From: Padraic Brown (elemtilas@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Mar 12 2003 - 08:22:38 EST
--- Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren_jan@yahoo.co.uk>
wrote:
> --- James Campbell skrzypszy:
>
> > I heard recently (on TV I think) that
> Sardinian is considered 'closest to'
> > Vulgar Latin. Can you tell me if that
> statement was right?
>
> I have heard this opinion, too. I don't know
> much about Sardinian; all I can
> tell you is that Sardinian is a very archaic
> language that split off from Latin
> in a relatively early stage (1st century?).
This is true, that Sardinian began its
independent evolution a little earlier. But that
shouldn't be taken to mean that Sardinian is any
closer to Vulgar Latin than any other Romance
language. Remember: the Vulgar Latins that will
give rise to Gallego and Provencal won't even be
_spoken_ for another several centuries in the
future! ;)
> > I once met an old chap who would read
> > Romanian publications. He said he
> > could easily understand it because it was so
> > similar to the VL he'd learnt
> > (for religious reasons, liturgies or
> > something, I don't recall).
>
> Well, I'm not an expert on Romanian either, but
> based on what I have seen and
> heard from Romanian, I don't think that can be
> true.
It's probably the same phenomenon that allows
Christophe his _very_ good comprehension of
Kerno; or a Spanish speaking friend of mine's
comprehension of Latin; or our understanding of
Chacucer. If there's enough similarity in roots
between two languages, the speaker of one can
often generally get the gist of the other. I
agree, though, that Romanian is not as
_obviously_ similar to Latin as say Spanish or
Italian.
Padraic.
=====
il becko Jowans backalars
sew ncorne tan llar'ment ys wentast;
yen dia s' ouws desfussiont
co lê corn sew dda li cabast.
.
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