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How Did Italian Arise?


Gini

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I am not very interested in trying to determine which Romance language is closest to Latin, however many experts seem to merely focus on written Latin while making their comparisons, which baffles me, honestly. I think they might as well focus on the simplified form of Latin people actually spoke. People in the streets of Roma did not speak classical Latin as we read it in Cicero for example. I believe spoken modern "roman" is not so distant from spoken ancient Latin.

For example:

AMAMVS>amamo (Italian: amiamo)

VIDEMUS>vedemo (Italian: vediamo)

SENTIMVS>sentimo (Italian: sentiamo)

These forms didn't change much in 2000 years, it seems..

There are many other Latin constructions that persist in spoken roman but I'm not going to list them. I'm sure there are books and researches on the matter.

Comparing classical Latin to standard Italian is useless (in my opinion), since practically noone speaks that language in Italy (written Italian is a different thing, as we have to learn how to write properly).

 

The only reason we often focus on Classical Latin is because we have a huge bank of it--in varying lengths and from various eras. We do have a fair amount of data from Vulgar Latin, but of varying lengths and of varying reliability--is the language that Plautus 'recreates' truly acurate? We can only guess, and assume so. Furthermore, Classical Latin is the basis from which Vulgar Latin emerged, so there is a reason to look at both.

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there is a reason to look at both.

Exactly what I meant, both should be taken into consideration..

 

Of course they should...it's just that oftentimes we don't have the Vulgar Latin 'in testiment' and on hand...much of the time, we have reconstructions. Classical Latin is more available, usually.

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Click here to view some of the earliest examples of the Italian language in chronological order.

 

http://www.steppa.net/html/scrivere/storia/origini.htm

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