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En réponse à Padraic Brown <elemtilas@hidden.email>: > > > IIRC at that time > > the spoken and written language were not so > > different as two centuries later. > > A happy coincidence of that century. Even so, children > learn language by hearing and then speaking. Reading > comes only later. > But if the written language is not different from the spoken language, why calling it differently? > > Well, there would come a point when there is no > Classical Latin (the written standard) at all on > account of there being no Latin literarure. There > would still be some form of VL, though (until we reach > Common Italic!) which would be the ultimate ancestor > of all Latin derived languages. > But my point was that the labels "Vulgar Latin" and "Classical Latin" are valid only when you can really oppose a spoken language different from a written language (i.e. a situation of diglossia, which was the case during the Roman Empire). But I do not think that it's a valid point of view at the time of the beginning of the Roman Republic. When the spoken and written languages are identical or nearly so, why give them two different names? Now of course even the name "Classical Latin" doesn't fit anymore. But I used it as a convenient label in this case because the language spoken in that time looked much more like the *written* language of two centuries later than the *spoken* language. I hope this makes sense. Christophe. http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.