Re: CHAT: weird names,was Re: conlanging,the ultimate feminist

alypius wrote:

> >> of the 6 modern Romance languages.  (Can anyone name all 6?)  ~alypius
> >There are a great many more than six; 46 by the Ethnologue's count.
>
> 46!?  Is Latin unusually prone to linguistic schism?  Since the fall of Rome
> in 476, that's one new Romance language born every 33 years! Come to think
> of it, I'll bet we're due another one right about now.  ~alypius
This is less remarkable if you realise that the splitting of Latin into distinct

regional varieties, many of which would eventually evolve into separate
languages, began several centuries before 476 AD, back when the
Romans first started to expand beyond their original territory.  By the
time of the Late Empire, the linguistic situation in the Roman territories
had become quite complex indeed.  I don't know the details, but suffice
it to say that the ancestors of modern French, Spanish, Portuguese,
Catalan, Provencal, Romanian, Occitan, Sardinian, Friulian, etc. etc.,
had already begun to evolve semi-independently from each other
long before the 'official' fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century.

Matt.