# When did Latin "die"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 1, 2010, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307 "2010-01-01T18:02:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2010, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307/41 "2010-01-05T14:32:43Z")
> [@Xotan](#): > > English as spoken in America, as distinct from English as spoken in Britain - by educated people in both cases. My original posting had nothing to to with accent. > > The BBC English to which you refer is usually known as RP (Received Pronunciation) and was as much a weapon in the mouth of a certain class to keep to peasants in their place as anything. BBC does not use it much these days. It has gone for more vernacular accents. > > English as spoke in America is changing and moving away from the English I know and use. In a previous posting I asked a question about freepers. I honestly have no idea what it means. Such new terms proliferate. American English gave us the verb ‘to escalate’, expressions such as ‘no way’ (which is very Latinic, as it happens: cf ‘Nullo Modo’). I only recently figured out what ‘Birthers’ means. I think I know what a ‘Bubba’ is… an older man with a beard???..but cannot be sure. > > There is also the ease with which American English can create new verbs and nouns that is quite impossible in English English. > > Accent, although not part of my original argument, is also important. It ups the ante (American expression, surely - English preposition used as a verb; and Latin preposition used as noun) in the language shift stakes. I would venture that accent is the main factor in why Latin’s daughters differ in certain ways: e.g. the Italian sing-song, heavily stressed version; the Spanish machine-gun delivery of words; the French nasalities and unusual stress put to the end (pace those who would insist there is no tonic stress in French). > > Already enough - if I may be allowed to shift into Yiddish mode. And that btw is just one example of how the melting pot that was America had its language enriched. But that enrichment is also pointing away from the more rigid form of English spoken on the eastern shore of the Atlantic. > > As I said, I find this fascinating “Freeper” is slang, and shouldn’t be considered standard English. I doubt even 10% of Americans know what it means. I’m still no buying your statement that American English is diverging from British English. New words are created on both sides of the Atlantic and traded back and forth. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2010, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307/42 "2010-01-05T14:43:09Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I’m still no buying your statement that American English is diverging from British English. New words are created on both sides of the Atlantic and traded back and forth. Most English speakers around the world – in Britain, North America, South Asia, Australasia, etc. – are regularly exposed to other dialects of English through a wide variety of media, and also by personal contact. While this continues, English will continue to change, and there will continue to be a variety of dialects – those dialects are often influenced by the other languages that speakers are using – but English isn’t going to diverge into separate languages in the way that, e.g., Latin did in the past. ---
**Author:** ![Xotan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/278dde/32.png) [@Xotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xotan)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307/43 "2010-01-06T17:10:21Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > " > I’m still no buying your statement that American English is diverging from British English. As you please. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307/44 "2010-01-07T01:53:44Z")
The use of Latin expressions in English is often seen as pretentious and exclusionary. This is not without reason, of course. But I was recently looking at a list of Latin medical terms, and at this point in my life I know enough Latin to recognize most of them as perfectly ordinary down-to-earth language: _ante cibum_ - before a meal _modo praescripto_ - only as prescribed _ter in die_ - three times a day Yes, I realize that it’s arcane to a world that has such a small body of Latin speakers. But by the standards of the language’s own norms, medical Latin is generally plain and simple language. Well, it was a striking revelation to me, anyhow. ---
**Author:** ![2ply](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/b2d939/32.png) [@2ply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2ply)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307/45 "2010-01-07T02:27:25Z")
> [@Xotan](#): > > As you please. _Wanker_ jumped the Atlantic quite easily. America really needed that word, though, because \*jack off \*doesn’t sound quite as poetic or nuanced. ---
**Author:** ![Ignatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3be4f8/32.png) [@Ignatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignatz)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307/46 "2010-01-07T02:33:14Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Ignatz, did you bother to read the previous posts at all? That’s the same poem as in post #11. Obviously not. So I didn’t plagiarize. If I read all the posts, I’d never get thru New Posts. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307/47 "2010-01-07T03:14:40Z")
> [@Xotan](#): > > As you please. Not quite. This forum is for factual answers to questions. You posted an opinion or a personal observation which you are not able to substantiate with a cite. So, just to be clear, your observation has not been substantiated with any actual data or systematic analysis. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307/48 "2010-01-07T09:09:26Z")
Ignatz, if you don’t have time to read all the posts in a thread, then you don’t have time to post in that thread. Your opinions are not so important that they absolutely have to be posted to every thread, regardless of whether they’re merely a repetition of someone else’s opinion. The point of posting to a thread is adding something new, not just expressing your offhand reaction to an OP even if it doesn’t contribute anything new. ---
**Author:** ![Xotan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/278dde/32.png) [@Xotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xotan)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307/49 "2010-01-07T15:58:48Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Not quite. This forum is for factual answers to questions. You posted an opinion or a personal observation which you are not able to substantiate with a cite. So, just to be clear, your observation has not been substantiated with any actual data or systematic analysis. As I said: as you please. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307/50 "2010-01-07T21:02:34Z")
I think several posters have made the valuable point that the world-wide distribution of media - form the USA and Britain, and also from many other English-speaking countries - has served to limit the drift of English too far from a common core. Obviously the isolation, difficulty of travel and communications during the dark ages contributed significantly to the divergence of vrious lands’ local dialects. And the dominant local government eventually imposed their language on the region. Our french teacher once mentioned the “assang” (accent) of Marseilles and said that France had almost as varied a range of accents as England; in Italy, the Ponte D’Angelo in Venice is still now IIRC sometimes spelled Anzolo or Anzholo. And I receall reading a diatribe on English by some early writer (Peyps?) who mentioned that people from one area of northern England had a completely different word for egg, among other significant language differences. Like the mention of mass media today, the influence of the central/ruling class imposed their language on the rest. Then there’s episodes like “The Last French Lesson”, a story about the new school language and regimen imposed by the Germans when they conquered Alsace-Lorraine. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307/51 "2010-01-07T21:58:14Z")
> [@Xotan](#): > > All of these postings make me query if people are aware (particularly Americans) how quickly American English is separating from Standard English. And pronunciation is definitely part of this rift. > > Firstly, I have no idea what a freeper is - please enlighten. > > And then American English seems to abhor the letter ‘t’. EG ‘Sanna’ Claus, ‘Adlanna’, ‘wanna’, ‘gonna’, etc. > . A lot of this is the passing of the entertainment medium over to African American culture. This is easy to see in TV shows. Look at the way African Americans spoke on TV. Up until about 1998 or a bit before, the African Americans were using a “Standard” dialect for TV. Suddenly you had the influx of R&B and Hip Hop which replaced Rock/Pop music as mainstream. You also so more and more African Americans on TV. Suddenly the dialect, which is known to some as Ebonics, became more accepted. Now it seems every other black person on TV can’t pronounce the letter “R” without using the Elmer Fudd “W.” Or they can’t say “T” as another poster noted. This is another thread, but now it’s politically incorrect to say a “dialect,” is wrong. It is the same as saying someone speaking English is doing it wrong or their use is inferior. Now as long as the meaning is understood, we don’t care so much about spelling and pronunciation. And this is precisely how languages change. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307/52 "2010-01-08T03:51:07Z")
The range of “dialects” in France and Italy is actually greater than in the U.K. There are several languages in France that are close to French but diifferent enough to be counted as separate languages, not just dialects. The same is true of Italy. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307/53 "2010-01-08T04:05:07Z")
Can we determine how quickly the language is changing? I imagine an upper limit for rapidity would relate to human generation time. But I have suspicion that my own speech is subtly changing. ---
**Author:** ![Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellis_Aponte_Jr)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307/54 "2010-01-08T05:15:04Z")
> [@Xotan](#): > > Already enough - if I may be allowed to shift into Yiddish mode. Enough already. ---
**Author:** ![FemFourFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/34f0e0/32.png) [@FemFourFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FemFourFan)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307/55 "2014-03-26T00:02:32Z")
> [@2ply](#): > > _Wanker_ jumped the Atlantic quite easily. America really needed that word, though, because \*jack off \*doesn’t sound quite as poetic or nuanced. I can think of another example. Several years ago, I heard that the expression to “knock up” meant something very different to British people. In England, it meant “to wake somebody up” rather than “to get a girl pregnant.” East is east, and west is west, right? Well, AFTER I heard about this, the British film _Secrets and Lies_ came out, and there was a scene where a mother asks her daughter to use birth control, because she would not want somebody to “knock her up.” Keep in mind, this was a BRITISH character in a BRITISH setting. The American expression had jumped the pond was being used in England. Also, (and I wish I can remember the context) I saw some TV show where an American character said “grab a torch”, and they didn’t mean a flaming piece of wood, but rather a portable electric light—what we’ve called a “flashlight.” I don’t see “torch” replacing “flashlight” completely on this side of the Atlantic, but some Americans are seeing it as an alternative word. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307/56 "2014-03-26T00:05:00Z")
When someone wrote “The Divine Comedy”? Not sure but they say before it, every major Italian work was written in Latin. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307/57 "2014-03-26T16:04:27Z")
But the point with “newscaster english” is that mass media is spreading the one true way of pronouncing English across the world - effectively we are doing to the whole world what the ruling class/area did to a country (London, Paris, etc.). We are spreading the current dialect to everywhere that Hollywood/CNN reaches. Along with that, the backlog of movies and now television shows help “freeze” the language in a way latin never could. Educated latin would be read 9and spoken) by the very small educated elite. The great unwashed masses would have no contact with them, and no contact wih how their peers spoke 50 to 100 years before. Thanks to sound recording, today we do, and for the whole masses. thanks to worldwide distribution, we can show the whole world the “proper way to talk”. You hear anecdotes about many people tryiing to lose their regional accents because it makes them appear “uneducated”. There are perjoratives for redneck, hillbilly, people with extreme southern or rural accents. Even Canada has standing jokes about the intellect of “newfies”, based on the apparently unintelligible Newfoundland accent and typical isolated population. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307/58 "2014-03-26T19:06:18Z")
But when will this zombie die? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307/59 "2014-03-26T19:09:47Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Italian is almost mutually comprehensible with Vulgar Latin. In a sense, Vulgar Latin is, in fact, Italian; it’s changed quite a lot, but no more than English has. It really isn’t any more logical to consider English a continuous, constant language since the days of Ethelred the Unready than it would be to consider Vulgar Latin a continuous language from the days of Julius Caesar to today’s Italian. In fact, I suspect a modern Italian speaker might find Vulgar Latin easier to understand than an Anglophone would find pre-Norman English to understand. > do. SWMBO did her junior year abroad in Germany. During one of the school breaks, she went to Italy with several friends, one of whom was very fluent in Latin. He was able to communicate with most of the Italians with no problem, speaking to them in Latin and listening to their Italian responses. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307/60 "2014-04-03T16:56:41Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > SWMBO did her junior year abroad in Germany. During one of the school breaks, she went to Italy with several friends, one of whom was very fluent in Latin. He was able to communicate with most of the Italians with no problem, speaking to them in Latin and listening to their Italian responses. I used to joke around that I would try this one day, though that was well before I started studying Latin as a spoken language. Even now I think I’d have a hell of a time understanding and making myself understood to an Italian. Some Romanians who spoke Latin have told me that it’s very similar to their language, and so easy to pick up. But then one Italian I spoke to who also in Latin seemed to think the Romanians are full of beans on this point. Still, when I visit the local Mexican supermarket, my Latin does give me a pretty good idea what the signs and labels say. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-latin-die/523307.md?page=4)