4 ms·

No, I don't think so. If people have been speaking Language A for 2 millennia, it's 2 millennia old. If they've been speaking Language B for 15 centuries, it's

by _jgdh 9y ago

No, I don't think so. If people have been speaking Language A for 2 millennia, it's 2 millennia old. If they've been speaking Language B for 15 centuries, it's 15 centuries old. Just because A and B are both spoken today doesn't make them equally old. That's as absurd as saying you and I are both alive today so we must be the same age. It's interesting that you mention Spain. Are you familiar with the Basque language? It has almost no influence from the Romance languages spoken in all areas surrounding Basque country like French and Spanish. It's the last descendant of the pre-Indo-European languages spoken in Western Europe. Would you claim that Basque and Spanish are equally old? Influence doesn't imply that the influenced language is younger. A language being entirely derived from another, like Hindi from Sanskrit and the Romance languages from Latin, does imply that they're younger than Sanskrit and Latin.

Grustaf 9y ago
>Would you claim that Basque and Spanish are equally old? If by Spanish you mean the modern history of the language, since its branching off from the other Romance languages, then you could say it's younger, but this is just an accident of naming, caused by the extrinsic fact that there are other surviving dialects of Latin with their own nation states. If Latin had only survived in the form of Spanish, we would probably either call it Latin, or see Latin as Old Spanish. Either way we wouldn't see it as less old than Basque. And from a linguistic point of view, unless you think Basque and IE languages derive from separate innovations of language (sort of like wings have evolved separately in birds and bats - analogy rather than homology), the language that is today called Spanish is of course just as old as the language called Basque.
thaumasiotes 9y ago
> Would you claim that Basque and Spanish are equally old? Think. How could it possibly be otherwise? > If people have been speaking Language A for 2 millennia, it's 2 millennia old. If they've been speaking Language B for 15 centuries, it's 15 centuries old. Just because A and B are both spoken today doesn't make them equally old. But you just made that up. As has already been pointed out, all modern languages have been spoken for exactly the same period of time, with a few rare exceptions. The fact that two languages are both spoken today is sufficient to conclude that they are equally old, unless you happen to know exactly when one of them originated.
- _jgdh 9y ago
  Ah, I think I'm beginning to understand what you're saying. So Spanish might have have evolved from Vulgar Latin after the Romans brought it to the Iberian peninsula in 210BC, but in your eyes, its the same age as Latin itself. So although the Romans conquered Gaul (France) in 50BC, beginning the evolution of French, you reckon that French and Spanish are the same age. Let me know if I've understood you correctly. If I have, then I think that's a perfectly valid way of looking at it.

by _jgdh 9y ago

Grustaf 9y ago

>Would you claim that Basque and Spanish are equally old? If by Spanish you mean the modern history of the language, since its branching off from the other Romance languages, then you could say it's younger, but this is just an accident of naming, caused by the extrinsic fact that there are other surviving dialects of Latin with their own nation states. If Latin had only survived in the form of Spanish, we would probably either call it Latin, or see Latin as Old Spanish. Either way we wouldn't see it as less old than Basque. And from a linguistic point of view, unless you think Basque and IE languages derive from separate innovations of language (sort of like wings have evolved separately in birds and bats - analogy rather than homology), the language that is today called Spanish is of course just as old as the language called Basque.

thaumasiotes 9y ago

> Would you claim that Basque and Spanish are equally old? Think. How could it possibly be otherwise? > If people have been speaking Language A for 2 millennia, it's 2 millennia old. If they've been speaking Language B for 15 centuries, it's 15 centuries old. Just because A and B are both spoken today doesn't make them equally old. But you just made that up. As has already been pointed out, all modern languages have been spoken for exactly the same period of time, with a few rare exceptions. The fact that two languages are both spoken today is sufficient to conclude that they are equally old, unless you happen to know exactly when one of them originated.

_jgdh 9y ago
Ah, I think I'm beginning to understand what you're saying. So Spanish might have have evolved from Vulgar Latin after the Romans brought it to the Iberian peninsula in 210BC, but in your eyes, its the same age as Latin itself. So although the Romans conquered Gaul (France) in 50BC, beginning the evolution of French, you reckon that French and Spanish are the same age. Let me know if I've understood you correctly. If I have, then I think that's a perfectly valid way of looking at it.