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I was surprised that such an in-depth article about linguistic dominance had so little to say about Latin. Historically, Latin in Europe seems to have filled a
by sudosteph 8y ago
I was surprised that such an in-depth article about linguistic dominance had so little to say about Latin. Historically, Latin in Europe seems to have filled a very similar role to that of English today, though not at the same scale perhaps. Even languages that weren't full-on adaptations of Latin have adapted Latin alphabets and words. The modern English we speak today has funny little relics of Latin grammar norms that had been adopted for no apparent reason other than to improve the "status" of English by making it more latinized (things like, not ending sentences in prepositions).
Also, it's interesting that the author proposed
> What if the pre-contact languages of the Americas were taught in American high schools?
Because I recall actually reading an article about how some schools in France were just now allowing the local language "Occitan" to be taught in some schools again, but historically they were very harsh on not allowing it. The fear back then was that if schools were allowed to teach in languages besides French, that the students would never bother learning French and would not be able to function as citizens. I think they've eased up, but I've seen that China has many of the same concerns about Mandarin adoption, especially in the far west portion.
I'm all for learning weird languages for the heck of it though. It's not like most people can actually recall and use the Spanish or French they learned in high school, so might as well teach something interesting to examine linguistic principles in general. I'm a fan of Esperanto for this because it's so easy, but every language has interesting differences (often with cultural implications) that learners can enjoy. But again, this is coming from a perspective of living in a country with the privilege of having English as the most common native tongue.
- NihilumExNil 8y ago> ... the "status" of English by making it more latinized (things like, not ending sentences in prepositions). very interesting, that's something I'd really need to learn more about it. But how much of that is common sense, or French influence?
- sudosteph 8y agoWell my source is a Linguistics Textbook (Language Files, 11th Edition, p15-16) but it says that these changes happened as late as the 17th and 18th centuries because Scholars considered written Latin to be the ideal language (likely because most historical works had been translated to Latin at some point). So even though ending sentences in prepositions had been common for centuries in spoken English, that became frowned upon because it was not allowed in Latin. Specific examples in the book of "rules" applied to English to match written Latin include: - Don't ending sentences in prepositions - Don't split infinitives - Don't use double negatives The chapter as a whole was actually about linguistic prescriptivism, but the Latin examples are pretty interesting nonetheless. 17th and 18th century seem pretty far past the point at which French would be the big influencer, but there's no doubt French did influence English as well (though more vocab it seems).
- romwell 8y ago>- Don't ending sentences in prepositions >- Don't split infinitives >- Don't use double negative These seem to really be some rules that ain't nobody got time for!
- dorchadas 8y agoBecause they were never really rules at all in English, until those grammarians decided to try to make the language conform to Latin's rules.
- sudosteph 8y agoI think the comment above was in jest. It's actually a pretty good little joke.
- NihilumExNil 8y agoMy pet peeve in English as well as German is conjunctive use of "that" or "dass" respectively. I'm glad that you got right at least :)
- briandear 8y agoOccitan is all over the place in the South of France. Even city signs are in both French and Occitan. In some towns, even the street signs are bilingual, though I actually never heard anyone actually speak it. I was determined to learn it when I lived in Avignon, but I couldn’t find anyone to actually use it with! I had much more luck with just focusing on the southern French accent instead. My kids speak with a distinctive Avignonaise accent, saying “le pang” instead of “le pain” for instance. But to your point Occitan is apparently being taught in French schools in the South, but I think it’s an elective if I remember correctly.