Romanian, the closest Neo-Latin (Romance language) to Latin

[KingHarvest]

Rebecca Posner has been rather discredited, her knowledge of Romance Languages is somewhat subpar.

You forget the future in the past tense for Romanian. I had forgotten that the trapassato remoto existed in Italian, but considering passato remoto and trapassato remoto exist only in written Standard Italian, I would argue that they don't exist on the same level as all the past tenses that Romanian has which are actually used in speech.

Regardless, the verbal system of Romance is extremely different from Latin's so the fact that Romanian's verbal system differs slightly from the Romance languages' is not valid grounds to say that Romanian is further removed from Latin than Italian is.

[modus.irrealis]

These scholars are trying to let us know how Rumanian has completely lost the sense of the consecutio temporum, that is something very characteristic within the Latin syntax. And how rumanian has extremely simplified the Latin tense system.
Maybe you can't get it exactly because you have not the sense of the consecutio temporum.

I actually find comparing languages inherently interesting (no matter what nefarious purposes they might be used for), so to follow up on this, you mean something like with (all corrections welcome):

Latin: dico quid faciam / dicabam quid facerem
French: je dis ce que je fais / je disais ce que je faisais
Italian: dico che faccio / dicevo che facevo [?]

in the Romanian version would have the same verb used for "do" whatever the tense of "dico"?

Of course, though, French and Italian here are not the same as Latin and are only similar in the broad idea of the subordinate clause (redundantly imo) reflecting the tense of the main clause. Once you get into details, it's very different -- in my own example, Latin uses the subjunctive in indirect questions. Basically, it's not all that surprising to me that French and Italian developed from Latin along similar lines while (in this case) the isolated Romanian developed along other lines, but both have developed away from Latin.

[obler9]

Rebecca Posner has been rather discredited, her knowledge of Romance Languages is somewhat subpar.

I am more than sure you have never read anything about or written by this scholar

Let's discover who is "this" Rebecca Posner:
Professor Rebecca Posner has been Professor of Romance Languages, University of Oxford and a Fellow of St Hugh's College since 1978. She was made Professor Emeritus in 1996. Previous to this, she was Professor of Romance Languages, University of Ghana, 196365; Reader in Language, University of York, 196578; Visiting Professor of Romance Philology, Columbia University, 197172; and Visiting Senior Fellow, Princeton University, 1983.

But you are a master in Romance languages, uh?

step 1: you stated Rumanian has more past tenses than the other Romance languages (pure nonsense);

step 2: I showed you how Rumanian has actually less past tenses than the other Romance languages and how Rumanian lost Latin tenses that are actually preserved in the other romance languages: so it's more than clear you do not know the Romance languages and you dare to talk about subjects you do not know...

step 3: nonetheless now you are daring to state the knoweledge of a great professor and expert is "somewhat subpar"

step 4: I am not adding anything: It's sufficient to read what we posted till now...

but considering passato remoto and trapassato remoto exist only in written Standard Italian, I would argue that they don't exist on the same level as all the past tenses that Romanian has which are actually used in speech..

????
Again you are talking about something you do not know at all. Passato remoto and Trapassato remoto exist in the spoken and ordinary language as well as in the "written standard" language. On the contrary a lot of native Italian speakers from southern Italy use them much more than the written language does, even against the rules of the Italian grammar.

Regardless, the verbal system of Romance is extremely different from Latin's so the fact that Romanian's verbal system differs slightly from the Romance languages' is not valid grounds to say that Romanian is further removed from Latin than Italian is.

I don't see any verbal system of Romance since the Italian verbal system is Romance and it is different from the Rumanian one that is Romance too; and Rumanian is the only Romance language without the imperfect and pluperfect subjunctive: tenses that are basical in the Latin syntax, and in the Italian one. If we removed these tenses from the Italian grammar, the Italian syntax should be distorted.

Latin had the imperfect subjunctive, the perfect subjunctive, and the pluperfect subjunctive. And Italian has the imperfect subjenctive, the perfect subjunctive and the pluperfect subjunctive too. Rumanian has only a perfect subjunctive that, differently from the Latin and the Italian one, is not even conjugated. The verbal system of Rumanian is extremely different from Latin's .

[obler9]

These scholars are trying to let us know how Rumanian has completely lost the sense of the consecutio temporum, that is something very characteristic within the Latin syntax. And how rumanian has extremely simplified the Latin tense system.
Maybe you can't get it exactly because you have not the sense of the consecutio temporum.

I actually find comparing languages inherently interesting (no matter what nefarious purposes they might be used for), so to follow up on this, you mean something like with (all corrections welcome):

Latin: dico quid faciam / dicabam quid facerem
French: je dis ce que je fais / je disais ce que je faisais
Italian: dico che faccio / dicevo che facevo [?]

in the Romanian version would have the same verb used for "do" whatever the tense of "dico"?

Consecutio temporum of the Latin and Italian subjunctive mood

A)_Expression of the contemporaneity of the subordinate clause with respect to the principal clause:

a1) Ex te quaero (now: present) quid dicas (now: present subjunctive);
Italian: Ti chiedo (now: present) che cosa tu dica (now: present subjunctive).

a2) Ex te quaesivi (then: perfect) quid diceres (then: imperfect subjunctive);
Italian: Ti chiesi (then: perfect) che cosa dicessi (then: imperfect subjunctive).

B)_Expression of the anteriority of the subordinate clause with respect to the principal clause:

b1) Ex the quaero (now: present) quid dixeris (then: perfect subjunctive);
Italian: Ti chiedo (now: present) cosa tu abbia detto (then: perfect subjunctive)

b2) Ex te quaesivi (then: perfect) quid dixisses (before then: pluperfect subjunctive)
Italian: Ti chiesi (then: perfect) che cosa avessi detto (before then: pluperfect subjunctive)

N.B.: imperfect subjunctive and pluperfect subjunctive do not exist in Rumanian.

[KingHarvest]

I am more than sure you have never read anything about or written by this scholar

Actually, I have read her work, and I was very unimpressed. Her knowledge of the major Romance languages was sub-par, though I can't speak for the lesser ones. A review of her work (not done by me):

Overall, Ms. Posner gives a broad but shallow overview of how she believes Latin evolved into the Romance languages during the middle ages. Nonetheless, I found several obvious mistakes, which lead me to believe that she had some basic knowledge of some of the languages she used to illustrate her research efforts but not any substantial knowledge in all of the Romance languages as the title might allude. In my opinion, she spends too much time and effort baffling the reader with highly technical, linguistic jargon in order to explain simple linguistic idiosyncrasies, but most of her explanations are quite shallow and inconclusive. In many of her examples, she jumps from point to point without ever convincingly defending her position on why certain changes happened. She just states some examples and then goes on to something else hoping the reader will figure it out. Then, after she has confused the reader with highly technical linguistic frases just to explain a specific sound or spelling, she makes references to other parts of her book, which is difficult to navigate through, desperately trying to divert the reader's attention away from the obvious - that she did not support her theories with chronological evidence from old texts as is done in other comparative linguistic books.

I noted numerous mistakes in spellings and grammer where she was defending a theory from a change in Latin to a word in Spanish, (i.e. "guadañar," should have been "ganar," rather than converting "guadagnare" from Italian; and "guarnir," also from Italian but not Spanish should be "guarnecer"; and "dormió" is instead "durmió") Galician ("antes de chegarem" rather than "...chegaren"), Portuguese (future subjunctive is not exactly the same as the personal infinitive; "fêz" should be "fez"), and Italian ("Lo si compra" should be "Se lo compra" -"si" changes to "se" before "lo", "la", "li" "le" & "ne"; "Non mi si ascolta" is never said. What is said is "Non mi ascolta nessuno.).

In addition, her comments about the Portuguese understanding Spanish but not reciprocally is obvious in that given the same or a similar word, Portuguese is truncated and/or nasalized (besides the overwhelming "sh" and "zh" sounds of which the continental Portuguese pride themselves) making it difficult for the Spanish (and might I add the Brazilians) to decipher. She states that there is a long-standing history of animosity between the two countries going back to the date of Portugal's last independence from Spain 1580-1643 (which was really 1580-1640).

In addition, Ms Posner stated that "there was little reliable data to support the existence of Philippine Spanish." Well, she obviously doesn't know her Philippino/Spanish history nor any of the languages and dialects of the Philippines. Spain ruled the Philippines for over 350 years, and there are many hundreds of Spanish words incorporated in Tagalog and several of the other Austronesian languages spoken in the Philippines. Furthermore, there does exist a Spanish Creole dialect known as "Chavacano" which was born out of 18th century Spanish. It does not belong to the Austronesian family of languages; however, its lexicon is Spanish but its syntax is similar to that of other Philippine languages. Chavacano is spoken in Zamboanga, Basilan, Cavite, Ternate, and Ermita (Manila).

She was ignorant in her remarks that Philippino was just a "relexified Portuguese Creole" when Portugal had no linguistic influence whatsoever in the Philippines, and there aren't any similarities between Tagalog or any other Philippine dialect/language and Portuguese other than what they have in common with Spanish.

I was hoping she would have explained the nasalization of Portuguese better than saying it was probably due to Celtic influence. Portuguese was born in the late 12th-13th centuries (long after the Celts were Romanized) out of Galician, which is directly linked to Celtic, and there is no nasalization in that language whatsoever. Furthermore, 15-16th century Spanish has evidence of nasalization (the original Don Quixote has lots of examples) which is still prevalent in Andalusian Spanish (Moorish influence?). In all words ending in "n", Andalusian and Caribbean Spanish nasalize the final "n" (though not lexical) much more than any other dialect, which would lead me to believe that the pronunciation of the letter "n" as "ng" (or represented by "~" over vowels in Portuguese) has an influence other than Celtic. What caused the omission of the intervocalic "l" and "n" in Portuguese and Galician?

She never convincingly explained the conversation of "ç, z, and c" to be pronounced as Þ (theta) in Spain in the 16-17th centuries. Andalusia and Galicia resisted until the 19/20th century, and Catalá, Aragonès, and Asturianu-Lleones never adopted it. The folklore has always been that King Felipe II (1527-1598) had a lisp and forced his subjects to imitate him. However, reality is something different because Portugal never adopted such a lisp when he ruled there, but instead, the Portuguese pronounce the final "s" like "sh", and "z" and "c" have the same sounds as in English.

Her knowledge of Latin, French, and some of the obscure/dead dialects is commendable. However, her research efforts thorough enough and arguments not convincing despite the fact that such material on Romance dialects comparison (especially the ones she picked) is hard to find. It is difficult to find and read credible material in which the author truly has a profound and substantiated knowledge basis to share with his or her readers on all Romance dialects/languages and their evolution from Latin, and Ms. Rebecca Posner did not impress me.

I showed you how Rumanian has actually less past tenses than the other Romance languages and how Rumanian lost Latin tenses that are actually preserved in the other romance languages: so it's more than clear you do not know the Romance languages and you dare to talk about subjects you do not know...

Pay attention to what I said, I admitted I had forgotten the trapassato remoto in Italian, and you still aren't admitting that you're ignoring one of the Romanian past tenses, so that would make Romanian and Italian equal in the number of past tenses.

On the contrary a lot of native Italian speakers from southern Italy use them much more than the written language does, even against the rules of the Italian grammar.

Pay attention, I said Standard Italian, not southern dialects and Standard Italian that's been heavily influenced by them. Plus, if you want to point out all these other tenses, then you have more past tenses than Latin had, which would make Italian and the Romance languages further removed from Latin, don't you think?

[q]If we removed these tenses from the Italian grammar, the Italian syntax should be distorted.[/q]

Funny how the subjunctive is dying in Italian and the government makes commercials in the vain attempt to get people to start using it again.

You don't say "ex te quaero." 1.) the e is unnecessary 2.) it's only ex before a vowel, it's e before a consonant 3.) rogo is the normal verb for to ask

Of course, if we examine the syntax of the much more common indirect speech, we're going to see much larger departures between Latin and Italian syntax.

I say that I see you
L: dico me videre te
I: dico che ti vedo

I say that I saw you
L: dico me visisse te
I: dico che ti ho visto

I say that I will see you
L: dico me visurum te
I: dico che ti vedrò

Now here comes the really fun part

I said that I saw you
L: dixi me vedere te
I: ho detto che ti vedevo

I said that I had seen you
L: dixi me visisse te
I: ho detto che ti avevo visto

I said that I will see you
L: dixi me visurum te
I: Ho detto che ti avrei visto

Of course, if we start going into even more complicated phrases like "I said that I would've seen you," Latin doesn't change the verb forms at all from non-modal forms whereas Italian will. Clearly, Italian is not that similar to Latin.

[ILuvEire]

I know this is somewhat heated, but I am really enjoying reading this!

This deserves to be stickied!

[loqu]

Well, if that Posner woman has said all those things, she clearly has little idea about what she says. I don't know much about Italian, Sardinian or French, but she's clearly wrong in everything that concerns the Iberian languages.

And the thing with the lisp of the king is just hilarious. That's not reliable at all.

[obler9]

I am more than sure you have never read anything about or written by this scholar

Actually, I have read her work, and I was very unimpressed. Her knowledge of the major Romance languages was sub-par, though I can't speak for the lesser ones. A review of her work (not done by me):

Overall, Ms. Posner gives a broad but shallow overview of how she believes Latin evolved into the Romance languages during the middle ages. Nonetheless, I found several obvious mistakes, which lead me to believe that she had some basic knowledge of some of the languages she used to illustrate her research efforts but not any substantial knowledge in all of the Romance languages as the title might allude. In my opinion, she spends too much time and effort baffling the reader with highly technical, linguistic jargon in order to explain simple linguistic idiosyncrasies, but most of her explanations are quite shallow and inconclusive. In many of her examples, she jumps from point to point without ever convincingly defending her position on why certain changes happened. She just states some examples and then goes on to something else hoping the reader will figure it out. Then, after she has confused the reader with highly technical linguistic frases just to explain a specific sound or spelling, she makes references to other parts of her book, which is difficult to navigate through, desperately trying to divert the reader's attention away from the obvious - that she did not support her theories with chronological evidence from old texts as is done in other comparative linguistic books, ETC.............

When someone posts a comment like yours on an Oxoniensis professor emeritus, I ask to know who are the lot of scholars you can mention in order to demonstrate how the knoweledge of this professor is, as you said, "sub-par".
As soon as I started to read this kilometric "source" you posted I understood it was from some site, a comment made by some unkown Mister X with god knows what purpose.
And in fact I putted the first sentences in the Google and this is what I found:

http://www.amazon.com/Romance-Languages-Cambridge-Language-Surveys/dp/0521281393

The lot of scholars I was searching for in order to see on what your claim was based are actually just one unkown user who wrote that review on amazon.com.
With all the respect for this completely unkown mister nicknamed "Steven Barbieri", Noone knows who he is. And I don't see why it should be better to believe in an unkown user from a forum rather than in a famous scholar. I can go there, write my review on the book, then use my own review as a source.
I wonder what your next source will be... the English Wikipedia?

In short, you took the worst review on her book in that site, and you used it as a source. Although this can't be considered a source at all.

Well, will I past and copy the best review about that book written by some other user? Ok. In your opinion these are sources.

Did you post "Steven Barbieri", uh?
So I post "Sean Burke"

This is the best survey I've seen of the Romance languages to date. Its coverage of them is broad and deep -- it covers more than just phonology (yippee!), and it gives due attention to all sorts of languages that other Romance texts too often ignore (Rumanian, Asturian, even the Romance creoles, as well as lots of nonstandard dialects of the main Romance languages).
And yet it's still accessible to readers with not much linguistic background, making it useful even in an intro-to-Romance course.

Let's be serious. On the other hand the site in which you took your review posted by a common user, shows other reviews written by true scholars.
So, what did these scholars say on her work?

"...this book will undoubtedly take its place among the major works of synthesis on Romance languages."

Suzanne Fleischman, Anthropological Linguistics

"...Posner's The Romance Languages is a work of immense erudition and scholarship which will be most appreciated by those who have some prior knowledge of the history and development of this widespread language family."

Marc Picard, Canadian Journal of Linguistics

Now. You started with the crap about Posner so you felt the need to go on. I was denying everything you had posted... poor guy. Rebecca Posner Rebecca Posner.... I posted several sources, also something from her. What about the other sources?
Because it seems everything I stated is based on Rebeca Posner's work, while I just took quotes from this great scholar as well as I quoted works written by others.

[

I showed you how Rumanian has actually less past tenses than the other Romance languages and how Rumanian lost Latin tenses that are actually preserved in the other romance languages: so it's more than clear you do not know the Romance languages and you dare to talk about subjects you do not know...

Pay attention to what I said, I admitted I had forgotten the trapassato remoto in Italian, and you still aren't admitting that you're ignoring one of the Romanian past tenses, so that would make Romanian and Italian equal in the number of past tenses.

Oh, of course, you "forget" two Italian tenses but you are able to judge the Oxoniensis professors. Good. I talked about the indicative and subjunctive past tenses in Italian and Rumanian. Italian has an indicative past tense more and two subjunctive past tenses more. So it's a little difficult to make Italian and Rumanian equal in the number of indicative and subjunctive past tenses.

On the contrary a lot of native Italian speakers from southern Italy use them much more than the written language does, even against the rules of the Italian grammar.

Pay attention, I said Standard Italian, not southern dialects and Standard Italian that's been heavily influenced by them.

You said passato remoto and trapassato remoto are used in the Standard written Italian while they do not exist in the spoken language. I replied of course they exist in the spoken language and the native italian speakers from southern Italy who speak Italian (not their regional dialect) generally used them a lot, even more than the standard written language does.

If we removed these tenses from the Italian grammar, the Italian syntax should be distorted.

Funny how the subjunctive is dying in Italian and the government makes commercials in the vain attempt to get people to start using it again.

Well, this is a PURE crap. What's the next? I did never see a commercial made in order to preserve the subjunctive mood. And most of the Italian speakers use the subjunctive mood continuously. If there is some Italian who is inable to use it correctly, that's a problem of personal culture. The subjunctive is dying??? LOL Pure clownery. Again you are talking about something you do not know.

You don't say "ex te quaero." 1.) the e is unnecessary 2.) it's only ex before a vowel, it's e before a consonant 3.) rogo is the normal verb for to ask

I SAY "EX TE QUAERO"! 1.) I copied my examples from a very important Latin grammar continously riedited and that has been tested by personages such as Maria Corti and Umberto Eco 2.) It's EX before a consonant in several cases, a lot of Latin authors leave the "X" before the consonant too, just open a Latin vcabulary and search for "ex": "homines ex Fabia familia" (Eutr.); "ex nomine suo Roma nominata est" (Cic.); "de quo studeo ex te audire quid sentias" (Cic.); "quoniam nihil ex te hi requirunt, ex me audies quid in oratione tua desiderem" (Cic.); "praeruptus locus erat, utraque ex parte directus" (Caes.); "Ex quo..." (Liv., Tac.); "provinciam Hispaniam ex praetura habuerat" (Caes.); "ubi animus ex multis miseriis atque periculis requievit" (Sall.); "qui ex civitate in senatum, ex senatum in hoc consilium delecti estis" (Cic.); "aliquis ex vobis" (Cic.). Is it enough?
3.) even the children know QUAERO is the right verb for TO ASK IN ORDER TO KNOW. Quaero, is, quaesivi or quaesii, quaesitum, quaerere: to ask in order to know. (first year of the high schools).

So, It seems you "forgot" something else!

Of course, if we examine the syntax of the much more common indirect speech, we're going to see much larger departures between Latin and Italian syntax.

"If we examine" what??
When you show something, call it by the right name. You would like to show the Latin INFINITIVE CLAUSES and their relation with the Italian language, namely the consecutio temporum of the infinitive clauses (while I showed the much more complex and refined consecutio temporum of the subjunctive mood in the subordinate clauses as regards Latin and Italian).
First of all, in comparison with Latin and the other Romance languages, Rumanian is lacking in syntactic constructions with the infinitive mode.
This reduction of the infinitive within the syntactic construction and its large substitution by final, consecutive and declarative subordinate structures is an other typical characteristic of the Balkan Linguistic Union.

I say that I see you
L: dico me videre te
I: dico che ti vedo

The italian translation you made is the version with the subordinate structure. But Italian has both, the INFINITIVE AND the subordinate structure in a construction like the one you show. There are both commonly used. But the infinitive is even more used. So, the right example is:

L: dico me videre te (present infinitive)
I: dico di vederti / dico di vedere te (present infinitive)

I say that I saw you
L: dico me visisse te
I: dico che ti ho visto

First of all it’s not “visisse” but “vidisse”: the perfect is based on “vidi” (vidi, vidisti.. like the Italian vidi, vedesti…). Again, the infinitive structure is common in Italian, in a case like this even more common than in the previous one. So:
L: dico me vidisse te (perfect infinitive)
I: dico di averti visto (perfect infinitive)

Now here comes the really fun part

Oh, I am curious... really.

I said that I saw you
L: dixi me vedere te
I: ho detto che ti vedevo

Again a subordinate construction. Why? Italian has the infinitive construction too, and the Italians commonly use it. But... do you know Italian has the infinitive construction?! And why "ho detto" instead of "dissi"? So:

L: dixi me vedere te (present infinitive)
I: dissi di vederti / dissi di vedere te (present infinitive)

I said that I had seen you
L: dixi me visisse te
I: ho detto che ti avevo visto

It’s viDisse. And again a wrong example. This is the right one:
L: dixi me vidisse te (perfect infinitive)
I: dissi di averti visto (perfect infinitive)

Well, did you "forget" something again? what did you forget now?

Clearly, Italian is not that similar to Latin.

Muahahahahah! Yes, after an entirely wrong reasoning based on a poor knoweledge of Italian (I have to correct you sentence by sentence everytime), the conclusion is completely wrong too!
Why don't you finally open some serious book of Italian (and Latin) grammar?

As I show and as the scholars state
ITALIAN IS THE CLOSEST LIVING LANGUAGE TO LATIN

[obler9]

So, thanks to our friend Steven Tallarico aka Steven Tyler aka KingHarvest, we discovered something more. Latin and Italian consecutio temporum within the infinitive clauses:

L: dico me videre te (present infinitive)
I: dico di vederti / dico di vedere te (present infinitive)

L: dico me vidisse te (perfect infinitive)
I: dico di averti visto (perfect infinitive)

L: dixi me vedere te (present infinitive)
I: dissi di vederti / dissi di vedere te (present infinitive)

L: dixi me vidisse te (perfect infinitive)
I: dissi di averti visto (perfect infinitive)

Plus the more important and refined Consecutio temporum of the Latin and Italian subjunctive mood

A)_Expression of the contemporaneity of the subordinate clause with respect to the principal clause:

a1) Ex te quaero (now: present) quid dicas (now: present subjunctive);
Italian: Ti chiedo (now: present) che cosa tu dica (now: present subjunctive).

a2) Ex te quaesivi (then: perfect) quid diceres (then: imperfect subjunctive);
Italian: Ti chiesi (then: perfect) che cosa dicessi (then: imperfect subjunctive).

B)_Expression of the anteriority of the subordinate clause with respect to the principal clause:

b1) Ex the quaero (now: present) quid dixeris (then: perfect subjunctive);
Italian: Ti chiedo (now: present) cosa tu abbia detto (then: perfect subjunctive)

b2) Ex te quaesivi (then: perfect) quid dixisses (before then: pluperfect subjunctive)
Italian: Ti chiesi (then: perfect) che cosa avessi detto (before then: pluperfect subjunctive)

N.B.: imperfect subjunctive and pluperfect subjunctive do not exist in Rumanian.

And what about the freedom of both, the Italian and Latin syntax?

“It is an interesting observation, that the modern Italian has inherited from its Latin mother a great freedom of periodic arrangement […] It has an immense advantage over the French, in variety of admissible collocations of words in a given sentence, as well as in the greater number of allied forms of expression […] The freedom of Italian syntax is to be ascribed in part to the fact that it is both an aborigenal and, to a great extent, an unmixed tongue, spoken by the descendants of those to whom the maternal Latin was native, and retaining the radical forms and grammatical capabilities of that language, whereas French and Spanish are strangers to the soil, corrupted by a large infusion of foreign ingredients, and spoken by nations alien in descent from those who employed the common source of both, as their mother-tongue…”

(“Lecture XVI. Grammatical inflections. II” in George Perkins Marsh et alii, “Lectures on the English Language”, p. 357)

ITALIAN IS THE CLOSEST LIVING LANGUAGE TO LATIN

[loqu]

Well, we have seen a clear evolution in the character. He came first to argue that Romanian is not the closest to Latin, then he evolved to show his real face and make a promotion of the supposed proximity of Italian to Latin. He changed subject all in all from Romanian to Italian.

Ok, so even accepting it may be, even though it's debatable and still far away from it. Tell me, you came in search for a medal or something?

I still fail to see how an infinitive clause 'has its closest equivalence' in a verbal periphrasis with 'di'. I'm glad, though, that you prove our whole point that Romance languages are closer to one another than each to Latin. Just have a look at the whole bunch of compound tenses which Latin didn't have and Italian (Spanish, French, Portuguese) is full with -- but oh, Romanian still have them simple.

[sa wulfs]

Haha, a lisp? Give me a break.

[obler9]

Just have a look at the whole bunch of compound tenses which Latin didn't have and Italian (Spanish, French, Portuguese) is full with -- but oh, Romanian still have them simple.

I think you are wrong. Because Rumanian has compound tenses too. The differences are between the future that in our case is simple (as well as in Latin) but in Rumanian is compound and with a typical balkan construction, and the pluperfect indicative that in our case is compound while in Rumanian is simple.
From this point of view, the situation is exactly the same.


The serious part is that Rumanian has not the imperfect subjunctive (that in Italian as well as in Latin is simple) and the pluperfect subjunctive. And the rumanian perfect subjunctive not only is compound like ours but differently from our perfect subjunctive is not even conjugated.

[loqu]

A search on Google on Rebecca Posner is very clear

Only one book on Amazon, this very thread on Unilang and a similar one on Antimoon where a very familiar Artiglio uses the same arguments to discredit Romanian and insult everyone who doesn't share his view

Just wanted to add the fun fact.

[obler9]

Well, we have seen a clear evolution in the character. He came first to argue that Romanian is not the closest to Latin, then he evolved to show his real face and make a promotion of the supposed proximity of Italian to Latin. He changed subject all in all from Romanian to Italian.

No, it's not like this. Since the beginning I showed how it is a nonsense to state Rumanian is the closest language to Latin and how the little group of Rumanians who posted always the same list of absurdities are not reliable at all since they based themselves on wrong informations; but I also showed how Italian is the closest language to Latin. The nice think is that, talking about national languages, at the second place, as regards the closness to Latin, there is Spanish. Rumanian is just the third. If we do not consider regional languages such as Sardinian.
The question is not to win a medal. The question is to let people know the truth.

[sa wulfs]

The nice think is that, talking about national languages, at the second place, as regards the closness to Latin, there is Spanish.

Loqu, I think he's offering you to be his trusted lieutenant if you join his side.

[obler9]

A search on Google on Rebecca Posner is very clear

Only one book on Amazon, this very thread on Unilang and a similar one on Antimoon where a very familiar Artiglio uses the same arguments to discredit Romanian and insult everyone who doesn't share his view

Just wanted to add the fun fact.

A search on Google on Rebecca Posner is very clear



I think you have to search better since she wrote more than one book. Plus the various academic articles written by her: she thought Romance languages at Oxford.

If I quoted 15 different authors and more, why this obsession with just one of them?

Just wanted to evidence the fun fact.

You go to other forums for having fun. Ok. But we are not interested at all in this. Try to deny my point, if you are able in doing.
Your only intervention here on the rumanian language has been a colossal crap.

This is a fun fact too.

[obler9]

The nice think is that, talking about national languages, at the second place, as regards the closness to Latin, there is Spanish.

Loqu, I think he's offering you to be his trusted lieutenant if you join his side.

Noooooo.... On the contrary I know it's hard being the second.
When you are the second you prefer to think the first does not exist, uh?

[loqu]

The nice think is that, talking about national languages, at the second place, as regards the closness to Latin, there is Spanish.

Loqu, I think he's offering you to be his trusted lieutenant if you join his side.

Oh I'm so lucky! I always dreamt of trolling internet forums discrediting Romanian, I just hate those folks and their bloody language! So sure I'll join.

[obler9]

The nice think is that, talking about national languages, at the second place, as regards the closness to Latin, there is Spanish.

Loqu, I think he's offering you to be his trusted lieutenant if you join his side.

Oh I'm so lucky! I always dreamt of trolling internet forums discrediting Romanian, I just hate those folks and their bloody language! So sure I'll join.

Maybe in your country you need to learn two things:

1)Christopher Columbus (Cristoforo Colombo) was Italian and not Spanish as you would like to think;

2) what is the meaning of the word "reply", that is: if my comments exist, these exist as replies. You know, when you open a thread, especially a thread full of nonsenses, someone will reply to you.

[modus.irrealis]

I actually find comparing languages inherently interesting (no matter what nefarious purposes they might be used for), so to follow up on this, you mean something like with (all corrections welcome):

Latin: dico quid faciam / dicabam quid facerem
French: je dis ce que je fais / je disais ce que je faisais
Italian: dico che faccio / dicevo che facevo [?]

in the Romanian version would have the same verb used for "do" whatever the tense of "dico"?

Consecutio temporum of the Latin and Italian subjunctive mood

So yes that is what you meant and yes the Romanian version would use the same word for "do" whatever the tense of "dico"?

And what's the difference between Italian using the subjunctive in indirect questions and using the indicative?

The italian translation you made is the version with the subordinate structure. But Italian has both, the INFINITIVE AND the subordinate structure in a construction like the one you show. There are both commonly used. But the infinitive is even more used. So, the right example is:

L: dico me videre te (present infinitive)
I: dico di vederti / dico di vedere te (present infinitive)

Are you really saying that dire in Italian can take an infinitive construction with di to mean "say that"? And it's not just like French dire with de plus infinitive, meaning "tell (someone) to", i.e. "impero ut te videam."

And the Latin example there is ambiguous (I say that I see you vs. I say that you see me). How do you render the latter into Italian with an infinitive construction?

And about Posner, there are some pretty damning reviews. For example from a review by Roy Harris:

'The unorthodoxy of my approach', says Dr Posner in her Preface, 'has almost inevitably led me to say some unorthodox things.' It is not, however, its unorthodoxy (nowhere very conspicuous) which will prevent Romance linguists from recommending this paperback to their pupils, but the number of points which are muddled, misleadingly formulated, or just plain wrong.