Latin and Romance Languages

Domi333
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Latin and Romance Languages

Postby Domi333 » 2014-06-18, 11:41

Hello all,
I've thought about learning Latin to help supplement my Romance languages study.
Latin is treated like the glue that connects the Romance languages, Vulgar Latin to be precise
(although there's very little material in it).
Has anyone had experience in this?

(I may be repeating a topic which has been discussed here but oh well)
L1: [flag=]en -AU[/flag], speaks: [flag=]fr[/flag], [flag=]pt -BR[/flag], [flag=]mfe[/flag] Learning: [flag=]grc[/flag] [flag=]tr[/flag]

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Levike
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Re: Latin and Romance Languages

Postby Levike » 2014-06-18, 11:57

Sadly I can't give you any indication.

What's your study about, more precisely?
And except Vulgar Latin what other Romance languages will you be looking at?

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Re: Latin and Romance Languages

Postby Domi333 » 2014-06-18, 12:09

I mean Latin, the classical one.
I have a background in Western Romance: Portuguese, Spanish and French.
I've heard this idea that Latin can help you with your Romance languages as it serves as the backbone of them.
I do think about it.
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loqu
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Re: Latin and Romance Languages

Postby loqu » 2014-06-18, 12:18

Domi333 wrote:Hello all,
I've thought about learning Latin to help supplement my Romance languages study.
Latin is treated like the glue that connects the Romance languages, Vulgar Latin to be precise
(although there's very little material in it).
Has anyone had experience in this?

(I may be repeating a topic which has been discussed here but oh well)

I learnt a bit of Latin out of curiosity for my own language and for the other Romance languages I study. Sure there's too little on Vulgar Latin, but I'd say learn Classical Latin. After all, Vulgar Latin is just the same language but with some modifications, and if you compare the classical language with the Romance languages and the few indications there are on the vulgar one, you figure it out and can fill the void.

It's not that Latin will help you improve your Romance studies dramatically, but it helps you having a global view on them, and in some cases you will find you recognize some not-so-common words in Romance languages because you know what their Latin word of origin means. Also, if you're interested in how Romance languages evolved and work (not only in speaking and writing them), Latin is a must.
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Yasna
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Re: Latin and Romance Languages

Postby Yasna » 2014-06-18, 13:18

If you're going to learn some Latin, then learn it for its own sake. Not because it might help you slightly improve your other Romance languages (it will, but in that case your time would have been better spent just studying the languages you want to improve).
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Re: Latin and Romance Languages

Postby Quasus » 2014-06-24, 11:04

To tell the truth, I was astonished of how little use Latin was for Romance languages. In short, everything is different. Grammar is different. Nouns are different: declension vs. prepositions and syntax of cases vs. syntax of prepositions. Verbs are different: more tenses and moods in Romance, Latin regular three-stem conjugation developed irregularities. Syntax is different: for instance subordinate clauses in Romance instead of infinitive ones in Latin, different rules for subjunctive. Vocabulary is different with a lot of false friends.

The reason is obvious: Classical Latin and Romance languages are very remote in time. As for Vulgar Latin, it hasn't been preserved. I think a course in history of the Romance languages and Latin would suffice your needs.

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Re: Latin and Romance Languages

Postby TeneReef » 2014-06-24, 14:05

Yeah, it's all too different :roll:

Te amo (Argentine Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese) = Te amo (Latin) = I love you
Ir na selva (Popular Brazilian Portuguese) = In silvam ire (Latin) = To go into the woods
:mrgreen:
Clitics before the verb and use of IN [em] with verbs of movement are still the norm
in spoken Brazilian Portuguese, as they were in normative Portuguese of medieval times.
Continental Portuguese does this too, albeit sparingly: Ir de bar em bar.
Last edited by TeneReef on 2014-06-24, 14:18, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Latin and Romance Languages

Postby IpseDixit » 2014-06-24, 14:15

Domi333 wrote:Hello all,
I've thought about learning Latin to help supplement my Romance languages study.


If that's the only reason why you want to learn Latin, don't do that. It's gonna be just a waste of time and energy which you could use to improve the languages you actually want to learn.

For your purposes, an etymological dictionary should suffice.

TeneReef wrote:Yeah, it's all too different

Te amo (Argentine Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese) = Te amo (Latin) = I love you
Ir na selva (Popular Brazilian Portuguese) = In silvam ire (Latin) = To go into the woods
:mrgreen:
Clitics before the verb and use of IN [em] with verbs of movement are still the norm
in spoken Brazilian Portuguese, as they were in normative Portuguese of medieval times.


I don't know what you want to prove with those insignificant examples. It's not by cherrypicking two sentences that you prove something.

I can also prove the opposite:

[flag=]la[/flag] I Vitelli dei Romani sono belli - go, oh Vitellius, to the sound of war of the Roman Gods.
[flag=]it[/flag] I vitelli dei romani sono belli - The veals of the Romans are beautiful.
Last edited by IpseDixit on 2014-06-24, 16:17, edited 2 times in total.

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TeneReef
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Re: Latin and Romance Languages

Postby TeneReef » 2014-06-24, 14:32

It may be insignificant to you, lacking knowledge or awareness in diachronic Portuguese linguistics and sociolinguistics of modern Brazilian Portuguese.
All Brazilian linguists link the use of generalized proclisis and use of EM with verbs of movement (rather than A) to direct survival of older forms, common in Latin.

Yours truly does not want to prove anything,
Brazilian linguists have already done that:

Image
(Dicionário de regência verbal, C. P. Luft)

Passar bem!
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IpseDixit

Re: Latin and Romance Languages

Postby IpseDixit » 2014-06-24, 14:37

TeneReef wrote:It may be insignificant to you, lacking knowledge or awareness in diachronic Portuguese linguistics and sociolinguistics of modern Brazilian Portuguese.
All Brazilian linguists link the use of generalized proclisis and use of EM with verbs of movement (rather than A) to direct survival of older forms, common in Latin.

Yours truly does not want to prove anything,
Brazilian linguists have already done that:

Image
(Dicionário de regência verbal, C. P. Luft)

Passar bem, seu grosso!


So what?

Does this prove that Latin is particularly useful to learning Romance languages or that there is any particular closeness between the two languages?

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Re: Latin and Romance Languages

Postby Bernard » 2014-06-28, 13:09

Lingua Latina mater quidem est multarum nostrae aetatis linguarum, sed unicuique earum ad suum ipsius arbitrium licet agere. Nonne etiam apud homines mater filias emancipat ut sui sint iuris? Inter se non imitantur, sed verentur et colunt.
:hug:

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Re: Latin and Romance Languages

Postby Itikar » 2014-08-03, 0:01

IpseDixit wrote:Does this prove that Latin is particularly useful to learning Romance languages or that there is any particular closeness between the two languages?
I have to make a confession...

What I remembered of Latin verb conjugation from school helped me when I studied Spanish and also French verbs. It also helped me to guess some strange forms of Old Italian such as "tu ame", derived from the Latin "tu amas", today replaced by "tu ami".

On the other hand I found Latin almost useless when I studied Mantuan and Lucchese verbs.
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Massimiliano B
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Re: Latin and Romance Languages

Postby Massimiliano B » 2014-08-08, 23:36

@ Itikar:

In the language of Lucca (the city where I live) some elders still use the past participle "ito" (Latin: itus) for the verb "andare" (to go). Examples: "Dove sei ito?" ("Where have you gone?"). So, in this case the Latin language is not useless in order to understand this form.

In Lucca I've also heard a young girl saying "le mano" ("the hands" - from Latin "manus") instead of the standard Italian "le mani"!

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Itikar
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Re: Latin and Romance Languages

Postby Itikar » 2014-08-11, 13:18

Massimiliano B wrote:In the language of Lucca (the city where I live) some elders still use the past participle "ito" (Latin: itus) for the verb "andare" (to go). Examples: "Dove sei ito?" ("Where have you gone?"). So, in this case the Latin language is not useless in order to understand this form.
In my family we still use the verb "ire" in expressions occasionally. :)
In vernaculars the only area where I found Latin of some usefulness is the imperative mood.
In comparison to Italian Lucchese simple imperatives are definitely closer to the Latin ones.
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Re: Latin and Romance Languages

Postby MAX54 » 2015-08-17, 3:32

Hi, just as a curiousity I'm writing the present simple of a modern latin Language:
Ego amo
Tue Amas
Isse
Issa Amat
Issu
Nois Amamus
Vois Amades
Issos
Issas Amant

This is Sardinian.

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Re: Latin and Romance Languages

Postby OldBoring » 2015-12-27, 15:59

I found the Romanian conjugation of the verb to be surprisingly similar to Latin.
Massimiliano B wrote:"Dove sei ito?"

"le mano"

Both exist in Romanesque (the first one 'Ndo se ito?) and are used especially by older people! :D

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Re: Latin and Romance Languages

Postby pittmirg » 2015-12-27, 16:18

Quasus wrote: Vocabulary is different with a lot of false friends.


Indeed, to me always Classical Latin has seemed oddly impenetrable vocabulary-wise, as if it weren't a European language. Like every word has a dozen far-flung meanings and I'm always totally unsure which word to use to express a given sense (something that I don't experience with modern Romance language, to the small extent I know them). I think it shows the extent to which Europe has converged culturally and linguistically over the centuries.

OldBoring wrote:I found the Romanian conjugation of the verb to be surprisingly similar to Latin.


I don't find it that similar, what about the proliferation of the -e(a)z- and -e(a)sc- suffixes, raging vocalic ablaut, lots of dropped final vowels?
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Re: Latin and Romance Languages

Postby OldBoring » 2015-12-27, 16:24

In the present tense they are similar enough. I don't know about the other tenses.

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Re: Latin and Romance Languages

Postby JackFrost » 2015-12-27, 18:01

pittmirg wrote:
Quasus wrote: Vocabulary is different with a lot of false friends.


Indeed, to me always Classical Latin has seemed oddly impenetrable vocabulary-wise, as if it weren't a European language. Like every word has a dozen far-flung meanings and I'm always totally unsure which word to use to express a given sense (something that I don't experience with modern Romance language, to the small extent I know them). I think it shows the extent to which Europe has converged culturally and linguistically over the centuries.

Plus, it's to be noted that Romance languages borrowed terms over time. I'm not talking about Greek and modern loans, but Frankish ones for French, Arabic ones for Iberian Romance languages, and Slavic ones for Romanian. It seems that languages close to the Roman homeland aren't as influenced by others.

OldBoring wrote:In the present tense they are similar enough. I don't know about the other tenses.

It's usually the case for simple tenses, but not for composed tenses using "have" and "be", which Classical Latin never had. Even the French future and conditional are originally composed ones as they stemmed from the infinitive plus "to have" rendered as suffix and are now seen as simple tenses.

You might like to check this out to compare: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_verbs

Edit: Wait. You're just talking about Romanian and not the rest as well? >.> The Wiki article should include it. Oh well... ha. :P
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Re: Latin and Romance Languages

Postby Levike » 2015-12-27, 18:20

OldBoring wrote:I found the Romanian conjugation of the verb to be surprisingly similar to Latin.

Which verb are you thinking about?

I find the Romanian conjugation in general to be more distant from Latin than for example Spanish.

La: intrō - intrās - intrat- intrāmus - intrātis - intrant
Ro: intru - intri - intră - intrăm - intrați - intră
Es: entro - entras - entra - entramos - entráis - entran

La: eram - erās - erat - erā́mus - erā́tis - erant
Ro: eram - erai - era - eram - erați - erau
Es: era - eras - era - éramos - erais - eran


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