I read in the Encyclopedia Britannica that Sardinian is
the closest relative to Vulgar Latin. Does anyone have some links to comparative sample? Or any samples at all?
Does the language retain any noun declensions or other features of Latin that have been lost by its sisters? For that matter, how much of Classical grammar did Vulgar Latin retain?
If you want a reasonable answer, I suggest that you narrow your inquiry considerably.
First, what exactly do you mean by “vulgar Latin” This term is thrown around quite a bit, and its meaning is usually nebulous.
By Vulgar Latin people typically mean spoken Latin, i.e. not in high literary style. As with any other language, “Vulgar Latin” can be analyzed by region and by period. The deviation between spoken and literary Latin in the first century BCE in Italy is certainly different than the deviation in 5th century Carthage. I can help if you are more specific.
MR
Maeglin, you may see this twice because I was sure I posted it earlier.
Anyway. Yes I did mean spoken, colloquial latin but should have specified ‘LATE vulgar latin’, say around 600AD. The geographic area would be Sardinia, or at least greater Italy.
I’m interested to know whether late vulgar Latin or early Italian retained at least a vestigial case system on nouns,
perhaps to the degree that German does today. German
has distinctive markings on dative plurals (all genders are
merged in the plural), as well as genitives and masculine and neuter singular datives (though these last are somewhat
obsolescent).
German also features a more complete marking system in articles and strong adjective endings. Since romance language articles evolved from emphatic Latin articles (terminology?), like ‘ille’, ‘illo’, and ‘illa’, was there ever a time in early Romance /late Latin when case marking
occurred on the article?
The Sherden people, for which Sardinia was named, were one of the Sea People from the Aegean (or, less likely, Anatolia) who erupted a little after 1200BC. Their original language would thus have been an early Greek, Minoan or Lukkan dialect. Wouldn’t their Latin connection only date from 238BC when the Romans seized the island from the Carthaginians?
The Encyclopedia Americana says of Sardinians “their language has a closer affinity to Latin than modern Italian has.” I have heard the claim with respect to so many different languages that “this language is closer to Latin than any other living language” that I take all such claims with a grain of salt. You can see the Ave Maria and Pater Noster in Latin and Sardinian through http://www.christusrex.org/www1/pater/index.html
[list]
[li]Babbu nostru k’istas in sos kelos,[/li][li]Santificadu siat su nòmene tou,[/li][li]benzat a nois su regnu tou[/li][li]e fatta siat sa voluntade tua[/li][li]comente in su kelu gai in sa terra.[/li][li]Su pane nostru de dogni die dàdenolu oe,[/li][li]perdona a nois sos peccados nostros[/li][li]perdona a nois sos peccados nostros[/li][li]comente nois perdonamus sos inimigos nostros,[/li][li]e non nos lesses ruer in tentatzione,[/li][li]ma lìberanos dae su male.[/li][li]Amen in Gesus.[/li]I pasted one of the Sardinian samples above. For my money,
I think the claim that this is Latin-like is justified. Just reading to myself and imagining the sounds, it sounds
latin-like in much the same way as Italian does, only much more so. MOreover, I see at least possible inflection, namely kelos /kelu. And ‘perdonamus’ is very much like Latin.
One obvious, glaring difference, though would be the word Babbu. Could that have come from Greek or Phoenician?