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Reading this, I come away with the impression that European languages today are evolving due to the influence of "Vulgar English" (the lowest common denominator

by cs702 2y ago

Reading this, I come away with the impression that European languages today are evolving due to the influence of "Vulgar English" (the lowest common denominator of English spoken by the most people worldwide), analogously to how Romance languages like Spanish and French evolved in the past due to the influence of "Vulgar Latin."[a] --- [a] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Romance-languages https://www.britannica.com/topic/Romance-languages

adamc 2y ago
Languages change. I'm always amused that we get upset by that, but it's going to keep happening.
pjmlp 2y ago
You forgot the part when it was cool to speak French among higher classes, and thus it got spread into many European languages as well.
xdennis 2y ago
> Romance languages [...] evolved in the past due to the influence of "Vulgar Latin." Minor correction: they are derived, not influenced by Vulgar Latin. That's why so many words are different from Classical Latin, but similar between Romance languages. Like how Latin for house is "domus", but Romance languages use casa/casă/chez because common people referred to their house by the word "casa".
- wrzuteczka 2y ago
  Weird twist: Slavic languages use words very similar to "domus" for "house", for example, "dom" in Polish or "дом" in Ukrainian.
  - Muromec 2y ago
    That's дім, not дом, but of course it's "вдома" and "у домі" for reasons.
  - Wytwwww 2y ago
    Also Ancient Greek, Albanian, Sanskrit, Ancient Iranian etc. Supposedly even "timber" (in English) is somehow derived from the the same root ..
  - int_19h 2y ago
    Slavic is somewhat more conservative and still has a bunch of archaic proto-Slavic and even proto-Indo-European stuff in it. Even most of the basic swearwords are still readily recognizable from PIE, which I always found particularly amusing: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/xuj%D1%8C https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/x... https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/pizda https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/p... https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/jebati https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/j... https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/bl%C4%99d%D1%8C https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/b... https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/gov%D1%8Cno https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/g...
- cs702 2y ago
  I agree! Nothing I wrote disagrees with that: The phrasing "evolved in the past due to the influence of" has a more expansive meaning than "influenced by."

by cs702 2y ago

adamc 2y ago

Languages change. I'm always amused that we get upset by that, but it's going to keep happening.

pjmlp 2y ago

You forgot the part when it was cool to speak French among higher classes, and thus it got spread into many European languages as well.

xdennis 2y ago

> Romance languages [...] evolved in the past due to the influence of "Vulgar Latin." Minor correction: they are derived, not influenced by Vulgar Latin. That's why so many words are different from Classical Latin, but similar between Romance languages. Like how Latin for house is "domus", but Romance languages use casa/casă/chez because common people referred to their house by the word "casa".

wrzuteczka 2y ago
Weird twist: Slavic languages use words very similar to "domus" for "house", for example, "dom" in Polish or "дом" in Ukrainian.
- Muromec 2y ago
  That's дім, not дом, but of course it's "вдома" and "у домі" for reasons.
- Wytwwww 2y ago
  Also Ancient Greek, Albanian, Sanskrit, Ancient Iranian etc. Supposedly even "timber" (in English) is somehow derived from the the same root ..
- int_19h 2y ago
  Slavic is somewhat more conservative and still has a bunch of archaic proto-Slavic and even proto-Indo-European stuff in it. Even most of the basic swearwords are still readily recognizable from PIE, which I always found particularly amusing: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/xuj%D1%8C https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/x... https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/pizda https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/p... https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/jebati https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/j... https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/bl%C4%99d%D1%8C https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/b... https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/gov%D1%8Cno https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/g...
cs702 2y ago
I agree! Nothing I wrote disagrees with that: The phrasing "evolved in the past due to the influence of" has a more expansive meaning than "influenced by."