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--- Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren_jan@hidden.email> wrote: > --- James Campbell skrzypszy: > > > I heard recently (on TV I think) that > Sardinian is considered 'closest to' > > Vulgar Latin. Can you tell me if that > statement was right? > > I have heard this opinion, too. I don't know > much about Sardinian; all I can > tell you is that Sardinian is a very archaic > language that split off from Latin > in a relatively early stage (1st century?). This is true, that Sardinian began its independent evolution a little earlier. But that shouldn't be taken to mean that Sardinian is any closer to Vulgar Latin than any other Romance language. Remember: the Vulgar Latins that will give rise to Gallego and Provencal won't even be _spoken_ for another several centuries in the future! ;) > > 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). > > Well, I'm not an expert on Romanian either, but > based on what I have seen and > heard from Romanian, I don't think that can be > true. It's probably the same phenomenon that allows Christophe his _very_ good comprehension of Kerno; or a Spanish speaking friend of mine's comprehension of Latin; or our understanding of Chacucer. If there's enough similarity in roots between two languages, the speaker of one can often generally get the gist of the other. I agree, though, that Romanian is not as _obviously_ similar to Latin as say Spanish or Italian. Padraic. ===== il becko Jowans backalars sew ncorne tan llar'ment ys wentast; yen dia s' ouws desfussiont co lê corn sew dda li cabast. .