# When did Latin become Italian/French/Spanish??? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 10, 2003, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-become-italian-french-spanish/218139 "2003-12-10T13:42:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-become-italian-french-spanish/218139/1 "2003-12-10T13:42:57Z")
I realize that Language is an ever evolving thing and that we can’t really apply a fixed date to this kind of thing with undisputable precision, but in discussing History when do we stop referring to the spoken language as Latin and start referring to it as Italian? as French? as Spanish? Also, why didn’t any Romance Languages evolve in the Eastern part of the former Roman Empire? . ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-become-italian-french-spanish/218139/2 "2003-12-10T13:58:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bienville \* > \*\*I realize that Language is an ever evolving thing and that we can’t really apply a fixed date to this kind of thing with undisputable precision, but in discussing History when do we stop referring to the spoken language as Latin and start referring to it as Italian? as French? as Spanish? \*\* As you just wrote, language evolve over time. However, the “birthdate” for the french language is traditionnally set in 842 AD, because on this year, the carolingian kings of “France” and “Germany” swore an oath of alliance, in Strasbourg, in front of their troops, and in order to be understood (or just because this was their own languages) , they used Old French and Old German instead of latin. This oath is the first document written in…err…let’s say french, though it would certainly be totally unintelligible to a modern french speaker. > [@](#): > > \*\* > Also, why didn’t any Romance Languages evolve in the Eastern part of the former Roman Empire? > \*\* If you’re refering to the middle-east, it would be because : -Under the roman rule, the lingua franca in these parts of the empire was greek, not latin -And anyway, greek was wiped out by the muslims and replaced by arabic (or latter turkish) However, if you’re refering to the balkans, Romanian is a romance language, as its name implies. ---
**Author:** ![Rashak\_Mani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-become-italian-french-spanish/218139/3 "2003-12-10T14:14:15Z")
France had two “languages” in fact for a long time… Langue d’Oc and the other I forgot. One prevailed and became French. Language is changing all the time so certainly putting a date is hard. As for the East… Romanian is a Romance… It would be interesting to hear from natives though if their languages have Romance influence. English for example has through french gotten a lot of Latin origin words. ---
**Author:** ![Sergio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b77776/32.png) [@Sergio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sergio)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-become-italian-french-spanish/218139/4 "2003-12-10T14:24:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Rashak Mani \* > \*\*France had two “languages” in fact for a long time… Langue d’Oc and the other I forgot. One prevailed and became French. \*\* The other language, the one that prevailed, was called Langue d’Oil. Each language received the name of the word for _yes_ . _Oil_ became _Oui_ . The Langue d’Oc survives more or less in dialects, like Occitan and Catalan. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-become-italian-french-spanish/218139/5 "2003-12-10T14:31:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bienville \* > \*\*Also, why didn’t any Romance Languages evolve in the Eastern part of the former Roman Empire? > \*\* _Romanian_, in the former province of Dacia. But the Eastern Empire was much more densely populated, by longstanding civilizations of equal or higher development as the Roman (Persian, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek) with a tradition of “do your thing locally, just send the taxes on time” management dating back to the Persians. In Iberia and Gaul there was room for large Roman _colonies_ to be established, and many political/legal/economic institutions were pretty much transplanted whole from Rome; also, the remaining Celtic populations were incentivized into assimilation and, for the upper echelons, even naturalization as Roman Citizens. Meanwhile, in the East the Romans tended to let local institutions and cultures continue on their merry way as long as they kept in line, the most common mechanism well into the Empire being to allow local princes to exercise authority on Rome’s behalf (e.g. the Herods). The East retained Greek as its _lingua franca_ of trade and education even all the way through Roman times. Even then, because of the populational/civilizational conditions mentioned above, in most of the Eastern Empire it did not necessarily become the _people’s_ language, but that of traders and elites. So when a new, more dynamic and aggressive dominant power arose (Arab Islam), its language took over. In the Balkans, neither Latin nor Greek really had penetrated THAT much (except for Dacia/Romania). ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-become-italian-french-spanish/218139/6 "2003-12-10T14:42:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Rashak Mani \* > \*\*France had two “languages” in fact for a long time… Langue d’Oc and the other I forgot. One prevailed and became French. Language is changing all the time so certainly putting a date is hard. > > As for the East… Romanian is a Romance… It would be interesting to hear from natives though if their languages have Romance influence. English for example has through french gotten a lot of Latin origin words. \*\* I know several romanians, and their language is definitely latin-based with slavic languages influences. As for the romance languages spoken in France, there was no such thing as a formal “langue d’oc” (southern France) or “langue d’oil” (northern France). Both were rather a family of regional dialects (for instance, the langues d’oc included the Provencal, the Auvergnat, the Limousin, the Gascon, etc…). Oil languages, quite similar to standart french (originally the oil language spoken in the Paris-Orleans area) had been essentially wiped out. Oc languages are dying. I used to understand (but not speak) Limousin as a child, but now, when I come back there, I rarely hear a word of Occitan, even amongst old people living in remote villages. Catalan is sometimes considered as an occitan language, but now more commonly held as an independant language, though closely related to occitan dialects. ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-become-italian-french-spanish/218139/7 "2003-12-10T15:20:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by clairobscur \* > **As you just wrote, language evolve over time. However, the “birthdate” for the french language is traditionnally set in 842 AD, because on this year, the carolingian kings of “France” and “Germany” swore an oath of alliance, in Strasbourg, in front of their troops, and in order to be understood (or just because this was their own languages) , they used Old French and Old German instead of latin. This oath is the first document written in…err…let’s say french, though it would certainly be totally unintelligible to a modern french speaker.** For those who know French and might want to give a shot at translating the oath, here is the text (I believe it is public domain). > [@](#): > > Pro Deo amur et pro christian poplo et nostro commun salvament, d’ist di en avant, in quant Deus savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo, et in adiudha et in cadhuna cosa, si cum om per dreit son fradra salvar dift in o quid il mi altresi fazet, et ab Ludher nul plaid nunquam prindrai qui meon vol, cist meon fradre Karlo in damno sit. Compare this with the (late) latin translation: > [@](#): > > Pro Dei amore et pro Christiano poplo et nostro communi salvamento, de ista die in abante, in quantum Deus sapere et potire mî donat, sic salvaro ego eccistum meum fratrem Karlum, et in adjutum ero in quâque una cosa sic quomodo homo per derectum suum fratrem salvare debet, in hoc quid ille mî alterumsic faceret; et ab Lothario nullum placitum numquam prendero quod meo volle eccisti meo fratri Karlo in damno sit. And modern French: > [@](#): > > Pour l’amour de Dieu, et pour le commun salut du peuple chrétien et le nôtre, dorénavant, autant que Dieu m’en donne savoir et pouvoir, je défendrai mon frêre Karle que voici, et par l’aide, et en chaque chose, ainsi qu’on doit par devoir défendre son frêre, à la condition qu’il me fasse de même; et avec Lothaire je ne prendrai aucun arrangement qui, par ma volonté, soit au préjudice de mon frêre Karle que voici. ---
**Author:** ![disponibilite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5daacb/32.png) [@disponibilite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/disponibilite)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-become-italian-french-spanish/218139/8 "2003-12-10T15:53:39Z")
Am a little curious about the correct prononciation of “langue d’oil”-----(at least the d’oil part) today and back in the 9th century. Would the “oi” be pronounced the same as in “moi”? ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-become-italian-french-spanish/218139/9 "2003-12-10T16:09:31Z")
[This site](http://www.lexilogos.com/etymologie_oil_oc.htm) ventures an answer. In early northern French, yes was simply “o”. They give the example: _li plus felons ne dit ne o ne non_. “Ne o ne non” means “neither yes nor no” (“ni oui ni non” in modern French). Sometimes, people would tack on a pronoun for emphasis - think “yes, I”, “yes, he”. This comes out as _o-je_, _o-nos_, etc. _O-il_ is the third-person variant that stuck. “O” tended to be pronouced somewhat like a modern “ou” sound and the word “oui” came from dropping the final “l”. A terrible basterdized English reading of “oil” would thus be: oh-ill, or ooh-ill. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-become-italian-french-spanish/218139/10 "2003-12-10T16:12:28Z")
> [@](#): > > The Langue d’Oc survives more or less in dialects, like Occitan and Catalan. I was under the impression that _Occitan_ means _Langue d’Oc_. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-become-italian-french-spanish/218139/11 "2003-12-10T17:35:20Z")
Antonio de Nebrija published his “Gramática sobre la lengua castellana” 18th of August, 1492, and it’s widely regarded as the first modern grammar. Not to say that Spanish became Spanish then, but if he wrote that book, the language would have been around for a while. Also, for it to work, I’d say that there had to be some consensus from the people to what the language was. Even linguist who proscribe need to be founded in reality, or a language will go the way of Esperanto. Catalan might be called a language now, but mostly it’s a dialect mixing Castellano and French. It’s the conceited people of Barcelona with their federalistic agenda that use this as an argument to put themselves above the rest of Spain. ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-become-italian-french-spanish/218139/12 "2003-12-10T17:57:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Gaspode \* > \*\*Catalan might be called a language now, but mostly it’s a dialect mixing Castellano and French. It’s the conceited people of Barcelona with their federalistic agenda that use this as an argument to put themselves above the rest of Spain. \*\* I’m not sure if I’m getting whooshed, but your post is misleading. Catalan did not originate as a mix of French and Castillian. The only (maybe) political issue with Catalan is whether it should be considered as a separate language from _Occitan_. Not French. Not Castillian. Catalan was one of the official languages of the Kingdom of Aragon, all the way back in the 15th century. It’s a language now, as it was then. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-become-italian-french-spanish/218139/13 "2003-12-10T18:47:16Z")
I was a bit hyperbolic. Catalan does have its own roots, but its significance rose due to the dictatorship of Franco. The generalisimo id his best to centralize power regarding everything, and that included suppressing dialects and any movement with the slightest hint of being separatistic. Due to this force, the language Catalan became a thing of national pride and after Franco’s death and the creation of autonomous regions, the Catalans successfully lobbied to make their dialect/language an official language of Spain (which it is, to no little expense). This goes hand in hand with the political agenda of the EU, which likes to put emphasism on regions, not national states. The fact is that Catalan was almost an archaic language, having only been resurrected recently for political purposes, not linguistic. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-become-italian-french-spanish/218139/14 "2003-12-10T19:42:52Z")
Catalan was indeed revived, in an impressive feat of linguistic preservation. But that’s not to say that it’s not legitimate to preserve a regional language, especially one like Catalan which is very much distinct from the national languages of the area. Spain is quite progressive in its protection of minority languages - granting co-official status to Galego, Catalan, and Basque - in comparison to France, which is notoriously oppressive of other languages in the area. Catalan’s revival may well be a reaction to the extraordinary oppression it suffered under Franco, but I don’t see how this makes it less important to protect the language; clearly there is major support from the populace of Catalonia, and why shouldn’t the government finance its use in schools and in the media? ---
**Author:** ![Rayne\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-become-italian-french-spanish/218139/15 "2003-12-10T19:56:03Z")
While Googling about the Romansh language spoken in Switzerland I came across this web site that shows a table about the various Romance languages. :- [http://www.liarumantscha.ch/en/index.html](http://www.liarumantscha.ch/en/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-become-italian-french-spanish/218139/16 "2003-12-10T20:10:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by acsenray \* > \*\*I was under the impression that _Occitan_ means _Langue d’Oc_. \*\* Yes and no. Literally, yes, it’s a coinage conveying the same meaning. But _langue d’oc_ or Provencal, customarily, refers to the language of the duchies of Aquitaine and Provence, effectively independent of Capetian France and the former a part of the Angevin Empire after 1180 or so. I.e., they were _national_ languages, with a flourishing literature and verbal arts, not local dialects of French (actually Aquitainian and Provencal were two dialects of Languedoc – which, confusingly, is also used to refer to the region of southern France in which it was spoken. “Occitan” refers to the language as a whole, from origins in late Latin down to the dying remnants of the present. Catalan, despite being spoken in Spain, is more closely related to Occitan than to Castilian Spanish, which is why it’s described as an Occitan language – it’s been distinct since the Counts of Barcelona declared autonomy from Provence in something like 1000 AD, and evolved quite separately, but they share an ancestry. It’s worth noting that spoken Latin in the later Roman Empire was not the tongue one learned in school, complete with Fifth Declension nouns, ablative absolute, and seven cases for some nouns, but rather “Vulgar Latin” (i.e., the language of the people (_vulgus_, not necessarily pejoratively used) and fairly similar to an admixture of early Spanish and Italian with a few case endings preserved and some of the elisions of those languages not yet in place. It had also adopted articles, converting _ille_ and _unus_ (“this” and “one” in Classic Latin) into “the” and “a(n)” – whence the modern Romance language articles (el, il, le, la, un(e), etc.). Romanian, uniquely among Romance languages, keeps a smattering of noun case endings – but only on definite nouns, where its variation on “ille” is appended as a suffix and declined. (Despite what we were taught in school, Spanish, French, etc., do have cases, but only for pronouns.) ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-become-italian-french-spanish/218139/17 "2003-12-10T21:03:19Z")
Gaspode, you’re confusing me. I thought the national language of Spain was Castilian…? ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-become-italian-french-spanish/218139/18 "2003-12-10T23:18:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Excalibre \* > Catalan’s revival may well be a reaction to the extraordinary oppression it suffered under Franco, but I don’t see how this makes it less important to protect the language; clearly there is major support from the populace of Catalonia, and why shouldn’t the government finance its use in schools and in the media? I’m certainly no fan of Franco, but Catalan was ‘dead’ long before he came to power, in the 1700’s IIRC. I think a language should survive on its own merits, not as a way to appease a strong, vocal, but still minority, as a political tool. I especially don’t think it should be tax funded, but that’s venturing into GD. I’ve lived in Spain. I’m not an expert, but I think I’ve got some insight to what’s going on there. Catalunya is the richest, if not most populous province. It’s socio-economics is the closest to the rest of Europe, whereas a lot of the rest of Spain has a gnawing feeling of being provincial. There is a strong movement, albeit not as militant as in Basque Country, for independence from Spain. And the Catalans are certainly conceited, having a noveau-riche attitude and acting superior all the time. They tend to forget that the central administration, in Madrid, does a lot for the province, mainly because there is a lot of clout to be gained. Madrid is happy to screw less fortunate provinces, but needs to keep Catalunya happy. That’s my main beef with the Catalan language - it’s just part of a political ploy. **Nametag** - Castellano, or Castilian in English, is another name for Spanish. They’re interchangeable.