Pedants' Paradise

[french frank]

Here I got thoroughly mired in my own hypotheses so I've deleted even the bits that I thought a bit interesting

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. And some of us write differently on this forum (no pun intended) from how we would write in a more formal context (cf Cicero's letters?). So the speech/written distinction begins eventually to blur - usually in favour of the speech forms.

(Yes Appendix Probi is only vocab but the phonology will affect grammatical forms in the same way)

[jean]

Cicero's letters aren't in the least formal - that's my point. When I read them, I hear him talking to his friends.

(I've got more thoughts about this, but they'll have to wait, as I'm mired in the Fauré Requiem for the rest of today!)

[french frank]

Cicero's letters aren't in the least formal - that's my point. When I read them, I hear him talking to his friends.

That's what I said - comparing what we write on this forum to what we might write (I wrote 'right' there) on more formal occasions. I.e. something closer to what we might say when talking to each other.

[jean]

Sorry, I thought you meant Cicero's letters would be an example of more formal writing.

They're not, but they are identifiably written in the same dialect as his speeches.

The author of this Wiki article is more cautious than the one you quote above, and carefully avoids specific dates - and places:

...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...

(My emphasis.)

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[Dave2002]

I found this

Payment

The processing fee for every postal order is 6 euros. This fee is waived for successful online orders.

from here - http://www.bayreuther-festspiele.de/...order_202.html

Perhaps they make a lot of money from unsuccessful online applications!

[jean]

This is more or less where we started:

...'classical Latin' was a written language, not a spoken one. Vulgar Latin was the vernacular

I can conceive of a language whose written forms become more and more divorced from how it's being used in everyday speech. I can't really imagine one that was never spoken in the first place.

This seems to me to be a better statement of the case:

...Even at the height of the Roman Republic, Vulgar Latin lived side by side with the speech of the educated. It developed a simplified grammar and vocabulary of its own, and, unlike literary Latin, was pronounced in many different ways. Often Vulgar Latin absorbed pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar from the indigenous languages of the provinces in which it had come to be spoken by virtue of Roman conquest.

A peculiarity of the history of Latin is that its 'classical' form was rediscovered at the Renaissance, and then, it really did become a written language only, fossilised at the supposed perfection of its state when it was the language of Cicero and Caesar. Even Tacitus was too late to be emulated. I wonder whether this is where the idea of classical Latin as only ever a written language has its origin?

[french frank]

Even at the height of the Roman Republic, Vulgar Latin lived side by side with the speech of the educated. It developed a simplified grammar and vocabulary of its own, and, unlike literary Latin ... I wonder whether this is where the idea of classical Latin as only ever a written language has its origin?

[Can't get that page to load for some reason]. Maybe it was because terms are being confused. I don't understand the term 'Vulgar Latin' in that way. And is it suggesting that 'literary Latin' is the same as the 'speech of the educated'? So what is meant by 'classical Latin'?

And

I can conceive of a language whose written forms become more and more divorced from how it's being used in everyday speech. I can't really imagine one that was never spoken in the first place.

I would call Cicero quite late in terms of language development - and it was Cicero that you particularly referred to, wasn't it?

[french frank]

I can conceive of a language whose written forms become more and more divorced from how it's being used in everyday speech. I can't really imagine one that was never spoken in the first place.

Wouldn't it be the other way round - that there was a language that was spoken but not written down at all?

[jean]

I don't understand the term 'Vulgar Latin' in that way.

Do you understand it as referring to all spoken Latin, at any period and in any part of the Roman colonies or Empire?

And is it suggesting that 'literary Latin' is the same as the 'speech of the educated'? So what is meant by 'classical Latin'?

I think that around the time of Cicero, educated Romans wrote in 'classical Latin', and allowing for variations in register, spoke the same 'language'. And that that language was not sermo vulgaris.

I would call Cicero quite late in terms of language development - and it was Cicero that you particularly referred to, wasn't it?

I don't understand - do you mean that the language would have had plenty of time to develop divergent spoken and written varieties?

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[jean]

Wouldn't it be the other way round - that there was a language that was spoken but not written down at all?

I've no problem with a language that's spoken but not written down - there are plenty of those. But I don't know of any that are written but not spoken.

[french frank]

I've no problem with a language that's spoken but not written down - there are plenty of those. But I don't know of any that are written but not spoken.

That's not really what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting that language is first spoken. Once people can write it down it can develop in complexity, so departing from the spoken form - just as the spoken form develops in other ways because it is spoken.

Are you saying that you think Cicero normally spoke pretty much how he wrote in his literary works?

[jean]

I'm suggesting that language is first spoken. Once people can write it down it can develop in complexity, so departing from the spoken form - just as the spoken form develops in other ways because it is spoken.

But I cannot think of any examples where they become two distinct languages, as is suggested by 'classical Latin' was a written language, not a spoken one.

And in fact, the puzzle which started off all of this discussion is that languages often go through a period of great complexity before they become simple again, and writing doesn't seem to have much to do with it.

Much earlier, you said

...Language tends to reduce to the simplest, usable form, to become more analytic...

But this happens just as we have more writing than ever before, and so could handle hitherto unimaginable degrees of complexity.

Are you saying that you think Cicero normally spoke pretty much how he wrote in his literary works?

Yes, I am. Why would we think otherwise?

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[french frank]

Can we just say that one chooses between the hypotheses, whichever one thinks more likely?

Take the opening of Ian McEwan's Atonement (chosen at random - I don't have many modern novels):

"The play - for which Bryony had designed the posters, programmes and tickets, constructed the sales booth out of a folding screen tipped on its side, and lined the collection box in red crêpe paper - was written by her in a two-day tempest of composition, causing her to miss a breakfast and a lunch."

The syntax and carefully chosen vocabulary, I would assume, were worked on because with written/literary works the writer has the opportunity to do so. I don't think McEwan would have come out, spontaneously, with such a sentence when speaking. That is why I would think that Cicero would work on his language when writing. The precise differences that arise between written and spoken could be argued about. But what defines 'classical Latin'?

[jean]

The syntax and carefully chosen vocabulary, I would assume, were worked on because with written/literary works the writer has the opportunity to do so. I don't think McEwan would have come out, spontaneously, with such a sentence when speaking. That is why I would think that Cicero would work on his language when writing.
The precise differences that arise between written and spoken could be argued about.

Of course! I would not disagree with any of that. But neither would I want to entertain the hypothesis that the language McEwan writes in is not the language he speaks.

But what defines 'classical Latin'?

Well, I wasn't the first to use the term on this thread!

It's the language of an educated elite in Rome during a period beginning in the first century BC. There are differing views about how long before the period ended. Another Wiki article, which seems sound to me:

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.

(My emphasis.)

The nineteenth-century need to identify a period of perfection from which everything then declined is also dealt with in that article. I haven't heard anyone use the terms Golden and Silver Latin for many years, and even then only as historical curiosities.

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[french frank]

Another Wiki article, which seems sound to me

"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)"

And the discussion continues there.

I ask whether you think Cicero (your example) spoke in just the way he wrote and you reply: "Why would we think otherwise?" My answer would be because writing (especially literary works) is not the same occupation as speaking.

To me, it's about definition: classical Latin is, fundamentally, the literary language of (roughly) that period, and Vulgar Latin is the spoken language, with whatever differences and similarities that may involve in individual cases (we don't know - hence the arguments). It is not 'bad Latin'.