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They're both valuable. In linguistics for instance graffiti can tell you things about the language and its evolution that the formal language won't communicate,
by simias 6y ago
They're both valuable. In linguistics for instance graffiti can tell you things about the language and its evolution that the formal language won't communicate, like how certain letters stop being pronounced or become pronounced differently. Or how some grammatical constructions shift for instance.
- dehrmann 6y agoRomanes eunt domus.
- dsr_ 6y agoite domum, unless you're already in Rome, in which case sunt domum.
- 0xbadcafebee 6y agohow is babby formed?
- thaumasiotes 6y agoOf course they're both valuable. But you cannot reasonably contend that the graffiti is more valuable; it is much less valuable. > In linguistics for instance graffiti can tell you things about the language and its evolution that the formal language won't communicate, like how certain letters stop being pronounced or become pronounced differently. This certainly doesn't apply to Latin, which survives today as several robust living languages. We can easily determine how the sounds of Latin changed without making reference to graffiti. (And of course, the formal literature has quite a bit to say on the sounds of the language, too.)
- Mediterraneo10 6y agoOne reason Pompeii graffiti is valuable, is that it provides some absolute dating of Vulgar Latin features, while the modern Romance languages show only the final outcome without those exact dates. I think you underestimate just how grateful historical linguists are for popular texts beyond literary ones. Another example is the Novgorod birchbark letters, which not only shed light on old Russian but some of their features (found in no other source) required scholars to completely revise their reconstruction of Slavic historical phonology in general.