Why Has Gaul/France A Romance Language?

[docoflove1974]

It's an interesting theory. If valid, it ought to be possible to identify which aspects of a given language will 'push it towards change', I'd suggest. Could you show Latin to a researcher who doesn't know the Romance languages and get a prediction of which aspects will push the language towards change?

 

Actually, yes. 'Traditional' reconstruction techniques have been tested on families such as the Romance family, to see if, given the modern languages, could one reconstruct the 'proto-language' and come out with Latin. In nearly all cases, either the Classical or Vulgar Latin terms were reconstructed, including the morph-syntactic elements (case, number, gender).

 

Again, I'm looking for evidence here -- but historical this time! Is there evidence for nomadic lifestyles in Roman Britain?

 

I'll get back to you on this...I know what was repeatedly brought up in lectures and discussions with my professors...

[Q Valerius Scerio]

Actually, yes. 'Traditional' reconstruction techniques have been tested on families such as the Romance family, to see if, given the modern languages, could one reconstruct the 'proto-language' and come out with Latin. In nearly all cases, either the Classical or Vulgar Latin terms were reconstructed, including the morph-syntactic elements (case, number, gender).

I've heard the contrary. My own studies, actually, would show the contrary. A language close to Vulgar Latin can be deduced, but not Vulgar Latin itself (as recorded) nor ever Classical Latin. Even by comparison of Vulgar texts such as the Biblia Sacra Iuxta Vulgatus, there's still not a comparison. Then again, what are they using? If you take the languages only a couple hundred years off, then you can probably get a really good construction. But considering that we've lost thousands of languages, if not hundreds of thousands, which were never recorded over the history of mankind, then it would only seem appropriate that the proper method would be using the modern versions of the languages along with several ancient ones in reconstructing.

 

However, if you have any sources, I'd love to see where you get this information from.

[docoflove1974]

Interesting, as the reconstruction exercises I've done since an undergrad by-and-large gave a Latin version, of one register or another. And the starting points for my exercises were most often Medieval (10-12th c.) Spanish and Italian. I have my sources lying around here somewhere...I'll see if I can dig them up. I'd love to see what you have, though, Valerius.

[Q Valerius Scerio]

Ah, I thought so. The earlier you get to the source, the closer you'll get to the language. Thinking about it, what sort of language would we have with only modern Romance languages and the few that died early enough and still left a viable trace?

 

I'm curious - I must admit I've nothing about medieval Spanish or Italian - did they use the de + noun as the genitive? What about dative? por? And locative? Only in, right? These are some of the aspects that probably could not easily be recovered.

 

I admit again that I've not collected a large variety of Romance languages. Usually my research revolves around ancient languages. Actually, any Romantic study comes straight from dealing with Latin. I'd love to read what you've got to further my knowledge.

[docoflove1974]

Ah, I thought so. The earlier you get to the source, the closer you'll get to the language. Thinking about it, what sort of language would we have with only modern Romance languages and the few that died early enough and still left a viable trace?

 

Exactly the point with reconstruction...you have to try to use the most solidly-attested 'ancient' forms--by that I mean the older and better attested, the better--as well use those older forms to put into place the phonological and morph-syntactic processes in the entire history of the language.

 

I'm curious - I must admit I've nothing about medieval Spanish or Italian - did they use the de + noun as the genitive? What about dative? por? And locative? Only in, right? These are some of the aspects that probably could not easily be recovered.

 

Spanish: de + noun was the default genitive...from the earliest attestations of Old Castilian and Old Leonese (this is all I remember from the top of my head...but I'm sure Old Aragonese followed suit), which is late 9th and early 10th c. Dative was an early casualty pan-Romance...only the ablative was erased sooner. Locative was on the way out even before the fall of the Roman empire. As for the other prepositions, in (en), ab/ad (a) (these two merged early on, even in Late Latin), cum (con), sine (sin), and per (por/para) all were in the very earliest attestations, too; ex was merged with others, particularly de (de + ex > desde). I admit I just looked that up in Penny's A History of the Spanish Language, as it's sitting right next to me on the desk.

 

Italian: here's the tricky part...that I know of, the majority of the Italian peninsula kept using Latin as a written form of communication much longer than the other Romance areas (Iberia, Gaul). I believe that we don't really get much until the 12th century (think Il Cantico del Fraile Sole), but I need to look that up. I'll get back to this. But, even assuming that 12th c. is the start of written Old Italian, the exact same conditions apply as for Spanish.

 

I admit again that I've not collected a large variety of Romance languages. Usually my research revolves around ancient languages. Actually, any Romantic study comes straight from dealing with Latin. I'd love to read what you've got to further my knowledge.

 

Well, general handbooks are the best place to start. These are the *basic* ones I'm using in my research on a constant basis...there are others, which I didn't list not because they are inferior, but because the list below is the best place to start. I didn't include texts on Rumanian or other 'minor' Romance languages, but I can post their biblios if needed. Also: many of these texts presume a fair amount of linguistic knowledge, and in most cases are heavy on the linguistic lingo (hehe). Not everything is in English, naturally:

 

Baldi, Philip (1999). The Foundations of Latin. New York, Mouton de Gruyter.

 

Buck, Carl Darling (1933). Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.

 

Cano Aguilar, Rafael (1992). El espa

[Andrew Dalby]

I admit again that I've not collected a large variety of Romance languages. Usually my research revolves around ancient languages. Actually, any Romantic study comes straight from dealing with Latin. I'd love to read what you've got to further my knowledge.

 

Baldi, Philip (1999). The Foundations of Latin. New York, Mouton de Gruyter.

...

Elcock, W. D. (1960). The Romance Languages. London, Faber & Faber.

...

 

Elcock is amazingly readable considering his chosen topic! Well worth looking at.

 

I did all this stuff too, about a generation earlier than the Doc. Many of his recommendations are texts that I know well -- which shows things don't change that much in Romance philology. Of the newer books I've looked at, Baldi is certainly very good.

[Andrew Dalby]

It's an interesting theory. If valid, it ought to be possible to identify which aspects of a given language will 'push it towards change', I'd suggest. Could you show Latin to a researcher who doesn't know the Romance languages and get a prediction of which aspects will push the language towards change?

 

Actually, yes. 'Traditional' reconstruction techniques have been tested on families such as the Romance family, to see if, given the modern languages, could one reconstruct the 'proto-language' and come out with Latin. In nearly all cases, either the Classical or Vulgar Latin terms were reconstructed, including the morph-syntactic elements (case, number, gender).

 

You didn't quite engage with my question: are there really aspects of a given language which will 'push it towards change', as your earlier posting said? The experimental answer would have to work forwards, not backwards -- from Latin to a reconstructed future language. If that's impossible, then the theory that features within a language 'push it towards change' has to be called into question.

 

I began to worry about this long after my Romance Philology classes, when I began to ask myself why it is that Greek phonology and grammar appear to have changed very rapidly in Hellenistic times, and why Latin phonology and grammar appear to have changed rapidly in late Republican and Imperial times. I find it difficult to disengage this problem from the fact that in those particular periods, because of political factors -- the spread of empires and cultures -- many thousands or even millions of people were learning those languages as a second/third language and as adults.

 

I said some of this, in more detail, in chapter 2 of /Language in Danger/. My aim in that chapter was to explore why so many languages died under the Roman Empire -- as background to the question of why so many languages are htreatened now.

[docoflove1974]

Heheh I'm a chick

 

It's an interesting question, Andrew. I'm not fully familiar with the history of the Greek empire(s), in regard to 'Hellenization' policies, so I can't really compare them to the Roman empire. What I do believe is that there are internal and external forces which can 'guide' how a language changes. Internal forces are those which are intrinsic to the language family--for Romance palatalization is a huge force in phonology, along with gender/number preservation over case preservation. External factors, I believe, start with the education and trade/infrastructure systems the Romans placed in the colonies--which forced the conquered cultures to use Latin more and more in their everyday lives.

 

But...that doesn't explain why Romance languages stuck in some places but not in others (N. Africa, the eastern Mediterranean, Pannonia). In those areas of the Empire, my history and ethono-cultural knowledge are shaky, so perhaps you (or someone else on here) can point me in the right direction.

 

I see what you mean about forwards- vs. backwards-looking in developing these theories of language change. It's a tricky line that we teeter along, because no theory is worth its salt if it's ad hoc. In fact, it's what I'm struggling with in my dissertation...in some ways I'm an evolutionist...BUT...much of the theory seems empty. "Language changes, or evolves, but cause its in its nature"...meh...that doesn't say much. But, personally, I do believe that as humans evolve and change, so do the aspects of their lives--and this definitely includes language. Language must evolve...but unlike Functionalists, I can't get myself to say that speakers actively change their language, or aspects of their language, in order to facillitate communication. Language acquisition specialists have shown that speakers don't 'consciously' change the language they're speaking.

 

So many questions!

[Andrew Dalby]

Language must evolve...but unlike Functionalists, I can't get myself to say that speakers actively change their language, or aspects of their language, in order to facillitate communication. Language acquisition specialists have shown that speakers don't 'consciously' change the language they're speaking.

 

Well, it depends how those specialists define the term 'the language they're speaking' and maybe also 'consciously'! When I learn a new language or dialect (because of migration, trade, employment, marriage, upward/downward mobility, joining the army ...), I am at least partly conscious of the fact. Is that excluded from the definition of 'the language I'm speaking'? As I said before, from say 200 BC to AD 200 millions upon millions of people must have taken up Latin in this way, and most of them (the first generation learners) would never have spoken it like a native. Just as English is different on the lips of speakers of different origins world wide, so Latin must have been. And their children learned it (partly) from them.

[docoflove1974]

Well, it depends how those specialists define the term 'the language they're speaking' and maybe also 'consciously'! When I learn a new language or dialect (because of migration, trade, employment, marriage, upward/downward mobility, joining the army ...), I am at least partly conscious of the fact. Is that excluded from the definition of 'the language I'm speaking'? As I said before, from say 200 BC to AD 200 millions upon millions of people must have taken up Latin in this way, and most of them (the first generation learners) would never have spoken it like a native. Just as English is different on the lips of speakers of different origins world wide, so Latin must have been. And their children learned it (partly) from them.

 

Well, yes, when second language learners use this acquired language, they are consciously choosing their language--be it lexicon, morpho-syntax, even phonology--depending on their level of fluency. Functionalists, as I have understood their readings (and this is principally Keller 1994 and Aitchison 2001, but others as well), are not as concerned with language acquisition issues. It is their contention that native speakers consciously change those aspects of their language which impede communication.

 

For example: 'Flavius' and 'Octavius' are native Latin speakers. Because of word-final consonant erosion, 'Flavius' notices that case distinctions between the nominative and accusative are blurred, as well as the difference between II masculine and II neuter nouns. So, 'Flavius' decides to rely more on word order and to not worry about a masculine/neuter distinction in gender.

 

There are two gross problems with this line of thinking:

1) This theory of language change holds as a central position that language change is individual...that the choices of one individual speaker will diffuse into the entire speech community. But who is to say that 'Flavius' has the right answer and not 'Octavius'? or that 'Octavius' will even accept 'Flavius' ' alternative, let alone continue to use it? Of course language change has to start somewhere--'someone has to think of it first' mentality--but it must be accepted by the speech community, and this theory does not truly take that into consideration. There is no way to prove that this individual decision really and truly takes hold...perhaps 4 people came up with the 'correct alternative' independently? Who knows.

 

2) While it can be shown that people consciously think about lexical items when communication becomes difficult--I use word X, but you don't know that word, so I think of word Y or I define word X--it has not been shown that people think about morpho-syntactic structures or phonological elements consciously in order to ease communication. Quite the opposite, in fact: people ennunciate when phonological elements are not communicated clearly, and other morpho-syntactic instruments are employed if such aspects are not communicated--including an entire re-wording of the utterance.

 

When thinking of the rebuttals, I'm primarily relying on Lass (1980), even with his scathing view of functionalism...but much of this is also 'internal belief' which has been followed up with Lass and others.

 

As for second language learners...meh...I don't know. If the history books are accurate (and books never lie! hehe), these children of the second-language-learners were usually taught Latin in school, so that they would have a pure bilingual situation at home--'native' language at home, probably, or code-switching, but Latin in school and elsewhere. And there hasn't been any evidence that I've read that children of bilingual families learn the 'social language' (in this case, Latin) incorrectly because of the parents and their level of acquisition; it depends on the reinforcement of this 'other' language (Latin), particularly in education and other social contexts (religion, business, etc.). If you need to learn language X in order to get a job and function in society, then by God/Jove/etc. you're gonna learn it. You need to in order to survive.

[Andrew Dalby]

As for second language learners...meh...I don't know. If the history books are accurate (and books never lie! hehe), these children of the second-language-learners were usually taught Latin in school, so that they would have a pure bilingual situation at home--'native' language at home, probably, or code-switching, but Latin in school and elsewhere. And there hasn't been any evidence that I've read that children of bilingual families learn the 'social language' (in this case, Latin) incorrectly because of the parents and their level of acquisition; it depends on the reinforcement of this 'other' language (Latin), particularly in education and other social contexts (religion, business, etc.). If you need to learn language X in order to get a job and function in society, then by God/Jove/etc. you're gonna learn it. You need to in order to survive.

 

For native speakers, Doc, I'm with you and against the functionalists 98%. You can consciously change your speech, but you do it very rarely. And I agree that parents and their peers are only one part of the influence on the language-learning of second-generation language switchers (such as provincials switching to Latin). Yes, modern experience is that the second generation (e.g. of Hispanics in the US, and of Commonwealth migrants to the UK) is likely to be almost perfectly bilingual. And yet their language, in some of its registers, will be sharply different from that of non-switchers. In fact they stretch the language they have switched to. I bet you won't deny that young speakers of Black English and other comparable forms of English are stretching and enriching our language? So I bet you won't deny that the millions of Gauls and Iberians (etc.) who must have switched to Latin over quite a short period must, similarly, have stretched Latin (after all, we are pretty certain that the local languages were dead (excepting Basque) by the end of the Empire, so everyone had switched by then). I will add that I don't believe, whatever the history books may say, that school education was 'usual' among the urban poor, peasants and labourers in the Roman provinces. Remember, the switch of language was not confined to an elite.

[docoflove1974]

You're right, AD, I do agree with what you say. **But**...how does one prove it? Yes, I suspect that, despite what the books tell us, school enrollment, let alone success, was not near the 'utopia' that seems to be projected...but baring a time machine, how does one prove it? And the language changes tend to come from the lower classes...indubitably, this is as true today as in antiquity.

 

The closest I can come is to look at the borrowed terminology that came into Latin, and when it is 'documented' (knowing full well that the term was probably well-entrenched in the language even before it was first documented). Off the top of my head--so there's plenty of room for error--I recall early borrowings from Greek, with Celtic and Germanic words coming in the early Empire years. But those are only lexical items...and those tend to get borrowed easily from one language to another; the mophology, syntax and phonology come much much later.

[Andrew Dalby]

You're right, AD, I do agree with what you say. **But**...how does one prove it? Yes, I suspect that, despite what the books tell us, school enrollment, let alone success, was not near the 'utopia' that seems to be projected...but baring a time machine, how does one prove it? And the language changes tend to come from the lower classes...indubitably, this is as true today as in antiquity.

 

The closest I can come is to look at the borrowed terminology that came into Latin, and when it is 'documented' (knowing full well that the term was probably well-entrenched in the language even before it was first documented). Off the top of my head--so there's plenty of room for error--I recall early borrowings from Greek, with Celtic and Germanic words coming in the early Empire years. But those are only lexical items...and those tend to get borrowed easily from one language to another; the mophology, syntax and phonology come much much later.

 

Yes, borrowings beyond just words are hard to find -- maybe partly because our knowledge of pre-Roman languages is pretty weak? For Greek > Latin, one obvious example is the definite article. I have heard it argued that the Latin translation of the Bible was the vehicle for getting a definite article into Latin. Have you a view on that?

[docoflove1974]

Yes, borrowings beyond just words are hard to find -- maybe partly because our knowledge of pre-Roman languages is pretty weak? For Greek > Latin, one obvious example is the definite article. I have heard it argued that the Latin translation of the Bible was the vehicle for getting a definite article into Latin. Have you a view on that?

 

Hmmmmmmmmm...I hadn't heard that argument...to be honest, I've yet to come across a (solid) argument for the development of the definite article in Romance, rather just some 'educated guesses' that Greek influence had something to do with it (I just looked, and Penny 2000 and Menendez Pidal 1968 both just say that late VLat speakers 'wanted to be like Greek'--I can't find half of my Rohlfs 1968 copies, which is one more reason why I hate moving hehe). I would love to get a more 'sound' argument, however.

 

The thing that troubles me with the Bible-translation argument is that would be done at a 'higher level' of language speakers--by clerics and the like--and the lower-class speakers would not have much control over that change. This 'tends' to contradict what has been shown about language change, that it tends to be a 'bottom-up' phenomena. BUT...this would not be the first time that a higher-class, more educated group had a permanent influence on the language; lexical items immediately come to mind, and I'm sure with a bit more digging and pondering I could come up with another. (I do apologize...my brain is quite mushy, as I'm editing another chapter, and taking a break to come here.)

 

EDIT TO ADD: I do believe my mentor, Brigitte Bauer, would absolutely hang me for the above answer. I'm pretty sure she's discussed this in her 1995 work The emergence and developing of SVO patterning in Latin and French : diachronic and psycholinguistic perspectives, and in lecture she was a firm believer in grammaticalization in this area. Anyway, I did a very quick check on LLBA for material on this subject matter, and didn't find anything that struck me as "ooooh read me!" But if I come up with something else, I'll post it here.

Edited February 20, 2006 by docoflove1974

[Andrew Dalby]

Yes, borrowings beyond just words are hard to find -- maybe partly because our knowledge of pre-Roman languages is pretty weak? For Greek > Latin, one obvious example is the definite article. I have heard it argued that the Latin translation of the Bible was the vehicle for getting a definite article into Latin. Have you a view on that?

 

The thing that troubles me with the Bible-translation argument is that would be done at a 'higher level' of language speakers--by clerics and the like--and the lower-class speakers would not have much control over that change. This 'tends' to contradict what has been shown about language change, that it tends to be a 'bottom-up' phenomena.

 

I'm happy with that last sentence, but it doesn't knock out the Bible argument. It's not a question of who translated it, but who read it and recited it afterwards. The Bible wasn't like a literary text. Christians tended to belong to the lower classes, and if they were quoting the Bible to one another, with all its un-classical definite articles, they might well begin to talk like it. This isn't just guesswork, after all -- we know the German and English Bibles have both had a significant effect on their respective languages!