How Latin became Italian 🇮🇹
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- Опубліковано 12 тра 2024
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How did Latin become Italian? What are the differences in pronunciation and morphology between Classical Latin and Modern Italian? And what is "Vulgar Latin" exactly? Is it the same as informal Latin or conversational Latin? Is Italian a natural language, or is it artificial? Did Latin have a vowel system of 9 qualities, as W. Sydney Allen (Vox Latina) professes, or is the Calabrese System a better pronunciation model? These questions and more will be answered!
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Sources: see below.
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Intro and outro music: Overture of Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) by Mozart
SOURCES
Vox Latina, by W. Sidney Allen
amzn.to/3WdPxSY
The Regional Diversification of Latin 200 BC - AD 600, by JN Adams
amzn.to/3TRGZ2w
An Anthology of Informal Latin, 200 BC-AD 900: Fifty Texts with Translations and Linguistic Commentary, by JN Adams
amzn.to/3gSPOdM
Social Variation and the Latin Language, by JN Adams
amzn.to/3TQ4tVF
Early and Late Latin: Continuity or Change?, by JN Adams
amzn.to/3WcqzDn
Late Latin and Early Romance in Spain and Carolingian France (Arca Classical and Medieval Texts, Papers and Monographs, by Roger Wright
amzn.to/3gVkgE0
Breve grammatica storica dell’italiano, by Paolo D’Achille
amzn.to/3fcfv8V
#latin #italian #linguistics
00:00 Latin to Italian
00:20 What this video will cover
01:32 Sources
03:01 Ancient Language Institute: Now with OLD ENGLISH!
04:25 Starting Point: Latin
06:01 "Vulgar" Latin
12:40 Why Italian does NOT come from "Vulgar" Latin
19:05 When Latin separated from Romance
20:08 Italian...what is it?
21:09 Vowel changes from Latin to Italian
33:37 Vowel Breaking
37:09 Why au doesn't become uo
39:40 Rizotonic vowel breaking
42:42: i to e to i again
43:23 Semivowels
46:09 Consonants
50:58 Intervocalic p t c s
58:09 Short i before vowels
1:01:17 Loss of final s
1:02:16 Raddoppiamento fonosintattico
1:05:02 Morphology & syntax
1:08:12 Accusative for singulars, nominative for plurals?
1:10:07 Loss of neuter gender
1:11:11 Origin of the Italian future tense
1:13:45 Conjunction "that" che
1:14:37 Just the beginning...
1:16:00 Gentle Ben
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Following up on my assertions in this video, I have just published a video on the secondary channel where I discuss the evidence against lax vowels in Classical Latin, namely that [ɪ] and [ʊ] are wrong for ĭ and ŭ:
ua-cam.com/video/Mu-slOBurvM/v-deo.html
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Great now you should create a video of Slovenian language - how it became Slovenian from the old Church Slavonic and you can compare the transformations.
A
I've long been looking for a comprehensive video on Latin's evolution into the Romance languages. This surely does not disappoint.
I’m very glad! I had to leave out a lot of details. The sources are in the description
Same
Josh from NativLang did the same thing with French, his video is a lot more condensed, but as a native francophone, I found it quite accurate.
romanianpelasgian.blogspot.com/2022/10/romanian-is-pelasgian-thracian-language.html
Latin to Italian ... Very important.
Hello Luke, this is a bit off topic with the video, but I have to tell you a story that you will like to read, I think.
I'm half Greek and half Spanish, I was born and raised in Spain, so my Greek is good, but I don't have a native level.
The thing is that when I can, I go to Greece in the summer to see my family and friends. Well, this summer I went to the island of Thassos where a friend was waiting for me. To go to Thassos I had to take a ferry from the city of Kavala, in the region of Macedonia.
When I got to the port I didn't know which ferry to take, so I asked a young Greek guy he was walking in front of me. He was also going to Thassos and he didn't know which ferry was ours either, so we went together to ask someone from the staff.
Once this was resolved and already on the ferry, we started talking. He noticed a weird accent in my Greek and asked me where I'm from, to which I replied him I'm from Spain. The boy told me that he is studying Spanish on his own and we began to have a basic conversation in Spanish (the truth is that he spoke it very well). From there, he told me that languages are his passion, and that he was learning classical Greek and Latin at the same time, and I told him that he also had an interest in these languages. And almost simultaneously, we said each other:
"Do you know the UA-cam channel polýMATHY?"
We both laughed and were amazed. There you had two strangers who had just met, on a boat in the middle of the Aegean Sea, and both followers of your channel. :)
Since that day we have maintained a good friendship and we talk regularly on instagram.
How capricious life is.
That's wonderful!
Wonderful story! Are you guys still dating ?
@@schrire39 Well he is living in Greece while I'm from Spain, but we have a very good friendship!
Excellent.
It doesn’t surprise me that a Greek person would speak Spanish pretty well, specifically accent-wise. That’s because Castilian Spanish and Standard Modern Greek share a lot of common phonological features. Despite the large differences in vocabulary and grammar, as well as the geographical separation between Greece and Spain, to the ear they sound almost the same in terms of phonology and rhythm. Being attuned to Spanish (albeit Mexican Spanish), I noticed the same thing when I listened to Anna Vissi’s songs; it sounded strangely “familiar” but I couldn’t understand the words.
At the same time, I believe that Standard Modern Greek is based on the Ionian-Peloponnesian dialects spoken in the Athens area. I know Athens isn't technically in the Peloponnese (Peloponnesos), but the Ionian-Peloponnesian dialect area does include the Athens region. To my understanding, although SMG is known and taught all across Greece and Cyprus, other parts of Greece such as Macedonia have their own dialects too (northern dialects in Macedonia's case).
As an Italian that studied Latin at school, thank you for this!
Grazie!
Neat! Seeing Latin become Italian is something I've waited for so long to be documented.
Can't wait for Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian! (Nativlang already did French).
Nativlang's video was amazing. So well made. I've watched it many times.
@@antonioconstantinmusic UA-cam doesn't like links. It got deleted, but luckily I got the link.
It's better for Polymathy to make another (and his own) video of this topic (French) , since the one made by NativLang is a bit short.
.... and Catalan.
NativLang is top tier
Not only this guy displays an incredible knowledge in all things regarding ancient Latin and Romance languages, but he also has a very distinctive taste in videography and music that can't go unnoticed. It really helps his communication as a whole giving it a deeper and more effective meaning.
What strikes me the most about these videos however is the very peculiar and interesting way the narrating voice pronounces every "wh-word" in English, almost emphasizing the "h" in it and separating it from the rest of the word. It's kinda like the "Cool Whip" gag in Family guy, if you know what I'm talking about XD Is that a deliberate choice or just a regional accent thing (which would be surprising considering how much effort he puts in perfecting phonetics and pronunciation even in "undead" languages)?
That’s really nice of you, thanks for the comment. As for my pronunciation habits, I have changed my accent somewhat over the years to include a number of archaisms, as I like how they sound.
Yeah, I like his joke about solecisms. I mean, the irony of purposefully misspelling it as "soloecism"-genius.
@@antistiolabeo8950 I’ve noticed that, too. That voiceless ”hw”-sound is too archaic, even for most Brits. 😁
@antistiolabeo8950 The music (and, somewhat, the videography, too) really reminds me of NativLang’s ”The Grammar of Romance” -series, on UA-cam; based on his book(s), by the same name. The topic is also very similar, but it has far more focus, on the horizontal comparison of different Romance languages, and their antecedents; than, on the vertical tracking of phonological, morphological, and syntactic changes; and it seems to favour the ”Allenian” model for (”Vulgar”) Latin vowels; and it definitely doesn’t explore the collapse of the case system, in the more nuanced way. In the series, it’s simply stated that: ”The Accusative case replaced the Nominative case (and others), as the ”basic” form of a noun or an adjective.”; and that’s the end of the day, for Josh. He does mention some exceptions; like, in Old French: ”Loups” (Nomin. Sing.); but, even, for that exception, Josh then goes on to say that it, too, was replaced by the Accusative ”Loup”, in the Singular form; when it’s much more likely that the Nominative Singular ”Loups” simply simplified to: ”Loup”; given that French has always tended to lose final ”-s”:s and ”-t”:s, among some other consonants. Even now; the final ”-s”, in the Plural form: ”Loups” [lʉː], is silent (though, it’s still written).
Babe wake up new vernacular just dropped
-B
Haha thanks for watching, my friend
As an Italian i can say that this video is absolutely perfect!
Grazie mille!
Phenomenal. I speak Spanish and French (and learned some Latin), not Italian, but this explains so much for me. I always wondered about the change in the future tense (which is the same in French and Spanish). He should get an honorary doctorate for this video. I am in absolute awe of this guy.
Very kind. Let me know where to pick up the doctorate
gosh, hearing the italian and latin terms right next to each other are so beautiful
I'm going to have to check out your whole series. It sounds quite interesting!
I'm italian and this is so interesting. Thank you Luke!
I absolutely love it. I wish I could spend a lifetime listening to videos like this. Thanks Luke
Amazing as always. All of the exceptions are intimidating, but I’m glad to know that they’re mostly well-described! Definitely going to be referring to this later
This was the video we all waited for......
Thank you.
Thank you. This was a thing of beauty. I enjoyed your focus on Italian (a language I love) but have also learned much about my own language (Spanish), as you anticipated in the introduction.
I can't even imagine how long it took you to create this video. I appreciate al your hard work. It's utterly fascinating and even after an hour I feel like it was just beginning to scratch the surface. I'm a bit disappointed that it's over, kind of like a good book. I found particularly interesting the evolution of the future tense and how that occurred.
In addition to the excellent content, tangentially, the music and the images you used were incredible as well.
Very good video. In Portuguese, we can see the phenomenon of the ''new future tense'' using the verb ''to have/habere'' with the ''mesóclise'': ''I will love him = amá-lo-ei (originally ''amar-lo-hei'')''. ''Mesóclise'' sounds arcaic in Brazil nowadays and it's interesting how it proves that the future tense of modern Romance languages come from the infinitive + habere.
Noto que eis cá um homem de cultura 🗿🍷
E aparentemente temos uma visão política semelhante, um dissidente?
Amazing video! Although it is over an hour long, it still fills short. I'd love to see a video like this about the changes that occur from Latin to my native language, Romanian. You gave us a small glimpse of those changes but I want more. People often neglect our Roman heritage based on the differences between our language and the other, more well known, romance languages and all of the words that we adopted from Turkish and Greek during the Ottoman era and especially from Slavic prior to that. I also wonder if a pre-slavic migration proto-romanian can be reconstructed based on what we know about the evolution of romance languages.
Beautiful work of art! Thank you!
Incredible video. Much appreciated
I've been waiting for a video like this, and I'm delighted to see you made it. Can't think of a better person to learn this from. Thanks, Luke. Can't wait to sink my teeth into this.
Thanks! I’m just reporting what I’ve read in others’ works
I really enjoyed the footage accompanying this interesting essay 👏🏼
Thanks! It’s 182 clips of video from around Italy (plus a bit of England)
Latin to Italian is a video I thought I would see more commonly. Thanks for the video and information.
Wow, what a great Halloween/Samhain gift! Thank you Luke, it's just gorgeous!
This is very important and interesting for me as a conlanger (constructed language creator) as a resource for examples of phonological and morphological shifts as languages evolve.
superb video as always! looking forward to the next one :)
Thanks!
Grazie mille Luke! I watched a documentary about the evolution of french from latin through middle french to modern french a couple months ago and since then I craved a similar video/documentary about Italian, in which I have immensely more interest in! I searched everywhere and yet to no avail, until I saw this video of yours! Thank you a thousand times magister, maestro, amico!!!
Thanks very much!
Please do this for Spanish and Portuguese! I would like to understand the shift to Argentine Spanish as well with Sicilian immigration and in Brazil as well
Uno dei video più interessanti di youtube senza dubbio, grazie Luke! Ottimo lavoro davvero!
Grazie!
Thank you for this excellent video, which I absolutely have to recommend to my students who want to delve deeper into the relationship between the two languages.
Thanks very kindly!
Thanks so much for making this!
Thanks for watching and sharing!
Thank you, so amazing video. Your Italian pronunciation is beautiful.
Molto gentile
Luke, I'm totally flashed by the depth of your thought process. Congratulations! Did you look at the probable influences of predecessor languages on latin? Maybe I missed the video in which you examine that.
I feel like your presentation is useful for learning stress relief :) the soothing music, combined with your calm and patient voice, really facilitates learning, and calming of the mind. :-) 🤝👏
I’m really glad you think that, thanks!
I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU
Wow, Bravo! This video is Absolut in the delivery a complete comprehension.
Many thanks
Thank you very much for this delightful and soothing video. The most intriguing are the examples of words changing through time and in fashions I would never have guessed. As to what I would like to hear about next, there is this curious phenomenon that in Romance or Latin there was at some time a congruence of verb forms with the object (instead of the subject) which I only know from French. I.e.:
l'homme que j'ai vu
la dame que j'ai vue
les hommes que j'ai vus
les dames que j'ai vues.
I find it completely mystifying. If you know more about this and could make video on the development of habere in Latin and Romance one of these days that would be great.
I love language, being armenia from the ussr, grew up with that then russian now english and learned some spanish and french but latin and italian is a must for me, this is amazing PolyMath! Love your WORK! Awesomus Maximus man! :)x
Amazing video, Luke!
Grazie, Davide!
I really like your voice. I think your voice sounds really pleasant, it's very magnetic, and listening to it is very calming.😇
Thank you so much for this video. I have read a lot of about the history of change from Latin to various Romance languages, endlessly fascinating subject, I cannot wait for your next videos on the matter.
It was first Latin to Italian ... the rest is history.
Thanks!
Thank u 4 this viedo being Italian Toronto beautiful Italy 🇮🇹 ❤️
Amazing. The quality, the content, and the delivery. Thank you. Raphael nyc
Thanks for watching!
I vote for any video on dialects and regional languages of Italy. Occasionally my father would break out into a stream of Sicilian and it was fun. Enjoyed your soothing masterful video.
Totally different topic. You prolly want a video by someone for Basic Italian generalizations.
Less substratum and superstratum in French rather in Italian.
In French there is the Celtic substratum (Gallic) and the Germanic superstratum (Frankish) that have influenced development.
When you hear Italian, you sense that the variation from Latin is the smallest of all the Romance languages.
Thousand thanks for these very interesting videos.
for me Castilian sounds much closer to Latin. This is due to the early codification of Castilian (Nebrija 1492), while Italian looks and sound very much like a dialect, that has been made a standard language only much later.
@@ekesandras1481According to the linguist Mario Pei, Italian is 12% phonetically distant from Latin whilst Spanish is 20% distant.
I am so glad you mentioned the development of the future tense in Italian. I always found it cool that it (though in a not so obvious way) Italian uses the verb avere (to have) for both future AND past. I would like to think that in an alternate universe only the word order would be the difference between I loved and I will love in Italian lol. Lovely video
Thanks!
Kind of the same thing goes on, in Finnish, where the auxiliary verb: _”Olla”_ (= ”To Be”) is used for both the (more lyrical and rarer) Future tense _(”Olen rakastava”),_ and 2 of the past tenses: Perfect tense _(”Olen rakastanut”),_ and: Plusquamperfect tense _(”Olin rakastanut”);_ with the difference being in the verb conjugations:
*Future:* Present + Participle _(”Olen rakastava”;_ lit. ”I am loving”)
*Perfect:* Present + Supine _(”Olen rakastanut”;_ lit. ”I am loved”)
*Plusquamperfect:* Imperfect + Supine _(”Olin rakastanut”;_ lit. ”I was loved”).
😅
Very scholarly explanation. Much appreciated!
I've been looking for a summarized but fairly thorough coverage of Classical Latin to modern romance languages, and by the length, I know this will not disappoint. I'm so excited to hear about the development from vulgar to old Italian to modern romance
I hope you found it useful. Soon I’ll do one on Spanish too
Fascinating! Thanks!
Little random fact
In Sicilian we don't have the future tense, we express it as the present + adverb
For example: Dumani vaju 'n campagna, literally "domani vado" instead of "domani andrò"
Spanish has this, too.
Mañana voy al campo.
Mañana iré al campo.
Mañana voy a ir al campo.
All essentially mean the same thing.
There actually is a future in Sicilian dialect although it's very rarely used. Saroggiu = i will be.
There's also a conditional form "sarìa" which is more similar to other forms in older italian literature and ither romance languages.
As a graduate in modern languages, your channel is just pure gold!
@@LongshanksLongdicc you’re right! Thank u for letting me know! ♥️
I LOVED thisvideo. THANK YOU!!!!!!! I AM a MFL teacher and I just love all the research about language development. Much appreciated 😊
Thanks!
Been waiting for this one for a long time;~)
Bravissimo, un video meraviglioso che apre la mente!
Ogni paese ha le sue radici e diversità, non necessariamente oggetti di conflitto o diffidenza, ma al contrario inesauribili fonti di curiosità... Come mi hai implicitamente insegnato 👏👏👏
Grazie, molto gentile
I really enjoyed it. Well done!
Grazie!
Grazie, Luke. Bellissimo e interessantissimo documento!
Grazie per aver guardato!
You've outdone yourself Luke, such an AMAZING, well-produced video! Having grown up in a Spanish speaking household & later visiting Italy, it was super intriguing to hear so many identical expressions & words being used. I've come to realize that (even today) Latin is the well-worn bridge many of us use to travel & become acquainted with each other across the Romantic World!
Thanks very much! I hope to do Latin to Spanish in the future
@@polyMATHY_Luke I very much look forwards to seeing it
*Romance
@@Valerio_the_wandering_sprite Exactly! 🎯👌🏻👍🏻
Pelicula pulcherrima. That was incredibly interesting. I've enjoyed it and I think that's one of the most complete videos I've ever seen on UA-cam about evolution of Latin.
@Mar Coac yeah pulcherrima, why?
@Mar Coac bro are you kidding me?
Don't you like Latin?
One of your best, Luke. The music, visuals, and soft spoken English reminds me of when I would watch Eugene Weber give his lectures on PBS television.
I would like to see you do this exact same thing with Spanish and Portuguese. I'd think it would be a hit, you could incorporate the Latin with the Italian. What Portuguese retained from Latin so well and what is something that makes it unique. Ditto for Spanish. I do believe it's long overdue. Naturally of course you'll get plenty of insight from speakers from Latin America and the Iberian peninsula.
Thanks! I intend to at some point
@@polyMATHY_Luke, You're welcome. In a way, you did briefly go over what Spanish retained from Latin in this video. Ditto for Portuguese. For a few instances.
For example:
Latin = Spanish
Maior = mayor
Cuius = cuyo
Etc.
Portuguese:
Cauda = cauda
Cum = com
This is very interesting and I'm learning Italian now as a French speaker who learned passable Spanish and sometimes have to stop myself to remark at how both languages are similar to Italian yet distinct enough from each other.
That said, the œ dipthong is still present in French words like œil. But also sœur, œuf.
bravissimo Luke, complimentiiiii👏👏👏👏im so glad for this video,i had been waiting for it and you are very well educated
Very kind!
This video has been a delight and certainly very informative for those unfamiliar with IPA, though I want to add something about your take on the indirect statements. I believe, based on the information I had gathered, that the que/che word from the Romance languages came from Latin quod, rather than quia. Quod served as a casual conjunction also, was substituting the acc. inf. construction alongside quia and even quoniam, and quod was also used as 'that' in other constructions .
Quia merged with quam as 'qua' and survived in a few languages like Romanian and Neapolitan as 'ca'. Very great video nonetheless and looking forward for more videos from you.
Thanks. The notion that quia > che in Tuscan is reported by D’Achille in his book I cited. I was pretty glib when I mentioned it, but I meant by my swift statement there that they all merged, quod with quia
@@polyMATHY_Luke That's certainly the case, those conjunctions were blending with each other in the end, along with quid more plausibly . If you check out "Latin at the End of the Imperial Age" online, there is a lot of interesting insight into Latin around this time and how different it was from the Classical period since the Crisis of the 3rd Century. It even explains how Spanish got usted, seemingly from a Late Latin honorific, vostra merces. Best wishes Luci Ranieri. 😉
I would love to hear about the Subjunctive in European languages, if possible. Spanish has lost the Future Subjunctive in the last two centuries, though I still uße it in some very unplausible situations; my Castilian mother (Segovia province) used it more than I do and her mother much more often. I find the Subjunctive very useful in the majority of its uses, but I do observe its lack of use in some situations in young generations (people under 45 yrs old or so) in Spain. Fascinating!! I AM in my early seventies born in Madrid, Spain.
Interestingly, the future subjunctive is an ibero-romance innovation - Latin had no such thing.
DA STUDIOSO ITALIANO DI LINGUA LATINA DEVO DIRTI CHE QUESTO VIDEO È GENIALE!!
Grazie!
I am in awe of the pronunciation system of Latin in its varieties.
It is such a treat to study Italian!
Thank you!
Super competent, prolific, linguist and creator. 👏
Very kind. I’m just reporting what I’ve read in those books, plus a few opinions of my own thrown in
Very interesting thanks for sharing
The language of the Vulgate, the late 4th century translation of the Bible from Greek to Latin, shows thats much of the basis for the innovations of the modern romance languages were already in place. For example the use of ‘quia’ to introduce indirect speech, the stretched uses of ille/illa as generalized 3rd person pronouns, overuse of prepositions (dixit ad illos…) and the use of ‘romance’ vocabulary: manducare instead of edere etc…
They even used 'quod' and 'quoniam' as well, it was originally a bad habit of Greek speakers to introduce indirect statements in this way as opposed to the oratio obliqua construction; then as Christianity became widespread, so did this practice. Eventually 'quod' won out and got generalized to que/che in the Romance languages.
"Manducare" took hold in France and Italy, evolved there into "manger" and "mangiare". However, in the Iberian peninsula "edere" evolved into "comer" from comedere.
A more interesting question is why Classical Latin was no longer understood by the eighth century. Before that, people had no difficulty understanding the Vulgate and during the Dark Ages that disappeared and then people needed to have a book they were once familiar with explained to them.
a lot of this is already present in Caesar's "de bello Gallico", because he deliberately wrote in a more vernacular Latin to adress the common people. What we learn in school is Classic Latin from the first century BC, which at that time already was a bit oldfashioned and under pressure from more simple, more innovative vernacular of the common people, the city dialect of Rome itself, but also a sort of Easy Latin spoking in the provinces.
It's worth noting that some dialects of present day English _have developed_ phonemic vowel length to some degree. For example, for most speakers of Australian English, the vowel in SUM or MUCK is identical in quality to the vowel in PSALM or MARK, length being the only difference between them.
Hi Adrian, this is absolutely true. There are also long vowels in British accents. However, these differences don’t occur in unstressed syllables, which is where it’s really important in Latin, so the simplification as a generalization I think is warranted.
Those are differently rounded vowels.
Hell yeah, thanks Luke
Thanks for watching
Great video as always. How about doing something similar for Romanian? I find impressive that so many changes in Italian parallel the changes in Romanian. In fact, it feels like Romanian is some sort of an extension of Italian. No wonder then so many Romanian speakers feel Italian is the closest of all other Romance languages.
Can't wait for spanish, romanian, french, portuguese... Honestly I'm very excited about the romanian one, bcs of its slavic influence, making it, i would say, the most singular one
theres a nice one about french made by nativlang, and he also has some pretty old videos about the overall change into all the languages which arent super in depth but relevant and interesting
maybe one about Catalan
Influența slava in Română?
Un exemplu. Cuvântul GĂSI este dat in DEX că venind din GASITI (slav)!
Avem însă GHICI = QUED EST ICH(lat), QU'EST ICI (fr)
GHICI=GĂSI .
Q a devenit G precum AQUA a devenit AGUA(sp)!
Ai înțeles ceva?
Ironically Romanian have closer ties with Latin than Italian.
everyone interested in spanish, portuguese, romanian....
i wanna see how sabir came to be D:
Exactly what I was looking for
I’m delighted!
@@polyMATHY_Luke I know Portuguese fluently and because of you I've become interested in italian and latin!
I love the length of the video! So much juicy info. Very early on Classical Latin and spoken Latin hardly had any differences between each other. Classical Latin WAS how upper-class Romans spoke in the late republic early imperial times. So there was no "Vulgar Latin." But even later on when the spoken dialects of Latin were becoming very different in late antiquity, written Latin was still considered the standard way of writing their language. It's like how modern French works today. The spelling is so different from the pronunciation and verb endings are even pronounced differently from how they write French. There is no reason the "proto romance" dialects and their speakers in the early Middle Ages and late antiquity couldn't have done the same thing to the verb and case endings of literary Late Latin when reading out loud.
I'm trying to reconstruct the different regional pronunciations of Latin in all the major regions from late antiquity to about the 9th or 10th century before/around the time the Carolingian reforms spread to the other Romance speaking areas. Gallo-romance is easy because all you have to do is figure out the sound changes and phonology that occurred over time. I was discussing it with UA-camr ABalphabeta on Discord and he told me that the dialects in Gaul at the latest until the early 7th century had a 3-case nominative, genitive-dative, and accusative-ablative system, then in the mid and late 7th century it went to the two-case system we see in medieval French and Occitan. So the Gallo-romance pronunciation of Late Latin texts over time is easy to figure out when applying Roger Wright's theory to it. I did a translation of the Oaths of Strasbourg into Late Latin and applied the reconstructed pronunciation of the original Oaths to my Latin version and despite only 2 case endings in medieval french and the huge difference in phonology from the two I was able to treat the Latin version as if Latin was still the correct way of writing Romance. Trying to figure out Italo-romance and Ibero-romance pronunciation of Latin texts in that later period is a bit harder because finding information about generally when the case system completely went away or how it evolved as it was going away in those regions is harder to account for. Phonology is the easy part.
From what I know with Italian, there is a theory that at some point accusative -os became -ois which become became -oi, and then -ei and then -i, becoming identical with the nominative -i. We find in Old Latin the nominative form "Poploi" which also is found in certain surviving writings as "Poploe" or "Poplei" before it becomes nominative plural "Populi" in Classical Latin. So we can see how that evolution of -oi to -i could have happened if -os became -ois and then the -s got deleted. The same thing could have happened to accusative plural and nominative plural -es. -es -eis -ei -e -i.
Could the nominative plural -us have possibly gone -os -ois - -oi too when a dual case system like French had at one point before it disappeared existed in Italo-romance? Or another theory I have is possibly in Italo-romance at one point we could have had a dual case system sort of more closer to Romanian where the nominative and accusative merged earlier (so we have a situation of -us to -os to -o, so both nominative and accusatives in the singular become identical) and so we have an Accusative-nominative-ablative as one case and then we have a genitive-dative case as the other. Then when the merged genitive-dative disappears we have no cases at all by the time Italian or other Italo Romance languages are written down. This was a great video! Anyways, these are my thoughts and commentary on the subject as long as my comment was lol.
Amazing video, Luke.
You mention that the Latin accusative form can be considered the antecedent in some way of the Italian word. But it seems to me that the ablative form, which lacks the usual terminal "m" of the accusative, is almost always a closer match, e.g. "latte" from "lacte" rather than from "lactem".
Thanks, Fred. Yes, I used to be of the same opinion. I mentioned in the video that it’s best to think of the various inflected endings collapsing together. Since final -m was weak and by the late 2cAD wasn’t pronounced at all anymore by most people, the accusative became similar to or identical to the ablative. It’s more accurate to say that it’s the accusative singular that gives most Romance forms, since we see inscriptional mistakes of the accusative being used with ablative prepositions, of the type “dē amīcum meum,” and the accusative even being used in place of the nominative. Also consider that third declension nouns like tempus become tempo in Italian, not tempore.
@@polyMATHY_Luke Apropos of "inscriptional mistakes", The "Romans Go Home" scene in "Life of Brian" comes to mind here... :)
@@polyMATHY_Luke Yes; and (at least, with Italian), this collapsing together of different case endings; due to the loss of final consonants, phonemic vowel length, and the different vowel quality mergers; it is feasible to say, also, that: ”At least, for some words/declensions, the Italian words come from the Nominative, as much, as from the Accusative, as much, as from the Ablative, etc.”; because, as far, as I’m aware, Italian has lost all final ”S”:s. So, together with the loss of all final ”M”:s, the Nominative and the Accusative cases merged together; and it’s not necessarily a very fruitful excercise, to try and distinguish, whether a given word ”comes from the Nominative, or the Accusative”, if those cases are identical, anyways. 🤔😅
Fantastic job!!
You could do it for other romance languages too, like Frioulian!
Molto esaustivo e denso di informazioni importanti. Da notare che la transizione dal latino parlato all'italiano è ancora più sfumata e complessa. I casi sono totalmente persi nella flessione di nomi ed aggettivi ma sono conservati quasi intatti in quella dei pronomi personali (io, me, mi(hi), tu, te, ti attestato nei primi documenti come "tebe") ad esempio ed in parte in quella dei pronomi relativi (che, cui...). La conservazione nei nomi del caso accusativo non è sempre vera al 100%, uomo, re, vengono da nominativi puri... Il neutro è perso, ma sostantivi come uovo, dito e pochi altri non hanno altro modo di formare il plurale che quello classico in -a dei nomi neutri...Vestigia residuali e tenaci (ma vive) di un passato antichissimo
I feel like the loss of final consonants contributes more to the loss of the case system than phonemic vowel length. The fourth and fifth declension aside, the only length based distinction in the first three conjugations is the 1st declension ablative. Even with the loss of final consonants, Proto Romance kind of had to have a case system because Romanian still has a case system derived from Latin, one with a nominative/accusative and dative/ablative/genitive merger (notably all the inflections that would be indistinguishable without final consonants (ignoring genitive plurals) are merged)
Yes, because of Romanian (and also Old French & Old Occitan) There had to have been still a case system, but were being confused and mixed. We can still observe fragments and relics of the Latin declension system to this day, like the Genitive plural illorum turning into: Italian loro; French leur - and various others fossilized as adverbs and prepositions.
That magical talking bear got me too. Old English is on my list of languages to learn. Now I know where to go. Now if you just offered Middle English too...
Fascinating video and beautifully done! What particularly struck me is the passage of ‘amāvit’ into ‘amò’. I live in Sicily and in the local ‘dialetto’, the past form of -ari verbs (equivalent to Standard Italian -are) is -àu, so ‘pigghiàu’ (ha preso), ‘parràu’ (ha parlato), ‘ittàu’ (ha buttato), ‘manciàu’ (ha mangiato) etc., although as far as I’m aware this isn’t universal on the island where -ò is used in other areas. I wonder if this is some sort of frozen intermediate form? It’s also interesting to note the differing degrees of ‘dittongamento’ around the island: where I live you hear ‘peri’ (piede), ‘megghiu’ (meglio), ‘beddu’ (bello) or ‘poccu’ (pig) as opposed to ‘pieri’, ‘miegghiu’, ‘bieddu’ or ‘puorcu’ in other parts of the island. The same ‘dittongamento’ is also seems highly variable from area to area in verb forms (mettu/miettu etc.). Not to mention the pentavocalic system in Sicily versus the heptavocalic system elsewhere in Italy. Fascinating stuff !
I'm not studying Italian, Luke - I have been able to speak French decades and am now studying but fairly proficient in Spanish too. That question *WHY* Does French do this and Spanish do that comes up over and over and over again in my head; all of this evolution and divergence is fascinating. I will have to do some Italian and Latin too if I can once I've properly acquired Spanish. Thank you for making such compelling films. Your output is just so incredibly interesting
to be fair im coming from a kind of weird background as a linguist and someone who has a tiny bit of experience with a ton of languages, but in my experience, learning multiple closely related languages at the same time can make learning all of them easier. of course, if you're learning spanish italian and latin all at once, your progress with any one of them will be slower than if you were only learning that one just from a time distribution perspective, but i think it makes any amount of time you spend with one of them more effective and valuable. might be worth your time to start them all at once. in particular, while latin is less similar i can imagine that learning it simultaneously could be really helpful bc its the last point of convergence for them (or rather its the closest to that that a specific language you could learn is). cant speak for that particularly tho bc ive never learned a protolanguage as the same time as its daughters
1:13:10 That's interesting because you can do the same thing in the northern dialect of Albanian. The future tense is usually created with to want + subjunctive (e.g. "do të shkoj" means "I will go", but literally it's "I want that I go"), but there's a second way in the northern dialect where you can say "kam me shkua" which literally means "I have to go" but it actually means I will go or I'm going to go. You can't do that in the southern dialect because they don't have an infinitive.
I think this is a Balkan thing. In Greek it is similar. In English too as "will" is derived from wanting.
@@erichamilton3373 In English, you can also use the auxiliary verb: ”have”, in the construction of the future tense: ”I have (yet) to go.”, meaning: ”I had not yet gone.”. Though, this is quite rare a structure.
Bel video Luke, potresti scrivere dei libri in proposito, magari, anche in versione italiana 😉
Superb work as always. There is one thing I wonder about however. There are of course Romance languages like Sardo, Occitan and Spanish which retain a final 's' marking the second person singular. In fact, the 's' is retained even in many Northern Italian dialects, with the Tuscan dialect being somewhat of an outlier. If we consider this fact, can we really identify the loss of this final 's' as being the reason for the loss of the Latin future tense? Amābis / amābas would work just fine in Spanish. Pōnes / pōnēbas would also work fine in Spanish as pones / ponías. What does however create a problem in the third conjugation verbs is the fact that the 'i' in pōnis regularly shifts to pones in the present. This would create an overlap with the old Latin future.
That’s a very good point! I’d say the merger of b and v to /v/ is the main cause, with the s being icing on the cake. The other reason is that true future tenses, including those in Romance and English, get replaced by immediate future periphrastics like “voy” and “I’m going to,” thus making the “correct” Latin future more and more remote for the common speaker.
I love History of Italian and Historical Italian Grammar and have studied it a lot. Your video is very good, I wouldn't change a yod, just add more and more examples, especially from various Italian dialects (vulgars) and differences between the trafila popolare and the trafila dotta.
Thanks! Oh yes, there is much more to the story than the superficial representation here. Ah, to have more time…!
id love for you to make a video about what Latin (most likely) sounded like right at the end of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD... the late Roman period is often neglected when compared to the "classical age". ive been wondering what "their latin" sounded like... certainly it wouldve been quite different from the classical latin, but i would think that it would still be much more similar to classical latin than to, lets say italian... anyway, love your videos, keep it up!
Thanks! Yes I’ve covered that here ua-cam.com/video/c_Giy_LHAlU/v-deo.html
And here: ua-cam.com/video/XeqTuPZv9as/v-deo.html
What about the Latin spoken in the East for the first couple of centuries before the elites just gave up and switched to Greek?
Outstanding. Thank you.
Amazing content. Would love to see videos on the other Romance languages, especially Romanian and French.
What a journey! Phonology is one of my favorite areas of linguistics and what a great hit you’ve given us here. I’d also never considered phonology as the driver of case loss. Fascinating.
If reincarnation is real, perhaps in my next life I’ll jump down the Latin > Romance languages rabbit hole, but I’m happy to be able to participate as a spectator. :-)
And of course the visuals here make want to visit Italy…
thanks Luke!
Thanks for supporting the channel!
1:04:37 Finnish also has this kind of a sandhi-phenomenon, similar to _raddoppiamento fonosintattico,_ called: _”Jäännöslopuke”, ”Loppuhenkonen”, ”Rajakahdennus”,_ etc., meaning: ”Remnant Ending”, ”Final Aspiration”, ”Syntactic Gemination”, etc., respectively; which used to be denoted with a final apostrophe ”-’”, or letters: ”-k”, ”-h” or: ”-q”, or by geminating the initial consonant of a sufficial clitic, back in the 1800’s; but, now, isn’t marked (similarly to Italian), as it tends to come naturally, for native speakers; except in certain environments, like before clitics, by varying numbers of speakers. Of course; Krasnian (which I mentioned, in the update-video of Lucian pronunciation) marks it with an apostrophe: ”-’”, in ”Lacịƞḱa”; with a hard mark: ”-Ъ”/”-ъ”, in ”Kiriĺịca”; and with a plain square: ”-𑀩” (indicating a so-called ”neutral consonant”), in ”Krásnịca”. The word: _”Jäännöslopuke”_ actually has a _”Jäännöslopuke”,_ and is written, as: _”Jäännöslopuke’”_ (Lacịƞḱa), or: _”Йääннöслопукеъ”_ (Kiriĺịca), in Krasnian. Also worth noting, is that; while many Finnish-speakers are losing that _”Jäännöslopuke’”,_ when reciting in ”Standard” Finnish _(”Kirjakieli”_ = ”Book Language”); such as, when narrating a documentary (a phenomenon, which I’ve noticed becoming alarmingly common, in my own lifetime of 31 years); because it’s not marked, graphically; in Krasnian, the _”Jäännöslopuke’”_ is strictly prescribed (hence, why it’s also marked, graphically, in Krasnian); because, much like, with the 5 distinct stress-levels of Krasnian (which even most stress-based languages might find overkill), a lot of Krasnian grammar (such as ”Compound Moods”) depends upon _”Jäännöslopuke’”._ Consider, for example, the Krasnian Optative Mood (Conditional: ”-isi” + Imperative: ”-’”), in the plea: _”Tulisi’ tänne’.”_
(= ”Please, come here.”). If Krasnian had no _”Jäännöslopuke’”,_ the Optative Mood would merge with the Conditional Mood; and thus, the sentence would become: _”Tulisi tänne.”_
(= ”Would come here.”); like it’d be written, in Finnish. Krasnian also doesn’t have a direct equivalent to the English word: ”Please”; which makes this Optative Mood; and, by extension, the _”Jäännöslopuke’”;_ that much more necessary. Thus; Krasnian grammar, as we know it, simply wouldn’t exist, without _”Jäännöslopuke’”_ (or the 5 distinct phonemic stress levels); just like, how Latin grammar, as we know it, simply wouldn’t exist, without phonemic vowel length.
*EDIT:* 1:05:00 There is also a similar exception, in Finnish, with the sufficial clitic:
”-kA” (”-ka”/”-kä”, according to the vowel harmony), where, after a few words, like: _”Tai”_ (= ”Or”) and: _”Vai”_ (= ”Or(?)”), the ”K” of that clitic gets geminated, in orthography, as well: _”Taikka”_ (= ”Or” (Emphatic)), and: _”Vaikka”_ (= ”Although”). Of course; in Krasnian, there are 2 different, but equally valid, ways to write the word: _”Taikka”;_ either: _”Taikka”/”Taijkka” (”Таикка”/”Таӥкка”,_ in ”Kiriĺịca”), with a geminated ”K”, as in Finnish; or: _”Tai’ka”/”Taij’ka” (”Таиъка”/”Таӥька”,_ in ”Kiriĺịca”), with an apostrophe, for clarity; as to, what is the root word. However; for the word: ”Vaikka”, the recommendation is to write it, as: _”Vaikka”/”Vaijkka”_ _(”Ваикка”/_
_”Ваӥкка”,_ in ”Kiriĺịca”), with a geminated ”K”; because its meaning: ”Although”, is drastically different, from the meaning of its root word: ”Or(?)”, in questions; and thus, it’s mostly treated, as a totally different word; whereas _”Taikka”_ just means: ”Or”, in statements; just like its root word: _”Tai’”,_ except that _”Taikka”_ is used, as a more emphatic variant; or, in _”Kansaƞkieli”_ (= ”Vulgar Krasnian”), as an equal, free variant. Contrary to Finnish, where _”Taikka”_ is used to separate sets of multiple options, from each other, or, from singular options; and such distinction can’t even be made, for questions, in Finnish; because the analogous word: _”Vaikka”,_ has a totally different meaning (”Although”); Krasnian uses the words: _”Tahi”/”Таһи”_ and: _”Vahi”/”Ваһи”,_ for that very distinction, in statements and questions, respectively. For example:
_”Voimme tehdä’ pihviäm tai’ keittoam, tahi mennä’ ravintolaan.”_ (”We can make stake or soup, *_OR_* go to a restaurant.”)
_”Menemmekö Ìntialaiseen vai’ Kìinalaiseen Ravintolaan?,* vahi syömmekö kotona?”_
(”Shall we go to the Indian or the Chinese restaurant, *_OR_* shall we eat home?”)
* The ”?,” is there, to represent the Krasnian _”Kysymyspilkku”_ (”Question Comma”), which is used to end question clauses, but never whole sentences. The ”proper” form is a question mark, whose dot below has been replaced by a comma; but that doesn’t exist, in the Unicode; because it (just like its sibling: _”Huutopilkku”_ = ”The Exclamation Comma”) is unique to Krasnian; thus, in print, the standard form is a regular, old question mark, followed by a regular, old comma. Example usage could be:
_”Soitatko minullem?, kun pääset kotiin.”_
(”Will you call me, when you get home?”)
Thus; when a sentence that contains a question clause (even a direct question clause) ends in a statement clause, it gets a regular period/full stop, at the end; not a question mark. This, of course, makes more sense, when you really think about it: The question clause ends in a question mark (not necessarily a question point, though), and the statement clause ends in a regular point/comma; instead of having the question clause ending in a regular comma, and the statement clause ending in a question mark; and it also helps pinpoint, at a glance, which part of the sentence is the actual question.
Another note, regarding the penultimate and the antepenultimate example sentences: I very deliberately CAPITALIZED, *bold faced,* and _italicized_ the 2nd *_”OR”,_* in each one, to highlight this ”stronger ”Or””, which corresponds to the words: _”Tahi”_ and: _”Vahi”,_ respectively. Just in case the commas weren’t enough of an indication. Krasnian also often uses the appropriate version of commas (regular, Question, or Exclamation Commas), for that purpose; but they are pretty subtle; and, of course, in speech, you can’t indicate things, with commas, at all.
For the penultimate example sentence; the words: _”Intialainen”, ”Kiinalainen”,_ and: _”Ravintola”_ (= ”Indian”, ”Chinese”, and: ”Restaurant”, respectively; all, in the Illative Case: ”Into”) are capitalized (representing an added Weak Stress, on the 1st syllable), to indicate that they’re definite nouns and/or adjectives; and the adjectives: _”Ìntialainen”_ and _”Kìinalainen”_ have the (optional) grave accent, on top of their 1st vowels, to indicate the slight falling pitch, that’s characteristic of definite nouns (and adjectives), whose 1st syllable is long (unless its 2nd mora happens to be an obstruent; specifically, a voiceless sibilant, or any plosive, glide, or spirant). This grave accent is, of course, mostly used, in educational material; such, as this comment.
Really pleased to see this!
I thought I knew a little about this, but it’s more a case of:
The centipede was happy quite,
Until the toad, in fun
Said “Pray, which leg comes after which?”
This raised her doubts to such a pitch,
She fell exhausted in a ditch
Not knowing how to run.
Thanks!
Cool, so vowel breaking explains viens and tiens in French, from the stressed short /e/ in veniō and teneō. (and why the 1st/2nd person plurals of those words don't have the "ie")
Right!
Great work and very profesional video! I hope in the future you will make a similar video for romanian, there are basically no foreign channels (in english and not romanian) that explain these kinds of aspects at all.
What I want to tell you about romanian tho as a piece of research, it is heavily influenced by bulgarian. People might say old slavic or whatever, but its actually middle bulgarian thru Church Slavonic. Most of the terms we use in romanian (of slavic origin) are either aquired thru commerce and general excange of goods and products or thru the influence of the Eastern Orthodox Church. As you may know we used the cyrillic alphabet (a particular version of cyrillic, adapted for the use of writing romanian) till the 19th century, so there were a lot of word borrowed from Church Slavonic as neologisms and lerned words.
There is an insane ammount of words we share with our bulgarian neighbours but ill give you some examples: Praz, Crac, Pod/Podea, Plod, Praf, Rochie, Șapcă, Dar, Cocină, Copită, Veac, Ceas, Cașcaval, Izgoni, Izvor, Peșteră, Iezăr, Caisă, Cireașă, Mir, Blagoslovenie, Sobor, Spovedanie, Sigur, Graniță, Ciudat, Ucenic, etc.
In my opinion romanian is 60-70% latin, 30-20% slavic and the rest is a mix. Right now Im learning spanish and Im astonished by the number of latin words I understand very easily, but only the most basic of them like numbers, colors, basic verbs, and so on, where in Bulgarian, the basic words like numbers, basic verbs, animals, colors, are entirely foreign to me.
LUKE PLEASE this is a thing that has bugged me since a long time. My favourite part of the video was when you talked about how /ks/ x evolved into /s:/ /s/ and sh, my question is then how did some words get the /z/, like esempio, esercito..., are they from the french pronunciation? But even in french I think x evolved into the Italian way, also how is that we say ' io esco ' and not ' io escio, esso ', I'm so curious about this. Also my most wanted book for now is the Cambridge one about regional diversification of Latin, I hope there is in the library in my university, I desperately want that book. Anyway, great video! Eugepae!
esempio is probably a learned borrowing from literary Latin that got somewhat nativized - compare to the inherited 'scempio' from the same Latin word.
@@Philoglossos Yeah I love the scempio example, so every single x->s is learned from provençal or french maybe... so exercitus would give uscercito, like exire uscire maybe 🤔
In some of the dialects they do say "escio" (or "nescio") or "finiscio" instead of "finisco" or "nascio" instead of "nasco". So it seems that the pronunciation of these types of verbs was simplified differently in different areas. I think most academics would have preferred the form "esco"/"finisco"/"nasco" because it resembled the proper latin a little more and is more distinct phonetically, so they opted to use it.
1:11:50 I suppose the Future Tense *_COULD_* have survived; but that would have meant the loss of the Imperfect Tense 🤔.
Wow. I loved this. As someone who speaks italian and Spanish this was fascinating. So many of these patterns and shifts apply to Spanish equally.. E.g. palatium -> palatyum -> palacio (pah lah thi oh)