Pedants' Paradise

[french frank]

At what point did Latin end and its Italian successor start to evolve?

I don't think there was a precise date I presume Italian would have been the first Romance language to emerge as proto-Romance developed with the expansion of the Roman Empire to other parts of Europe. The first written evidence of French is 9th c.

[jean]

...I was able to download an 'uncorrected proof' copy of the chapter on 'Classical Latin' from Clackson and Horrocks: History of the Latin Language' which is somewhat to the point.

I posted a link to the Clackson & Horrocks, which I hadn't previously been aware of, in my #1722,

The authors seem to have excellent credentials!

They quote extensive extracts from Cicero and Varro and others writers who have a great deal to say about their own language. None of these writers specify whether they are talking about the written or the spoken language, but as well as grammar and syntax, they do talk about pronunciation, which leads me to suppose that they think what they have to say applies to both written and spoken forms.

I have never denied that there was a sermo vulgaris about which we know little at this period, progressively more as it began to turn into the Romance languages we know. But the educated elite of the late Republic would not have regarded themselves as part of the vulgus, and would never have used the term for their own speech. Odi vulgus profanum et arceo.

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[french frank]

I have never denied that there was a sermo vulgaris about which we know little at this period, progressively more as it began to turn into the Romance languages we know. But the educated elite of the late Republic would not have regarded themselves as part of the vulgus, and would never have used the term for their own speech. Odi vulgus profanum et arceo.

MK Pope, From Latin to Modern French, p 2, writes:

"This Vulgar Latin, as it is termed, is of infinite shade and variety, varying from the colloquial usage of the educated (exemplified in a polished form in Cicero's letters, and later in the Christian fathers) to the 'patois' of the country dweller ..."

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I don't think there was a precise date I presume Italian would have been the first Romance language to emerge as proto-Romance developed with the expansion of the Roman Empire to other parts of Europe. The first written evidence of French is 9th c.

True, but in the case of Italian, there would have been fewer external influences than there were in France/Gaul or Spain. It would be interesting to know more.

[jean]

MK Pope, From Latin to Modern French, p 2, writes:

"This Vulgar Latin, as it is termed, is of infinite shade and variety, varying from the colloquial usage of the educated (exemplified in a polished form in Cicero's letters, and later in the Christian fathers) to the 'patois' of the country dweller ..."

Interesting, and it does go to support my view that the Letters really do give the reader a sense of what conversational Latin must have been like.

But for the most part, they are still classical too, and a student who was expected to observe all the grammatical and syntactic niceties of classical Latin in their own writing could be allowed to read them.

The author does seem to stretch the term Vulgar Latin so wide as to render it almost meaningless, though.

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[Pabmusic]

At what point did Latin end and its Italian successor start to evolve?

It's a good question, EA. Many commentators have seen a parallel between the patterns of linguistic and biological evolution.

As the influence of Rome spread, its spoken language would have travelled widely, establishing itself among communities (say) in the forerunners of Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland and Romania. Physically separated as these communities were (and importantly with very little intermingling) the spoken 'Latin' evolved in different ways, producing initially differing dialects and eventually different languages.

So the answer to your question might be similar to "at the point when Australopithicus africanus became Homo habilis" - ie: never, since no parent of A. africanus ever gave birth to a child of H. habilis. It's all so gradual that the speakers of one language never realised their language had changed. Look at how much English has changed in our lifetimes (my father always wrote to-day and all right, for instance). It's only us, in hindsight, that can impose our artificial (and admittedly useful) labels.

[doversoul1]

They quote extensive extracts from Cicero and Varro and others writers who have a great deal to say about their own language. None of these writers specify whether they are talking about the written or the spoken language, but as well as grammar and syntax, they do talk about pronunciation, which leads me to suppose that they think what they have to say applies to both written and spoken forms.

Pronunciation here is more likely to be about how to read aloud the text or how to pronounce words in certain texts, and not about how words sound when people talk. I don’t think spoken language (the language used by people in their everyday lives) was a subject of academic discussion then.

The difference between written language and spoken language is not so much about grammar and syntax as how each form functions. Spoken language largely depends on the context in which the utterance is made but this is not the case in written language. Educated people obviously used different style and vocabulary from the uneducated but it was still in the spoken form.

[jean]

At what point did Latin end and its Italian successor start to evolve?

The curious thing is that Latin didn't exactly end, or simply evolve into new languages; because of its use by the Church, it continued to exist side by side with them as they grew. And then it was rediscovered by the scholars of the Renaissance, and took on a new lease of life as a lingua franca.

I wonder what that felt like.

[french frank]

The author does seem to stretch the term Vulgar Latin so wide as to render it almost meaningless, though. .

But you seem to stretch the term Classical Latin so wide as to render it almost meaningless, i.e. a Latin that is grammatically and syntactically correct. It isn't that the Pope quotation 'supports your view' at all: it makes it clear that there was a 'conversational' kind of Latin (which, by implication, was different from the formal Latin of the Classical writers) and which she includes under the linguistic term 'Vulgar Latin' which embraces all the differences between what a careful writer writes and what s/he might say. All you can suppose is that an educated man like Cicero spoke in a grammatically correct way - which appears to be your definition of 'classical', whereas I would distinguish between 'conversational' (spoken) and 'literary' (written) Latin. In particular, I would say that 'conversational' Latin did not imitate all the 'syntactic niceties' (your phrase) of the written form.

'Classical Latin' is termed a 'written language' because we have abundant evidence that, in its literary form, it was written, and none that it was spoken. Thus the phrase is taken to mean 'written Latin of that period'. We have separate evidence of a spoken form which one would hypothesise varied depending on the level of education of the speaker.

[jean]

But you seem to stretch the term Classical Latin so wide as to render it almost meaningless, i.e. a Latin that is grammatically and syntactically correct.

Yes, that's exactly what I'd say - according as grammatical and syntactic correctness was defined by the writers of the late Republic. By this definition, Cicero's letters are for the most part thoroughly classical, though I have discovered through a bit of digging round looking for evidence for this thread that he did sometimes use grammatical forms that would not have been acceptable in the 'polished' Latin of his speeches. I wasn't aware of that, otr had forgotten. I probably wasn't allowed to read those bits for fear of corrupting my Latinity.

That is how I've always understood the term classical Latin, and how those who taught me understood it.

It isn't that the Pope quotation 'supports your view' at all...

But the 'view' I expressed was this:

it does go to support my view that the Letters really do give the reader a sense of what conversational Latin must have been like.

When I included the Letters as examples of classical Latin in the first place, nobody questioned it - nobody said well of course they're like conversational Latin, they are vulgar Latin after all.

it makes it clear that there was a 'conversational' kind of Latin (which, by implication, was different from the formal Latin of the Classical writers)

But it was not so very different at all - that's why I tried to get people to at least have a look at the text of the Letters.

All you can suppose is that an educated man like Cicero spoke in a grammatically correct way - which appears to be your definition of 'classical', whereas I would distinguish between 'conversational' (spoken) and 'literary' (written) Latin. In particular, I would say that 'conversational' Latin did not imitate all the 'syntactic niceties' (your phrase) of the written form.

Your last sentence is where we really differ, and it is where we came in. And all I can say is look at, or listen to, modern Polish.

[french frank]

But it [Cicero's language in the Letters] was not so very different at all - that's why I tried to get people to at least have a look at the text of the Letters.

Let's take that: his spoken Latin was not so very different, not exactly the same, pretty much but not 'just' ...

There was Old Latin and there was Late Latin. Between them came Classical Latin. All three are evidenced by the writings of the time. So (I would say) 'classical' is not about 'correctness', but simply the characteristics which had gradually refined to make the written language of the time the benchmark of 'excellence' - in the view of those writers.

We call it a 'written language' because we have no evidence that the spoken, everyday language of the individuals was 'the same' - though I see we have different ideas of what 'the same' means. We do have evidence of a 'spoken' language that varied from the written language.

So all we're left with is the hypothesis that there is no reason to assume that Cicero et al didn't speak as they wrote. I don't think that will be counted as a strong enough argument to change the general perception of classical Latin as meaning the written form (who knows how any randomly selected individual - Cicero, Virgil, Tacitus - might have spoken?).

If writers all wrote in the same way as they spoke, there would never have been a concept of 'literary language'.

[doversoul1]

So all we're left with is the hypothesis that there is no reason to assume that Cicero et al didn't speak as they wrote. .

Ah, but is it not an almost proven fact that, in any culture that has a writing system, people do not speak (in their everyday lives and not in any formal occasions) as they write? I thought that was how Linguistics (at least Pragmatics) came about as an academic discipline. Therefore, there is no reason to assume that Cicero et al did speak as they wrote. People simply do not speak/talk as if there were writing. Or do they in Poland?

[jean]

Let's take that: his spoken Latin was not so very different, not exactly the same, pretty much but not 'just' ...

Yes.

There was Old Latin and there was Late Latin. Between them came Classical Latin. All three are evidenced by the writings of the time. So (I would say) 'classical' is not about 'correctness', but simply the characteristics which had gradually refined to make the written language of the time the benchmark of 'excellence' - in the view of those writers.

Yes, though I should add that when you used 'correct', I repeated it. But I would not have used it first myself without inverted commas, to make it clear that what we're talking about is not 'correctness' in any absolute sense - only what was permissible according the views of Cicero and the others who wrote extensively on the subject. They did not share the modern perception that languages develop as they will, and there's no point in trying to fix them at the point of their highest 'excellence', even if you are sure you know what that is.

We call it a 'written language' because we have no evidence that the spoken, everyday language of the individuals was 'the same' - though I see we have different ideas of what 'the same' means. We do have evidence of a 'spoken' language that varied from the written language.

The spoken language varied from the written, of course, but not (I would argue) by so much that I would attach the restriction written when trying to arrive at a definition of classical Latin.

So all we're left with is the hypothesis that there is no reason to assume that Cicero et al didn't speak as they wrote.

Yes.

I don't think that will be counted as a strong enough argument to change the general perception of classical Latin as meaning the written form ...

This is the nub of it.

If this is the 'general perception', it is a fairly new one. I had never heard it at all until very recently, and I have never heard it from a classicist.

You wrote

Looking for further evidence, I came across the Wiki History of Latin which may just be the standard thinking which you're querying. But

"Surviving Latin literature consists almost entirely of Classical Latin in its broadest definition. It includes a polished and sometimes highly stylized literary language sometimes termed Golden Latin, which spans the 1st century BC and the early years of the 1st century AD. However, throughout the history of ancient Rome the spoken language differed in both grammar and vocabulary from that of literature, and is referred to as Vulgar Latin."

An essential point being that Vulgar Latin was not simply the language of the uneducated...

This surprised me, because the article did not represent what I would think of as standard thinking. For later periods (how late is something we might argue about, and I have no expertise here), we would use the term vulgar Latin equally to apply to the speech of the educated, but not for the late Republic.

I found another Wiki article I liked better, and quoted it thus:

...The term "vulgar speech" (sermo vulgaris), which later became "Vulgar Latin", was used by inhabitants of the Roman Empire. Subsequently it became a technical term from Latin and Romance-language philology referring to the unwritten varieties of a Latinised language spoken mainly by Italo-Celtic populations governed by the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. Traces of their language appear in some inscriptions, such as graffiti or advertisements. The educated population mainly responsible for classical Latin might also have spoken Vulgar Latin in certain contexts depending on their socioeconomic background...

And from yet another Wiki article, I quoted:

Classical Latin is the modern term used to describe the form of the Latin language recognized as standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and the Roman Empire [...] Marcus Tullius Cicero and his contemporaries of the late republic [...] regarded the speech they valued most and in which they wrote as Latinitas, "Latinity" [...] Latinitas was spoken as well as written. Moreover, it was the language taught by the schools. Prescriptive rules therefore applied to it, and where a special subject was concerned, such as poetry or rhetoric, additional rules applied as well. Now that the spoken Latinitas has become extinct (in favor of various other registers later in date) the rules of the, for the most part, polished (politus) texts may give the appearance of an artificial language, but Latinitas was a form of sermo, or spoken language, and as such retains a spontaneity. No authors are noted for the type of rigidity evidenced by stylized art, except possibly the repetitious abbreviations and stock phrases of inscriptions.

You pointed out

"The neutrality of this article is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (October 2012)"

So I looked for the objections that had been made, and found only this:

Classical latin was never a spoken language. It was a literary language. I don't know where the idea came from that everybody would have talked a perfect language, as in the books. It's like saying that that every people on earth speak the language that is written in a grammar or in a book. Completely ludicrous. The every day language and "real" language was "vulgar" latin for common language. Even Virgil and Cicero spoke vulgar latin because it means "spoken language". Like American & British speak vulgar english. Just because people see "vulgar" they think it was spoken by uneducated persons. We should all know that "vulgaris, usualis, rusticus, plebeius" in latin meant "spoken by the people" whether high class people or the farmer VincentG 00:31, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

There is so much there that's demonstrably wrong that I don't think any of it needs to be taken as representing standard thinking. Or thinking of any kind at all.

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[jean]

Ah, but is it not an almost proven fact that, in any culture that has a writing system, people do not speak (in their everyday lives and not in any formal occasions) as they write? I thought that was how Linguistics (at least Pragmatics) came about as an academic discipline. Therefore, there is no reason to assume that Cicero et al did speak as they wrote. People simply do not speak/talk as if there were writing. Or do they in Poland?

The problem there is with as. I tried to examine earlier how its use is problematic for this discussion, and I haven't the strength to go over it again.

I do believe that one of the reasons why people nowadays don't believe the Romans could possibly have spoken classical Latin is that it was a highly inflected language, and we who now speak languages that have lost most of their inflections can't believe they were capable of remembering and using all those different word endings.

I mention Polish only to show that there are speakers of modern European languages who do just that. Of course the Poles speak in an informal register, like everyone else - but they manage a whole host of noun cases. Even a locative.

I thought that was how Linguistics (at least Pragmatics) came about as an academic discipline.

But note that Pragmatics as a discipline within linguistics is not confined to the spoken language.

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[french frank]

I do believe that one of the reasons why people nowadays don't believe the Romans could possibly have spoken classical Latin is that it was a highly inflected language

I'll just take that (a statement I would never have made, btw): if one's starting point is that 'classical Latin' is the high water-mark of polished, refined Latin, one is, of necessity, talking about written texts.

The question of whether or not the spoken Latin of such writers was essentially the same (whether exactly the same, pretty much the same, the same in all essentials, the same in many important characteristics &c) is a secondary, quite separate, issue. It doesn't interest me much because there is no way of knowing and no one that I know of has provided compelling evidence one way or the other.

But this, as I always understood it, is why the term 'classical Latin' can only be applied to the written form - whether the spoken form was identical or not. The term 'vulgar Latin' is a baggy, sprawling term for a spoken form whose existence is attested in writings and which can be deduced from language development. Whether or not its usage overlapped with 'classical Latin' is the point, not whether 'classical Latin' was also spoken.

That is the argument for 'asserting' that 'classical Latin' in practice is a written form. I would agree that it shouldn't be supposed that Cicero could not have written as he spoke, since of that Latin we know nothing; therefore to include it, unequivocally, within the definition 'classical' seems merely to make the term more imprecise/ dubious.

In short, for me, 'classical Latin' is defined as the form of the language that has survived in writings from the period roughly first century BC to just after. But I view the matter not as a classicist but from the standpoint of philology.