Talk:Vulgar Latin/Archive 1
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As far as I know, Vulgar Latin was a strictly spoken language. Vulgate was written in late Latin (as opposed to classical of the 1st century B.C. - 1st century A.D.), but it has very little to do with Vulgar Latin (except, perhaps for the name). Am I correct? --Uriyan
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- It was used to write the Vulgate and ...
I'd say your statement was highly debatable, just as the statement that vulgar Latin "was used to write the Vulgate" is over-simplistic. The term "Late" Latin can also cover a multitude of sins. The point about the Vulgate was that it was written in the language of the people, ie. a language an ordinary person could understand. It's true that the average person probably couldn't have written "classical" Latin. However, all varieties of "late" Latin, including "vulgar" Latin (which also means the language of the people), were spoken forms only until such time as they were written down - in documents such as the Vulgate. --user:Deb
- Well, I'm only a beginning student of Latin, so I can't say for sure, of course, but I'd gotten the impression that the dialects called "Vulgar" are the more extreme versions (e.g. in the version that gave rise to French, the nouns ceased being inflected on most of the cases, the accusative being used as the basis rather than the nominative). Vulgate, however, is written down in very literary, ordered Latin that would have kept Virgil (mostly) happy if he had seen it. --Uriyan
I think what you're saying is that Jerome used more "correct" Latin than the spoken dialects normally referred to as "vulgar" Latin - which did, as you say, form the basis of the Romance languages - so I'd go along with that. --user:Deb
- Some thoughts I had prepared before, but I had really bad connecting troubles
- Vulgata was in late Latin, this is commonly agreed, even if it was copied in several versions with slight linguistic differences too, despite its original goal of becoming an absolutely unique reference text.
- The point is the definition of Vulgar Latin, which I have seen in the article described as limited to 3rd century: effectively, an idiom usually called "Vulgar Latin" was used until its direct merging with the early romance idioms - we could say, until some time before Langue d'Oil and Langue d'Oc appeared, 11th century, first complex examples of writing in "popular" language; let's allow some delay for the evolution, but still it's not 3rd c., unless we are talking about the evolution in the German and English areas, which is another matter.
- Looking at italian and french areas, if Latin was officially spoken, Vulgar Latin was then popularly spoken until the popular language turned to localised forms. Obviously we stop talking about a Vulgar Latin when the local dialects start collecting a certain amount of local carachteristics that make them become a different idiom, and it becomes simply a "Vulgar", sometimes with a geographical attribute: Vulgar Italian, Vulgar Gaulish. Then they will evolve into romance languages when an independent value will be recognised them (Oil, Oc, Sì). The word "Romance" comes indeed from "romanicae loci", of a place in the Roman Empire, this still ideally includes all the dialects as a part of the whole latin family.
- St.Jerome's Vulgata was written (or, if you wish, translated) around 400 AD (I don't precisely remember, but I know it was started a few years before 400 and ended maybe a couple of years after). At that time a difference with Vulgar should have been well concrete, indeed. But, of course, they still merely were two forms of Latin, so perhaps (in response to Uriyan's first question) it wasn't "very little" what they shared.
- Certainly, it was the age in which, apart form declensions, many roots were changing (i.e., "equus" > "caballus", etc.). Recently, some studies (which IMHO need anyway a more scientific development) suggest that pronounciations too started to make diverse, supposedly with already a similarity to modern local pronounciations, with the most spectacular (alleged) effect in the area of Naples. However, these changes were obviously not uniform in the Empire's territory, so the greatest differences were perhaps to be found among different forms of Vulgar Latin in different areas (also due to the acquisition of newer "local" roots), even if we ought to remember that most of theory is based on reconstruction a posteriori rather than, evidently, on texts (poor people > poor supports > poor remains > poor direct knowledge). It was in the Council of Tours (800AD?) that priests were ordered to preach in vulgar to be comprehensible. This could be a documented moment of the evolution. Late Latin, still based in Rome, presumedly reflected these acquisitions, recording what was changing in a nearer area - we could fairly say, in Italy. Formal Latin was "frozen" by the codifications of roman law on one side (Justinian) and of the Church on the other side, finally unified by the medieval copysts and since then forever separated from already independent romance vulgar idioms. Italian Dante (14th c.) based his personal success in describing Latin as a language that had become quite "artificial" (De Vulgari Eloquentia- BTW, written in Latin :-).
- Due to this lack of uniformity, or of unity, I effectively am with those who are not convinced that Vulgar Latin really "is the ancestor of Romance languages": Latin is a language, while Vulgar Latin is simply a collective name for a group of derived dialects with local - not necessarily common - carachteristics, that don't make a "language", at least in a classical sense. It could perhaps be described as a sort of "magmatic" undefined matter that slowly locally developed in the single earlier forms of each Romance language, that consequently find their proper ancestry in formal Latin. Vulgar Latin was an intermediate point of the evolution, certainly not a source. Maybe a formalistic theory, but more logical, IMHO. --Gianfranco
- Due to all the above, I have removed the Vulgate Bible related external link. It already existed in the Vulgate article anyway. Rocinante9x 13:37, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
I thought the Council of Tours provided for preaching in the vernacular???JHK
- Uhh, yes...? Isn't that what he said? (It really would be better if we could just throw away that word "vulgar" and replace it with the much less confusing "vernacular".) Brion VIBBER
- I believe the two terms are indicating the same thing to us, here. Now, I don't know if in English it's the same, but in my language (and I dare suppose in Latin too) "vulgar" is better used to indicate a minor, popular form of the main language, therefore it focuses on the language (not considering users), while "vernacular" refers to what in detail people commonly speak, therefore it focuses on people and their native dialect (not considering the language, this time). They would then be used depending on two different points of view: vulgar when referring to the language, vernacular when referring to the dialect. Here we are talking about a minor form of latin language, so I believe "vulgar" might be more proper (if, as in premise, this is how it goes in English too)
- BTW, I loosely remember that vernaculus had also a meaning of christian servant (sort of sacrist), and in this sense was also in Vulgata, therefore it might be confusing, since we are talking about the whole latin language (seen in its minor popular form) and not about the latin used by the Church - anyway, the root of this word was more widely used in later times than the root of vulgus. --Gianfranco
- The primary meaning of "vulgar" in English is roughly equivalent to "obscene" (see definition in American Heritage Dictionary); people often have to be explicitly taught when they first hear of it that "vulgar Latin" does not mean "dirty words used by the Romans", which is why the "vulgus" derivation gets cited. "Vernacular" in English (AHD definition) has no connection to Christianity or Church Latin that I'm aware of. I'm not sure what you mean by the difference between "a minor, popular form of the main language" and "what in detail people commonly speak"...? "Vernacular" covers both as far as I know, while "vulgar" brings neither to mind except as a learned alternate meaning. --Brion VIBBER
- Ummm...I'm not debating meanings -- I'm actually questioning the word used at the council of Tours, because my understanding was that the vernacular (whether or not a form of vulgar Latin) was what was specified...JHK
- Hmm, did it apply to non-romance-speaking areas? Ah, wait, here's a reference: « it was decided "that all bishops, in their sermons, give necessary exhortations for the edification of the people, and that they translate these sermons into rustica Romana lingua, or into German, so that all be able to understand what they say." » Okay, better make that "vernacular". --Brion VIBBER
- Could we perhaps focus on the fact that "Vulgar Latin" is a specific phrase coined by philologists to refer to this form of Latin (using the word "vulgar" of course in its original sense, not the contemporary definition quoted above), whereas the expression, "the vernacular", is not restricted to Latin? I don't think there's any real dispute. Deb
- Agreed. --Brion VIBBER
Moving on to other strange things in this article: can anybody explain what this statement means? "Vulgar Latin developed differently in two principal directions: italian-french on one side, and anglo-saxon (german-english) on the other side." I'm not too clear about this "anglo-saxon" or "german-english" Vulgar Latin; what is it? Where is it evidenced? What happened to it? And where do Iberia and Romania (to the west and east of the areas mentioned) fit in? Brion VIBBER, Thursday, May 30, 2002
- That's a new one on me, and I didn't spot it in the article. It's true that Vulgar Latin did develop differently in different geographical directions - more than two, I would have said - but I've never heard of any Anglo-Saxon version. On the contrary, the Germanic languages are a quite separate sub-group of Indo-European. My guess is that someone has their wires crossed. Deb
May 30
- The other possibility is that he was trying to say something about Vulgar Latin as spoken in Roman-occupied Britain... but that would likely be prior to the invasion by the Germanic-speaking Angles and Saxons, so I'm left even more confused! --Brion VIBBER
- I take the point, but if that's what is meant, then it's quite wrongly expressed and still begs the other questions you asked. Yes, Latin did survive in Britain in the context of the Celtic church - I've seen a pidgin form on Celtic Christian monuments - but not in England. I doubt the Saxons would have had more than a nodding acquaintance with the language, until they were converted by an emissary from Rome in about 600AD. Obviously their attempts to use Latin would have been flawed, but the important point is that, for them, it would not have constituted the vernacular, but would have been a literary language, as used by Bede and others of that period. I don't think this falls within our definition of Vulgar Latin. Deb
Are you sure that sive has no descendants in Romance? I think Romanian sau "or" comes from it. -phma 04:05, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)