Re: Slezan
| From: | Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Monday, January 26, 2004, 6:49 |
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On Saturday, January 24, 2004, at 08:46 PM, Costentin Cornomorus wrote:
> --- Christophe Grandsire
> <christophe.grandsire@...> wrote:
>
>>> serious effort to create a
>>> Greek-Romance!
>>
>> Isn't Classical Latin enough? ;))))
>
> Quite! CL is something of a conlang (as it was
> not a spoken language, but a sort of upper crusty
> concensus on What Proper Lanuguage Ought To Be),
Quite - and the only natlangs actually descended from
Classical Latin are ecclesiatical Latin, medieval Latin and
the modern Latin of the Vatican - _all_ L2s. *Not one* single
L1 natlang is descended from Classical Latin.
The romance langs are all descended from 'Vulgar Latin', i.e. the
Latin of the 'uulgus' or common people - a parallel, but different
lang to good ol' CL.
> it does borrow a goodly bit from Greek.
More as a model, rather than direct borrowings.
> Even nominal case endings.
Yes, but only for actual Greek words, mostly proper nouns.
====================================================================
On Saturday, January 24, 2004, at 09:05 PM, Joe wrote:
> Costentin Cornomorus wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>> Quite! CL is something of a conlang (as it was
>> not a spoken language, but a sort of upper crusty
>> concensus on What Proper Lanuguage Ought To Be),
>> it does borrow a goodly bit from Greek. Even
>> nominal case endings.
>
>
>
>
> I think it was probably a spoken language. Before it was really written
> much, though.
Nah - both CL and VL Latin are joint descendents of the early spoken Latin.
Undoubtedly those of Senatorial & Equestrian rank tried to approximate to
the
CL model, especially on formal occasions, but CL was always essentially a
literary conlang. The relationship between CL and VL was very similar to
that
between Katharevousa & Demotic Greek in 19th & 20th cent Greece.
Ray
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