Latin as lingua franca for the European Union?

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Is adopting Latin as lingua franca for the EU a good idea?

Yes
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47%
No
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42%
Undecided
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Total votes : 19

Latin as lingua franca for the European Union?

Postby Gnaeus Dionysius Draco on Sat Mar 20, 2004 3:07 pm

Salvete!

While this may not be of particular interest to the American members, it may stir up some interest among the European members.

On May 1, 2004, ten new members will join the EU. This will not only bring the organisation's total number of member states to 25, it will also dramatically increase the number of languages spoken (from 11 to 19). This high number doesn't even deal with the many minority languages such as Frisian, Occitan, Welsh, Sorbic, Friulic and many other minority tongues. German is by far the language with most speakers, with a figure around 90 million. It's an official language in three countries (Austria, Germany and Belgium - Switzerland is no EU country). Next on the list are Italian, French and English, each having around 60-70 million speakers. However, Italian is only spoken in one country and French and English in two*. And even in these countries they are not the only language.

Of course, not only the native speakers of a language need to be mapped. One should also take into account two more factors: the learning of that language in other countries and the global importance of the language in question. For example, German, English and French are not the only languages that are spoken in more than one EU country. Dutch and Swedish are also spoken in two countries but their total number of speakers (22 million and 8 million respectively) doesn't come close to for example, Spanish and Polish (35-40 million), which are only spoken in one country. One could say that English is possibly the most widely spread language in terms of learning. However, Spanish is also assuming an increasing importance in the world.

If one language is to be chosen from the European languages, other people will always feel left out or trodden upon, especially those who speak other 'world languages'. The English will never accept German as sole language and neither will the French accept English. Every language is historically and politically coloured in the minds and perceptions of the people.

As you can readily see, this is a very complex situation.

So in this matter, although at first it may seem an outlandish idea, what about Latin? It's a language with a vast body of literature, a history that can barely be considered as offensive by modern people and it doesn't immediately come across as artificial (like, for example, Esperanto). It is also not tied to only one country (like Greek). Plus, it is taught in many secondary schools so study material and study tradition already exist. Other historical arguments can be found in the fact that the Roman Empire was about the only long-lived political structure that was able to unite much of Europe and that the humanists of the Renaissance, who often lived in different countries, could communicate with one another in Latin.

These arguments may be countered by two arguments. The first one being that the Roman Empire never encompassed present-day countries like Poland, Ireland and all of the Baltic region and Scandinavia. Secondly, the Slavic and Germanic states may find Latin too much of a Romance lanuage to accept it as a transnational language. While both of these arguments hold water, neither of them can be defended forever. It is true that Roman legions never set their standards in Norway or Finland, but humanist or medieval scholarship also extended in these regions, and so did the Church, which survived the collapse of the Empire but nonetheless continued to use Latin for a very long time. Secondly, many Slavic and Germanic languages have borrowed lots and lots of words from Latin (or other classical languages). English, for example, has retained only 50% of its original Germanic vocabulary throughout the centuries.

So Latin as a lingua franca. Why not?

Valete!
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* 'dwarf' states like Andorra, San Marino, Vatican City, Monaco or even Luxemburg (with three languages!) don't really count as important factors
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Postby Curio Agelastus on Sun Mar 21, 2004 12:37 am

Salve mi Draco,

Firstly, you mention Occitan as minor language. I'm clearly wrong, but I had been under the impression that Occitan as both a culture and a language had been pretty much annhilated during Albigensian Crusade? After all, it was from that moment that Toulouse and Provence began to move away from the political position they had occupied, hovering between France and Aragon, and become more French in allegiance, culture and language. Or so I had understood it.

The idea of Latin as a European language? Interesting. The problem is it would almost force it to be taught as a second or third language, which would gain many protests from some quarters. Either that or require Latin as a qualification for to stand as an MEP. That might cut down the recruitmen pool somewhat, methinks. :roll:

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Postby Gnaeus Dionysius Draco on Sun Mar 21, 2004 11:40 am

Salve Curio!

Well, not necessarily.... the eurocrats would only need to understand Latin. Imagine a gathering with 50 or so politicians from all the countries of the EU. They can still speak their own language but an interpret translates it for them into Latin.

Indeed it would require a major change in teaching structures but I think it would be worth the effort. Besides, one can never know too many languages! Here in Belgium some projects are running to teach kids French (or in Wallonia, Dutch) from kindergarten. I think this is an excellent project. It's known that the younger kids are, the easier they pick up a new language. Between 8 and 14, I could fairly easily build up a knowledge of English without formal instruction but for my German I clearly needed it, although intrinsically no lanuage is harder than another.

By the way, about Occitan, I'm pretty sure it still exists. But France has an infamous reputation among linguists of squelching minority languages ruthlessly (not only Occitan but also Basque, Breton, German and Flemish-Dutch). I heard from a Catalonian that actually, Occitan sounds a lot like Catalan. That might make sense of course, since they are geographically very proximate and are both spoken on the borders of the Mediterrean.

Vale!
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Occitan

Postby Quintus Pomponius Atticus on Sun Mar 21, 2004 12:04 pm

Draco scripsit :

By the way, about Occitan, I'm pretty sure it still exists. But France has an infamous reputation among linguists of squelching minority languages ruthlessly (not only Occitan but also Basque, Breton, German and Flemish-Dutch).


In the Provence (Provincia) in France, the local dialect still persists, at least in its pronounciation, which is often very amusing to hear. I don't know about the lexicon though.

Also, the official signboards (a concession of the centralist politicians who appear to believe the omphalos stands near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, it appears :wink:) mention the names of the villages in both French and Provencal : e.g. Saint-Rémy de Provence, where I stayed, was called "San Roumy de Prouvenco" or something like that in Provencal.

Vale,

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Postby Q. C. Locatus Barbatus on Sun Mar 21, 2004 7:15 pm

Esperanto is already used in this way. Esperanto is quite simple, Latin just would complicate matters.
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Postby Anonymous on Sun Mar 21, 2004 9:46 pm

Salvete omnes!

I must say that while on a personal level I love the idea of Latin as a common language for the EU I can see many major problems. The English certainly would have a blue fit at the suggestion. You mention the French record of squashing minority languages and I suspect that this is probably true of all the majority races in Europe to some extent. Within the UK concerted efforts have been made for centuries to obliterate and/or discredit non-English indigenous languages. Cornish and Manx barely survive despite great efforts on the parts of their communities and are spoken only by very small numbers with virtually no access to the media, Gaelic does slightly better but not much and Scots is generally ignored or characterised (incorrectly) as merely a debased dialect of English. Welsh - which I speak after a fashion - is showing some signs of recovery with about a million speakers and a television channel but this is rather to the consternation of the English speaking populations of both England and Wales.

I am conscious that this is a little off topic but I do think that it is somehow in the nature of majority languages to seek dominance over any perceived rivals. Certainly the English would never happily accept French or German as a lingua franca, but then again the French wouldn't want English and so on. The problem with Latin may be more to do with history and practicality. In this country, in the public consciousness, Latin is linked more with the Catholic church than with Ancient Rome and is, therefore viewed with some suspicion. I think it is also perceived as being very difficult to learn. I do wonder whether a modified language such as Esperanto might be more practical in the final analysis.

As regards how to introduce a new common language it is possible to do.
I mentioned the revival of Welsh above and this is largely due to concerted efforts on the part of activists to re-introduce the language to areas where it had almost died out. Similar techniques were used to those developed, to teach Hebrew, by the Jews who migrated to Palestine after the Second World War. Primarily intensive teaching, particularly at an early age, and propaganda. Of course it does have to be realised that in both these cases there was a very strong element of national/racial pride which would be lacking in the case of Latin or Esperanto.

All in all, for myself, I feel that the EU does desperately need a common language which is not an existing national one. The problem is that every candidate, Latin included , seems to throw up more questions than solutions.

(By the way, while writng I have remembered two other British languages:- Norn (spoken in Shetland and Orkney but now extinct, I think), and Norman French (spoken in the Channel Islands and just about hanging on I believe.

As another aside there are in fact three official languages in the UK which can be used in Parliament:- English, Norman-French and (you've guessed it) LATIN!

Valete!
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Postby Gnaeus Dionysius Draco on Mon Mar 22, 2004 1:29 am

Salve Brute!

Caius Durnovarius Brutus wrote:I must say that while on a personal level I love the idea of Latin as a common language for the EU I can see many major problems. The English certainly would have a blue fit at the suggestion.


Just for curiosity's sake: why? The Roman Empire extended well into England and Wales, no? I don't remember from my English history classes (I study German and English) that the Roman heritage is especially hated or associated with oppression. In fact, the famous king Arthur probably was a Romanised Celt or something along those lines.

Caius Durnovarius Brutus wrote:You mention the French record of squashing minority languages and I suspect that this is probably true of all the majority races in Europe to some extent. Within the UK concerted efforts have been made for centuries to obliterate and/or discredit non-English indigenous languages. Cornish and Manx barely survive despite great efforts on the parts of their communities and are spoken only by very small numbers with virtually no access to the media, Gaelic does slightly better but not much and Scots is generally ignored or characterised (incorrectly) as merely a debased dialect of English.


You're partially right about Scots imo but then we could debate for hours what constitutes as a language and what doesn't? A few examples: Swedish and Norwegian are mutually intelligible to a large extent, yet are considered two different languages. Chinese and English have 'dialects' that are so dissimilar that speakers of the one will most likely not understand the other. Afrikaans and Dutch are considered two different languages but Dutch speakers have no problem reading a newspaper in Afrikaans, for example. There is also, for example, German, which is actually a merger of two languages that come from different sub-families (Low and High German)... This situation is extremely complex. Therefore the easiest solution to label a language, is to do it by political means...

By the way, on minority tongues in the UK. Last thing I heard is that Manx is actually officially dead since the sixties.

Caius Durnovarius Brutus wrote: Welsh - which I speak after a fashion - is showing some signs of recovery with about a million speakers and a television channel but this is rather to the consternation of the English speaking populations of both England and Wales.


Actually I think the number is about 650 000 (that's the figure I have been taught last year, so...). Still, I thought Welsh was a well-respected minority language, no?

Caius Durnovarius Brutus wrote:I am conscious that this is a little off topic but I do think that it is somehow in the nature of majority languages to seek dominance over any perceived rivals. Certainly the English would never happily accept French or German as a lingua franca, but then again the French wouldn't want English and so on. The problem with Latin may be more to do with history and practicality. In this country, in the public consciousness, Latin is linked more with the Catholic church than with Ancient Rome and is, therefore viewed with some suspicion. I think it is also perceived as being very difficult to learn. I do wonder whether a modified language such as Esperanto might be more practical in the final analysis.


Esperanto is easier but it is very 'romanically' tinted. Plus, it's not really an attractive language as it doesn't have any real history.

Caius Durnovarius Brutus wrote:As regards how to introduce a new common language it is possible to do.
I mentioned the revival of Welsh above and this is largely due to concerted efforts on the part of activists to re-introduce the language to areas where it had almost died out. Similar techniques were used to those developed, to teach Hebrew, by the Jews who migrated to Palestine after the Second World War. Primarily intensive teaching, particularly at an early age, and propaganda. Of course it does have to be realised that in both these cases there was a very strong element of national/racial pride which would be lacking in the case of Latin or Esperanto.

All in all, for myself, I feel that the EU does desperately need a common language which is not an existing national one. The problem is that every candidate, Latin included , seems to throw up more questions than solutions.


This is true. Perhaps the solution that would be least troublesome could be chosen... I really think that an EU with 19 languages is a bit too much :P. And although you could consider me an anglophile, I would definitely protest against e.g. English as the transnational language for the EU.

Vale bene!
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Postby Curio Agelastus on Mon Mar 22, 2004 12:46 pm

Salvete omnes,

First, a question for Brutus: I assume Norn is descended in some way from the Scandinavian languages of the conquerors of the northern isles?

Draco, you say that Norwegian and Swedish are very similar, but are considered separate languages. You have to consider the fact that the Norwegians (Even if under Danish rule) and the Swedes have been squabbling ever since the Kalmar Union broke up in the 15th century. To emphasise the similarities between the languages would, in the eyes of some, be to trivialise the rivalry between the two. It would be the same as some ignorant tourist going up to Belgians and saying "But isn't your country the same as Holland really?" It would infuriate a lot of Belgians, I suspect. Admittedly there are more differences between Belgians and Dutch than there are between Swedes and Norwegians, but there is the same history between them that prevents close identification, at least for now.

As for the EU... If, as seems to be the consensus, Latin would be too contentious to adopt, how about Gaelic? It's the descendant of a language that once inhabited most of Europe, and it's hardly controversial. Of course, I accept it's utterly impractical, but then, IMHO at least, nor is the idea of any one unifying language. Hey, how about Xhosa for an EU language? No controversy there! :lol:

On the subject of the linguistic similarities between Catalan and Occitan, this doesn't surprise me in the least. There were historical ties between them, even when Catalunya had been unified with the Spanish kingdom of Aragon. For instance, the Provencals were among the closest allies of the Christian Kingdoms of Spain as they fought off the Moors. In fact, the Duke of Toulouse, Raymond, who behaved so honourably on the First Crusade in the Holy Land had fought previously under the warrior-king of Aragon against the Moors, losing an eye in the process. So there were clearly historical ties between the Catalan and Occitan areas, as well as linguistic ties. Out of interest, has anyone compared the linguistic traits of Basque with Catalan or Occitan? I ask only because I know that Navarra (the medieval Basque state) did at times have close ties with Toulouse and, IIRC, Aragon.

Taking an utterly irrelevant detour into medieval history is...
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Postby Anonymous on Mon Mar 22, 2004 5:32 pm

Salvete Omnes!

Curio asks:-
First, a question for Brutus: I assume Norn is descended in some way from the Scandinavian languages of the conquerors of the northern isles?


Yes. Norn was/is a Nordic language closely related to Norwegian. The islands were inhabited by Viking settlers at the time they passed under English rule as part of a dowry following a royal wedding(I think!)


Draco asks:-
Just for curiosity's sake: why? The Roman Empire extended well into England and Wales, no? I don't remember from my English history classes (I study German and English) that the Roman heritage is especially hated or associated with oppression. In fact, the famous king Arthur probably was a Romanised Celt or something along those lines.


You are quite right that the period of Roman rule in Britain is not looked back on in a particularly negative light by the British people. In the case of the Welsh in particular it is seen as greatly preferable to the chaos and bloodshed that came after. The point I was trying to make is rather different. It is actually quite difficult to have any sort of balanced discussion about Europe in England at this time and the language question would be a case in point. English(as opposed to British) public opinion remains quite hostile to membership of the EU let alone any steps towards further integration such as the adoption of a common language.

As regards King Arthur (whoever or whatever he was) he does seem to have been a Roman or Romanised Celt. To go on a bit of a detour into the Celtic languages while Irish and Scots Gaelic are relatively 'pure' (I hate to use that word but I can't think of another one!) Celtic languages the surviving Brythonic Celtic languages ie., Welsh, Cornish and Breton were massively influenced by Latin and a sizeable chunk of their vocabularies come from that source. Basically the cultures that emerged from the ruins of the Empire were cosmopolitan and just as much Latin as Celtic. In Sub-Roman Britain there appear to have been communities from as far afield as Africa, Persia, Palestine and Sarmatia. Indeed King Arthur's knights may well have originated as Sarmatian cavalry detatchments who stayed in Britain when the legions were called home.

Draco asks:-
By the way, on minority tongues in the UK. Last thing I heard is that Manx is actually officially dead since the sixties.


There were a few Manx speakers at the National Eisteddfod last year so it doesn't seem to be entirely in the grave yet. I've got a feeling that the language may also still be used in the Isle of Man's parliament or in documents and so on. I'm conscious that some years ago Cornish was considered to be extinct but somehow isn't any more. You can certainly walk around towns in Cornwall now and see the 'We speak Cornish here' signs in a few shop windows.

Draco asks:-
Actually I think the number is about 650 000 (that's the figure I have been taught last year, so...). Still, I thought Welsh was a well-respected minority language, no?

I guess it depends where you draw the line between first and second languages. I think this figure is up for discussion! As regards respect it is a fact that the attitude towards Welsh has improved greatly in recent years, particularly within Wales itself. This is however from a position of almost zero tolerance just a few decades ago. I don't want to sound too negative or hypercritical towards my countrymen but having studied a number of modern languages at school and college the fact is the English en masse are not great linguists and rather distrust anyone they cannot immediately understand and that very definitely applies to other British peoples.

Curio asks:-
Out of interest, has anyone compared the linguistic traits of Basque with Catalan or Occitan? I ask only because I know that Navarra (the medieval Basque state) did at times have close ties with Toulouse and, IIRC, Aragon.


It's my understanding that Basque is a completely different language not being of Indo-European origin at all. I'm sure I read somewhere that it may be related to languages spoken in the Caucasus region such as Georgian. Given the close proximity and the political/historical connections however there must have been some 'cross-pollination' over the years with Catalan and Occitan.


Valete!
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Postby Quintus Marius Primus on Sun Apr 18, 2004 10:43 pm

Just a couple of points based on some of the last posts. As a student of linguistics and as a Welsh speaker (second language), I can tell you that Welsh (plus Breton and Cornish) have NOT been massively influenced by Latin. Certainly not to the same degree as English, or even German which maintains its Germanic lexical roots more clearly than English does. The geographical territory from where P-Celtic languages developed from (i.e Welsh, Cornish, Breton, as opposed to the Q-Celtic languages Irish, Scots Gaelic and Manx) was conquered by the Romans, thus did have some effect on the language here, but the actual amount of words adoped into Welsh was actually fairly small. So to speak of Welsh being massively influenced by Latin is simply erroneous.

With regards to the status of Manx, the last native speaker of the language died in the 1960's, but the language was recorded during the 20th century and any speakers of the language today who have learnt the language can imitate the pronunciation as it was spoken when it was a full living language. In that regard it is for all intents and purposes a living language again. Cornish however is a bit more complicated. The last native speaker of this language died out long before any technology existed to record the phonology and syntax of the language properly, so today's revised language is actually an artificial mix of 16th century and older varieties of the language.

Then there's Esperanto... This language has been the most succesful of all attempts at an International Auxiliary Language, and on the surface looks a prime candidate as an EU lingua franca. There's no denying it is a very easy language to learn, but there are as many opponents of the language as there are supporters (due to it's ugly orthography, awkward consonant clusters, inherent sexism for starters). But it is not a purely simple romanised language - although much of its lexicon is latin-based, its phonetics is primarily slavic in orientation, and it has an orthography that is not based on anything!

Returning to the orignal question though, as to whether Latin should be used as a lingua-franca for the EU, on paper it sounds like a good idea, but with too many problems. If a non-native spoken language were to be adopted by the EU Esperanto probably would win as it is a simpler language and I can vouch for the fact that despite a wide belief of there not being much of a history to this language it has over a century's worth of usage and literature (all major linguistic works have been translated, including the Bible, the Koran, Shakespeare, Goethe, Moliere, and most importantly Tintin...!!). Then there's the cultural, political and economic reasons. Quite frankly it pays to put ones efforts into learning a language that is living, is spoken by others as a first language, and will pay dividends in the long run. Although attempts have beee made in the past to have non-native languages artificially adopted, only Modern Hebrew is conspicuous by its success (and this for a primarily unifying religious reason). Latin, as would Esperanto or Xhosa or Irish or Saami or whatever language is simply going to lose out to English, French, German, and Spanish.

The EU will probably never make one language its official lingua franca, but as language is essentially democratic, it will come down to usage of those individuals in the Union and what language they chose to speak - today the EU works mostly in English, French, and German, and this will continue to happen, with perhaps Spanish becoming more into the frame in the future.

Apologies for the very lengthy response there!!

Bene vale

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Postby Anonymous on Mon Apr 19, 2004 8:10 pm

Salve Mari Prime et Omnes!

Mea Culpa! I stand corrected!

On receiving the previous post I pulled a couple of Welsh books off my bookcase and counted the the number of clearly Latin derived words in the first few sentences and then did the same with two English books. To my deep humiliation and surprise the English came out on top. Hardly scientific I know but appears to prove Marius' point.

Seems I've been passing family tradition off as fact! Apologies all round.

Valete!

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Postby Quintus Marius Primus on Mon Apr 19, 2004 8:38 pm

Salve Bruti

No worries there. Actually, it's been really interesting reading everyone's views on this subject. And it's also good to hear of people in England with an interest in the Celtic languages!

Vale

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Postby Quintus Marius Primus on Thu May 27, 2004 4:44 pm

Salvete

One quick question about Latin becoming a lingua franca of the EU: which pronunciation would you use? The way the language is pronounced would need to be agreed on. I've had plenty of "heated" discussions with people before on the correct way of pronouncing Latin with me being a proponent of the classical pronunciation, but there seem to be plenty of alternatives (which I think was also the case in the Middle Ages when it was used as a lingua franca) and you can bet your bottom dollar that no-one would be able to agree on it!

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Postby Anonymous on Thu May 27, 2004 5:38 pm

Salve Mari Prime et Omnes!

Yes! I have come across these arguments before. I can remember standing in Mass and listening to prayers and responses being rolled out with beautiful Italian-style pronounciation. Very definitely NOT Classical.

Another point, I came across an intriguing reference to something called Interlingua which is apparently a simplified form of Latin. Has anyone come across this and would it provide a viable alternative Lingua Franca?

Vale!
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Postby Gnaeus Dionysius Draco on Thu May 27, 2004 6:05 pm

Salvete!

I am a big proponent of classical pronunciation. It has more to do with Roman culture than does Church Latin, and it's fairly neutral, that is to say that it's not claimed by any dominant religion. Plus, it has a very distinct ring whereas Church Latin sounds more like Italian to many ears.

I've also heard of Interlingua but that's about all I can tell, sorry :).

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Postby Quintus Marius Primus on Fri May 28, 2004 12:36 pm

Have just had a quick look at Interlingua on the Internet and it looks more like an amalgam of the modern Latin-based languages rather than on Classical Latin. So it has features like definite and indefinite articles, no case distinctions, the genitive formed with "de", plurals formed by adding -s or -es...

So not a simplified version of Latin so much, more of a simplification and amalgamation of the modern vernaculars. Think there are quite a few latin based conlangs (constructed languages) on the net, as well as a few slavic and germanic one. Think there's even a celtic one! So may be worth having a look yourself if you want. Type in "conlang" into any search engine and you'll get loads of examples.

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Postby Primus Aurelius Timavus on Sat May 29, 2004 8:02 pm

I took a look at Interlingua as well. As a Spanish and Italian speaker, I'd have to say that Interlingua is an extremely ugly construct. It appears that the language's designers deliberately took the idiosyncratic aspects of Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese and mixed them up wily nily. We have Italian's unnecessary double consonants, Spanish's stem-changing vowels, the Portuguese "eira", and who knows what from French.

I was really excited by the description of Interlingua as a simplified form of Latin. But this mish-mash was nothing but a disappointment.
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Postby Primus Aurelius Timavus on Sat May 29, 2004 8:08 pm

Just back from following Primus' suggestion about searching for constructed languages. It turns out that there is another Interlingua that is based on Latin. You can check it out at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus ... ndex2.html

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Postby Marcus Pomponius Lupus on Sat May 29, 2004 9:16 pm

Salvete,

I just took a look at the website Tergestus has offered, it's....well, what the site tells you really : latino sine flexione with a fair amount of Italian thrown in ("uno lingua", per esempio instead of "una lingua", words appear to have no gender).

There's one rule I find a bit strange though, to make a plural, he states, just add -s ("lingua" becomes "linguas"). Latin doesn't have this, there are a lot of possibilities for a plural form, but none of them is simply adding an "s", it's mostly, -i, -ae, -a, -es. Italian doesn't have this either, an Italian plural mostly ends in -i or -e.

I guess he made it so because it's a simple rule to pick up, but it's not very Latin-like. Oh well, it's his own language, who am I to complain ? :wink:

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Postby Aulus Dionysius Mencius on Sun May 30, 2004 9:35 am

* Mencius barges in, and, after realising in whose company he now finds himself, apologises for having done so abruptly*

I greet you, commilitiones. I have a quick word to say on this matter, if you would allow me...

I tend to think that constructed languages are not natural. Language is a living thing, an evolutionary process. Otherwise, what would be the framework for setting out your *new* language?

That is my view, amici. Now, I must return to my books and study... :roll:
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