[YG Conlang Archives] > [romanceconlang group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
En réponse à James Campbell <james@hidden.email>: > > I heard recently (on TV I think) that Sardinian is considered 'closest > to' > Vulgar Latin. Can you tell me if that statement was right? > The person you heard saying that must have had mental health problems. The main characteristic of Sardinian is to be the only Romance language *not* descending from Vulgar Latin!!! It descends from an earlier form of Latin which was pretty close to Classical Latin. For this reason Classical Latin 'c' stayed /k/ in Sardinian *even* in front of front vowels (unlike any other Romance language) and the ending -us became -u instead of -o. Also, Sardinian keeps the -t of the 3rd person singular. And the vocabulary is definitely closer to Classical Latin than to Vulgar Latin, with for instance "iskire" for "to know", obviously coming from SCIRE instead of SAPERE, and "mannu" for "big", coming from MAGNUS instead of GRANDIS. See http://www.lingrom.fu-berlin.de/sardu/innere2.html for a bit on the Sardinian language. Note though that it has some peculiarities that make it look sometimes quite alien, like the article su/sa derived from IPSUM: "the same" rather than ILLE, or some sound changes that produces "limba": langage or "abba": water, from LINGUA and AQUA ;))) . > I once met an old chap who would read Romanian publications. He said > he > could easily understand it because it was so similar to the VL he'd > learnt > (for religious reasons, liturgies or something, I don't recall). > > Is this making any sort of sense? > Not to me. But there are more than one form of Vulgar Latin, and he may have learned an Eastern form, which indeed would have given birth to Rumanian. But with its sound changes like [kw] -> [p] (hence patru: four from QUATTUOR) and its postfixed article, I can't see a resemblance between the Vulgar Latin I know and Rumanian. Christophe. http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr It takes a straight mind to create a twisted conlang.