/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.3099236]

Why did latin die out completely?

[Anonymous No.3099239]

>Why did latin die out completely?

Because the Roman Empire fell?

[Anonymous No.3099242]

>>3099236
Well, because it wasn't flexible enough, people didn't use it in daily conversations, and also because a movement started for using the languages somewhere around the 13th or 14th century. (Dante was one of the first to renounce Latin as outdated).

It hasn't died out completely BTW. Take medicine, for example.

[Anonymous No.3099245]

>>3099242
>It hasn't died out completely BTW. Take medicine, for example.

nigga pls

[Anonymous No.3099243]

>>3099242
I meant for using national languages.

[Anonymous No.3099251]

>>3099245
>nigga pls
He meant Law. It's ok.

[Anonymous No.3099260]

It didn't die, it just changed like all languages do.

[▒ こ 零 ▒ !Ry9RIEstm6 No.3099325]

IS LATIN "DEAD"?

[Anonymous No.3099345]

It didn't. It evolved.
Italian, Spanish, French, Romanian, and many other minor languages can trace their roots back to Latin.

[Anonymous No.3099348]

>>3099345
Oh, and Portuguese too obviously

[Anonymous No.3099349]

>>3099251
He meant the catholic hierarchy. It's ok.

[Anonymous No.3099403]

There are still people around who speak Latin, so it hasn't died out completely.

[Anonymous No.3099417]

Prefigurations of nationalism + protestantism + earlier still, attempts to bring knowledge to the less educated (bible exegesis etc for lesser nobility/rich merchants). It didn't die out all that quickly, took some centuries.

>>3099403
Granted millions of people have a passive knowledge of Latin (perhaps fewer of ancient greek), for a language to be 'spoken' or be 'alive' you need more than a handful of fluid speakers.

[Anonymous No.3099580]

The only place where latin is still being spoken seriously is among the latin translaters/linguists in the Vatican City.

Romanian is the modern language which comes closest to Latin, but it also obviously affected languages like Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French and many others.

[Anonymous No.3099603]

>>3099580
Latin didn't affect them; they are what Latin developed into.

[Anonymous No.3099618]

>>3099603
I get your point, but it's not entirely true. Latin merged with many local languages - in the beginning mainly in the areas governed by the Roman Empire (Italy, Spain, Romania, parts of France). Later on, Latin was encouraged in many other parts of Europe because it was the language spoken by the church.

Basicaly, the powerful and the rich spread Latin across Europe where it merged with local languages spoken by the majority.

[Anonymous No.3099637]

>>3099417

I know several people that speak Latin fluently. So it's more than a handful.

Who are you to define what makes a language 'spoken' or 'alive' anyway? What the fuck sort of criteria do you use other than the fact that it's spoken, which Latin still is?

[Anonymous No.3099646]

>>3099637
Whether there are native speakers is a common criterion.

[Anonymous No.3099674]

>>3099236
This is just like asking; why did Old English die out completely.
No it didn't, it evolved into New English.
Latin evolved over a course of 1600 most turbulent years.

[Anonymous No.3099814]

>>3099417
>for a language to be 'spoken' or be 'alive' you need more than a handful of fluid speakers.

The Vatican.

[Anonymous No.3099882]

>>3099236
The latin texts we have are not written in the vernacular anyway. Stop sweatin' it. Theoretically it never died in that sense, since people still study and translate the classics.

[Anonymous No.3099891]

>>3099882
To clarify - literary latin and spoken latin were not the same thing. The romance languages developed out of spoken latin.

[Anonymous No.3100000]

Because the vernacular slowly replaced it as the literary language of each country, starting with dudes like Chaucer and Dante, and increasing markedly after that. The final blow was struck when the "old guard" of the aristocratic elite, with their classical quadrivium educations were replaced by the new liberal bourgeoisie. Different standards.

Landed gentry liked to learn Greek and Latin and fart around in the House of Lords and write treatises on statesmanship, but the new intelligentsia were more interested in practical matters. They had less access to these humanistic traditions from childhood, considered them elitist and emblematic of the old regime they were battling to dominate the oligarchy, and so they adopted the butchered liberal version of the Enlightenment teleos of human progress through materialism and scientism, and forgot about humanism and the abstract.

[Anonymous No.3100006]

>>3100000
I feel bad for getting this get while sperging about classical educations.

This get coulda been a picture of Lao Tzu or smoething.

[Anonymous No.3100015]

>>3099814
There was a news story about the Pope's Latin adviser (professor? something like that) lamenting that most of the people at the Vatican were losing their grasp of Latin, but I can't find the source.

[Anonymous No.3100024]

>>3100015
How is that even possible? Don't they have to read the Latin Bible every single goddamn day as part of their job, from its inception?

[Anonymous No.3100129]

>>3099674

That's ignorant. Classical Latin is not directly related to Romance languages.

[Anonymous No.3100134]

>>3100000
nice quints btw

[Anonymous No.3100167]

>>3100000
Well said anon.

[Anonymous No.3100169]

Just a fun fact: Montaigne was probably the last native Latin speaker, and through very artificial means.

OP didn't give his statement much of thought, though, but 'died out completely' Latin is not.

[Anonymous No.3100182]

>>3100169

I'm going to raise my child(ren) to speak Latin.

[Anonymous No.3100208]

>>3100182
It's such a tremendous aid in linguistic ability. It forces you to understand grammar.

Don't forget Greek. Raise those faggots on Xenophon and Livy and ship them off to Harvard.

[Anonymous No.3100219]

>>3100208
first Greek, then Latin, then Arabic, then expand to French, Spanish, English, German, then tackle Chinese and Japanese, also learn enough Hebrew to understand the Bible.

[Anonymous No.3100221]

>>3100219
fuark i almost forgot, Russian as well!

[Anonymous No.3100252]

>>3100208

>Don't forget Greek

Well I don't know Greek and I'm not sure if I'll ever learn. So learning Greek for them might be something they do later on outside of the family. I want Latin to be a native and family language for them though (along with English of course).

[Anonymous No.3100257]

>>3099236
Languages change over time due to the shifting concepts individuals associate with words and their different phonetic emphases. As the population grows from its set of ancestors, the modes of speech of the ancestors grow more or less prominent; isolated areas descended from a small number of settlers tend to have a very pronounced accent, like australians and south africans, who mostly sound like lower class victorian londoners because their dominant population mostly arrived in the early to mid 19th century.

The collapse of trade following the barbarian invasion of the roman empire made everywhere more isolated, and the collapse of education and literacy removed most of the linguistically conservative peer pressure on the populace. People still used the ever more foreign latin to write cuz dei taat ittud bii ridikkyilis ta rait az dei spiik, jis laik tadei. It wez dii oonlii korekkt wei dei cud imajjin.

[Anonymous No.3100266]

>>3099239
>>3099242
get a load of these guys

all languages change over time. latin steadily evolved into the modern romance languages.

[Anonymous No.3100280]

>mfw I'm studying law and teachers spew out latinate phrases and expect us to follow along

[Anonymous No.3100283]

>>3100257
>jis

[Anonymous No.3100290]

>>3100266

Stop espousing this idea, it's marred by false pretense. As already said, the classical Latin which was used for writing among the Ancient Romans and was the Latin used for religious and literary purposes by much of Europe up until a few centuries ago is not directly related to the Romance languages which came from Vulgar Latin dialects. Latin, i.e. the literary lingua franca of the western world, did not turn into Romance languages. And so that's not in the slightest bit how the Classical Latin died out.

[Anonymous No.3100331]

>>3100290
It is directly related to vulgar latin. When classical latin was used by competant writers, it was only a more polished and slightly more archaic version of their everday speech. Classical latin became mummified when the majority of the population became illiterate and was clung to as a little candle in the dark by the handful of educated people, like how the first literate romans, then so humble and worshipful of greek culture, wrote in greek. The mummified, academic latin of the late middle ages died out when the non-scholarly population became literate again, and, surprisingly, wanted to write down the actual words that they used.

[Anonymous No.3100343]

>>3100331

>the first literates of Roman civilization
>knowing Greek

pfft

>oversimplifying this issue to prove a point (what point I do not know)

Just stop it.

[Anonymous No.3100365]

Latin ---> Classical Latin + Vulgar Latin ---> Proto-Romance ---> Romance ---> le Bromance sì desu ne?

[Anonymous No.3100400]

>>3100343
Greek was spoken in the coastal cities of souther Italy and Sicily, and the latin alphabet was based on a bastardized version of the greek, or maybe a kind of greek cursive. Most early roman literature is either translation of imitation of greek. How can you argue that they weren't at least heavily familiar with Greek?
This is a topic worthy of a multi volume book, just what were you expecting from an idle post of 4chan? I'm also uncertain about what agenda you uncertainly say I have; care to explain your feelings on the matter?

[Anonymous No.3100461]

people that care about language are douchebags (see: this thread)

if latin was so great then why doesn't anyone speak it anymore?

language is only so useful in that it can facilitate thought and communication with oneself and others, languages that can do so will flourish (if communication and thought lead to having more kids or being culturally dominant which i think they do), and those that do not will die.

English is destroying world language, as french and latin did, because it has more linguistic power.