. il, (masculine), il pomodoro (the tomato)
2. lo, (masculine), lo specchio (the mirror)
3. l', (masculine), l'uomo (the man)
4. l', (feminine), l'ulivo (the olive)
5. la, (feminine), la polizia (the police)

the same words in plural

1. i, (masculine), i pomodori (the tomatoes)
2. gli, (masculine), gli specchi (the mirrors)
3. gli, (masculine), gli uomini (the men)
4. le, (feminine), le olive (the olives)
5. le, (feminine), le politiche (the polices)

Please note article "l'" is always followed by a vowel and might be either masculine or feminine, which can be seen in the plural forms "gli" or "le".

And the contracted words of preposition + article are many more than in any of the other Latin based languages. Spanish has only two of those (al = a + el , del = de + el) but Italian has dei, del, degli, delle , della, just for the preposition "di" (from in English). This is rather exciting as Italian elsewise is regarded as the closest modern language to Latin.

Spanish comparance

1. el, (masculine), el tomate (the tomato)
2. la, (feminime), la policía (the police)

1. los, (masculine), los tomates (the tomatoes)
2. las, (feminime), las policías (the polices)

There are no more (definite) articles and the two only contractions (al, del) are explained. Hence do I feel that the part 7.1 calls for some looking over. Boeing720 (talk) 10:04, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Note on "semi-phonetic" transcription of Strasbourg Oaths: IPA instead? Also: clearer notes on /w/>/β/ shift

The "semi" phonetic hybrid transcription of the Oaths of Strasbourg in Old French appears rather strange. Before, no attempt was made to represent 9th century French phonology and the excerpt just read in regular text. If we are trying to represent hypothetical Old French phonology, could someone restore the actual text to regular spelling while adding an actual IPA transcription? Keep in mind also, that the only change I see here that makes it "phonetic" is the inclusion of the vowel /ɘ/ for 'a'. IPA would be much more helpful.

Also, this page makes only a few brief mentions of the sound shift of /w/> consonantal /β/ (most Romance varieties further to /v/) in 'u': first in mentioning the Appendix Probi and the "levelling of the distinction between /b/ and /w/ between vowels ('brauium non brabium')" and then in the discussion of the diphthong /au/ which "did not participate in the sound shift from /w/ to /β̞/." However, these seem to be too subtle and indirect of comments on what should be considered a major phonological development. I suggest it be included in a new section under Consonant development.

Iotacist (talk) 02:01, 2 April 2016 (UTC)Iotacist

Claim of Latin death under Sources

Since Latin didn't die, but evolved into a plethora of Romance "dialects", this requires some elaboration: the death of Latin after the fall of the empire. I have no idea what's intended by the statement, and I've studied and taught Romance Linguistics for decades. The average reader is surely going to be either baffled or greatly misled by "the death of Latin." 70.176.80.120 (talk) 03:03, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

I've changed the wording accordingly. --Jotamar (talk) 17:02, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Not sure if it's entirely clear, but it is better. Thanks.70.176.80.120 (talk) 17:07, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Under History: mutual intelligibility

This is simply untrue as a blanket statement: By the end of the first millennium, dialectization pressures had caused such divergence that mutual intelligibility of the spoken language was gone. Mutual intelligibility of which varieties of spoken language, where? Quite plausible that the average Picard and the average Pugliese would have had trouble understanding each other at the millenium. But even today, people from Spain and Italy can understand each other rather well if they choose to, and the San Clemente inscriptions in Rome (presumably late 11th century) e.g. "Fili de le pute, traite," would almost certainly have been comprehensible to most speakers of Romance at the time. Also, this and the Romance languages had become distinct, while true, is most likely misleading on two levels for an uninformed reader, who may think the reference is to today's national standard(ized) languages, which did not exist as such in the year 1000, and who may think that distinct necessarily implies mutually unintelligible (Bolognese and Ferrarese, for example, were distinct then and are now, but mutual intelligibility continues unabated). All evidence and principles point to Romania continua as being what Charles Hockett called L-complex, i.e. an unbroken chain of local differentiation such that, in principle and with appropriate caveats, intelligibility (due to sharing of features) attenuates with distance.70.176.80.120 (talk) 16:58, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

We could argue about the mutual intelligibility of those languages, but what concerns me more is the intelligibility of the paragraph itself. It reads like a university student trying to impress his tutor. Patrick Neylan (talk) 11:29, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your edits. The resulting paragraph is now truly intelligible, without being "dumbed down" or less accurate than it was before. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 22:05, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Au contraire. It has, indeed, been dumbed down, and it's less accurate -- to the point of containing what is very likely a falsehood re mutual intelligibility -- while also fundamental information has been removed. Massaging text to make it accessible is very welcome, indeed. It takes some skill to do that, though, and the skill does not include replacing the distilled knowledge of a century and more of scholarship with unfounded dubious claims nor brute deletion of information that enhances understanding the material. Chainsaws are seldom the best tools for surgery. 96.42.57.164 (talk) 23:23, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Oaths of Strasbourg: Proposed elimination of "5th century Vulgar Latin of Paris" and replacement with other Romance variety samples

I assume that the rendering of the 9th century Oaths of Strasbourg in so-called 5th century Parisian Vulgar Latin is only hypothetical; I see nothing wrong with the reconstruction, but would not a comparison with actual texts be stronger? Perhaps this section is better compared with other Proto-Romance varieties: e.g. the 10th century Glosas Emilianses for Hispano-Romance (also, ''Nodicia de kesos'' for Leonese) or the Placiti Cassinesi and the Veronese Riddle for Italian.

Iotacist (talk) 22:04, 21 June 2017 (UTC)Iotacist

The Placiti Cassinesi and Veronese Riddle won't do for Italian, which originates more or less in Florence, geolinguistically rather distant from both Monte Cassino and Verona. -- I have another quibble, though, along with yours. Agreed that what is presented here as 5th-century Parisian is hypothetical only, thus of dubious value and questionable purpose, but there's more: the web page that it's cadged from, in addition to reporting no scholarly source, claims only Latin parlé (vers le Vème siècle) without saying where, i.e. no claim that it's Parisian. Any idea why it's labeled Parisian here? 96.42.57.164 (talk) 22:25, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

I've absolutely no idea why it is labeled as Parisian. I suppose it was meant more generally as Gallo-Romance.Iotacist (talk)Iotacist

Yes, maybe it's simply a case of mislabeling. But even if the label is replaced, the question remains of what the purpose is of hypothesizing 5th-century forms -- why 5th? Why do it at all? I can think of good reasons, but those reasons should be explained (and, ideally, the reconstructed features identified and justified). 96.42.57.164 (talk) 14:03, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

I would certainly like to see the reconstruction replaced. Have we any other suggestions for better textual samples? Or should it simply be deleted with no replacement, leaving just the actual 9th century text of the Oaths?Iotacist (talk) 23:18, 24 June 2017 (UTC)Iotacist

I'm in the midst of restoring the text of the original, which had been "adjusted," thus misrepresented (and I'm also massaging the text above it to relieve it of the most glaring misconceptions). I haven't touched the 5th-century reconstruction, but like you, I see no reason for it to be there. Hall published a P-R version of the Oath, but I don't know what the purpose of presenting that would be, either. However, it could be very helpful to readers new to the topic to see other "early" texts (Nodicia de kesos, Placiti, etc.), to illustrate that VL had evolved into very recognizably distinct varieties by 10th century, thus driving home the point that in terms of VL dialectal differentiation into Romance variety, the texts are actually rather late. 96.42.57.164 (talk) 13:03, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your time spent on these revisions. If possible (reaching out now for the consensus of other readers) can we proceed with the elimination of the reconstruction and replacement with the Nodicia/or Glosas Emilianenses and Placiti? Actually, the more I look at the reconstruction, the more problematic it seems. For example, why the use of 'y' presumably for palatal glide /j/ in words like 'Chrestyano' and 'saluarayo'? I would not guess that 'y' was used at this time for anything else other than transcription of Greek ypsilon υ.Iotacist (talk) 01:24, 27 June 2017 (UTC)Iotacist