Re: Who SPOKE Classical Latin in Rome?

At 11:29 pm -0500 17/1/00, Nik Taylor wrote:
>Artem Kouzminykh wrote:
>> I wander could someone suppose that social groups or people in Ancient Rome
>> actually used Classical Latin, not Vulgar one, i.e. spoke it in theirs usual
>> everyday life, for everyday communication? Poets, orators, high classes?..
>> Who else?
>
>Possibly no one.  Even a senator probably used Vulgar Latin when giving
>orders to his slaves, for instance.  He probably would've used it with
>others of his social class, tho.
I'm sure Nik is right.  It's doubtful anyone spoke it with 100% purity at
any time.  But it's very likely that those of senatorial rank, who had been
taught in the 'schools of oratory' would've aspired to speak something
close to it.

>> You see, I'd like to make them the ancestors of my Romula conlang speakers,
>> to explain why Romula is so close to Classical (not Vulgar) Latin in
>> vocabulary, so archaic.
>
>Lots of education?  After all, education has managed to get most people
>to stop using double negatives in English.
>
Yes, indeed, and this might especially be so if a certain group re-acted in
a ultra-conservative way to preserve their identity.  They could even
artificially revive moribund and supposed ancient forms.  In this situation
we would, I think, even expect a bit of hypercorrection  :)

Ray.

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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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