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Re: Hellenic Romance? (was [CONLANG] Re: Babel text in Spanzhol)

From:ROGER MILLS <rfmilly@...>
Date:Wednesday, April 7, 2004, 23:51
Ray Brown wrote:

> On Wednesday, April 7, 2004, at 02:13 AM, Paul Bennett wrote: > > What if Latin hadn't risen as the language of the Roman Empire, and > > Greek > > had been the status-lect and the ordinary-lect up until the end of > > Latin-as-a-living-language? > > Not so far fetched a notion as some might think...(snips)... The Republic > was tearing itself apart with civil wars that century and > clearly heading for extinction. It was brought to an end, as we know, by > Octavian - soon to be named as Augustus, the first Emperor... (snips)... > If, however, Mark Antony had prevailed, the eastern influence is likely to > have been greater and it is not by any means unlikely that Greek, the > language of Cleopatra and the Levant generally, would have prevailed and > Latin become regarded as provincially mid-Italian. Also long-standing > Greek colonies in southern Gaul & Spain could well have further enhanced > the spread of Greek. > > > How would the Romance languages have turned > > out, assuming similar phonetic and semantic drift took place as "here"?
Ray-- you seem to have assumed (unless I mis-read) that W.Europe would still have used Latin, but with Graecified sound changes....? My interpretation of Paul's question was: That the languages of present day W.Eur. would be descended from Greek rather than Latin (though maybe some Latin-derived vernaculars might have survived in dark corners, like Dacia, Rhaetia). Consequently we might not be talking about _lenguas románicas/langues romaines...etc._ but _glossa rumaika_ (I'm making up endings here, as I know poco Greek)-- or however those two words might have developed in various areas ("glosa rumiega, glosse roumèche"??.) I guess what would have happened is: Greek with Celto-Germano sound changes in Gaul, Vasco-Ibero changes in Hispania, Britannic changes etc etc.

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Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...>