0:00

Hi everybody. Patrick here for

0:02

this week. We're rebroadcasting one of very

0:04

favorite episodes of tides of History. How

0:06

Latin became the romance languages from

0:09

all the way back in November of 2017.

0:11

In the centuries, following

0:14

the end of the Roman Empire. The various Regional

0:16

flavors of Latin spoken everywhere

0:18

from North Africa, to go to Italy to

0:20

Britain, divert changed

0:22

and evolved into what eventually became the

0:25

romance languages. How and

0:27

why did this happen? Well, let's talk

0:29

about historical linguistics

0:31

has been a passion of mine for a really really

0:33

long time and i absolutely loved

0:35

doing this episode thanks for joining

0:37

me today and hope you all enjoy this one as much as

0:51

in the hillside favelas of rio desean their

0:53

of kids are playing so they

0:56

, and yell out import import

1:02

parian city siting laugh legacies

1:05

chattering legacies university

1:08

students in bucharest absorbers

1:10

and their absorbers romania mexico

1:13

city tv native anchors read

1:16

out the anchors and spanish in

1:20

the bucharest the stadium milan sia to in

1:22

milan fans of the city laugh

1:24

fans chan in italia as

1:30

and read milan people around

1:32

the globe to they her the legacy of

1:34

rome ever time they speak

1:38

latin language and it desean the romance

1:40

languages are one of the roman empire

1:42

great legacies to the one some

1:46

of the romance languages like spanish and portuguese

1:48

how hundreds of millions of speakers others

1:52

like romance or gascon have

1:54

only tens or hundreds thousands whether

1:57

its a sun bather on ipanema beach

2:00

a rice farmer in the philippines or a

2:02

shepherd in apennine mountains of italy language

2:05

ultimately leads back to the tongues

2:07

spoken in the italian the region of latium

2:10

all these roads lead back to rome but

2:13

those roads take long and winding

2:15

path back through hundreds thousands

2:17

of years language

2:20

change is a glacially slow phenomenon

2:23

we have to go back past the works

2:25

of voltaire svante and dante

2:29

we have to return to the years as and

2:31

after the roman empire fell apart

2:33

in west what

2:35

happened how did latin

2:38

splinter into a vast array

2:40

of different tongues and why that

2:43

is what going to find out

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from wondery this is tides of history

4:26

and , wyman wyman for joining

4:28

me joining outside the

4:30

vatican there arent a whole lot

4:33

of people speaking latin people days but

4:36

latin is still with us each still

4:38

every day we hear

4:40

in legal terminology in hear like habeas

4:42

corpus we hear it in

4:45

english every time we say something like abdomen

4:47

or exterior loan words

4:49

directly from latin we

4:51

hear it when we say revision are necessary

4:54

terms that came to english from norman french but

4:57

which were ultimately derived from latin finally

5:00

we hear latins children directly

5:03

in the form of the romance languages from

5:05

spanish to portuguese to french

5:07

to romanian and everything in between

5:10

if head back all the way

5:13

to about four hundred bc there

5:15

was no reason to think that latin would become

5:17

the progenitor of all this linguistic

5:19

diversity at

5:21

that point time rome was just a

5:23

city on tiber latin

5:26

was just one of a whole bunch

5:28

of different languages italy but

5:30

language follows empire as

5:34

roman military political and

5:36

economic power expanded first

5:38

over italy and then throughout the mediterranean

5:40

and beyond latin went with

5:44

by the second century a the after

5:46

couple of centuries of roman rule books

5:49

were speaking latin all over the roman

5:51

empire could

5:53

grow up speaking latin in norman in southern

5:55

france on marina

5:57

right on the fringe of sahara desert simona

6:01

along the adriatic in what's now croatia

6:04

far in far off ebook encore whats now

6:06

york in northern england latin

6:09

had spread right along with roman soldiers

6:12

roman trade goods roman bath houses

6:16

most of all latin had spread throughout

6:19

the provinces with romans themselves

6:22

the roman empire wasnt just political union

6:25

it was space a whole interconnected

6:28

world of movement this

6:31

is the fundamental fact the roman

6:33

empires existence within

6:35

its borders and beyond goods

6:38

people and ideas were constantly

6:40

motion the

6:43

empire drove that movement by sending soldiers

6:45

all over the place and by creating demand for

6:47

some kinds of goods the

6:50

empire also promoted that movement indirectly

6:52

by providing the infrastructure and the environment

6:55

that encouraged as

6:57

the roman empire came apart in the fifth

7:00

and sixth centuries so did

7:02

linguistic unity of the roman world

7:05

over the following centuries and well into the middle

7:07

ages latin spoken into

7:10

the different parts of what had been the western empire

7:12

split into regional varieties

7:16

eventually somebody born in naples

7:18

wouldnt be able to understand somebody born in paris

7:24

so lets take step back here lets lay out some

7:26

basics the

7:28

most important thing to bear in mind

7:30

here is that language is always

7:32

changing grammarians

7:35

and those who fancy themselves grammarians may

7:37

wish that this wasnt case

7:39

if youve ever written for a publication youve

7:42

almost certainly gotten message

7:44

castigating you for some barbarism

7:46

in your language guardians

7:49

of pure language and bless their hearts for

7:51

their efforts are always

7:53

fighting a losing battle to

7:56

change slowly and often

7:58

imperceptibly just the nature languages

8:00

is just what it does these

8:03

changes take many forms sometimes

8:06

their changes pronunciation some

8:09

pronunciations might fall out of use except

8:11

in really specific places take

8:14

the non the erotic r of stereotypical

8:16

boston accent the car

8:18

pronunciation of car that

8:21

used to be much more widespread

8:22

these

8:25

kinds of systematic sound shifts are

8:27

called phonological change other

8:30

times there are shifts in the meaning

8:32

of particular words is

8:35

how literally came to double as

8:37

figuratively its good example this

8:41

is called semantic change there

8:44

changes in syntax and how we put

8:46

sentences together and structure them or

8:49

changes in orthography in how

8:51

we write or spell words and sentences

8:54

these could just be a shift in how people are taught

8:57

to write or they might reflect

8:59

the deeper kinds of changes that we just talked

9:01

about isnt isnt

9:03

a comprehensive list or a comprehensive set

9:05

of explanations by any means but theyre good

9:07

enough for our purposes in

9:10

these changes can take place among particular social

9:13

groups or more commonly in particular

9:15

places sometimes

9:17

they spread up and down social scale moving

9:20

down through social classes from fancy

9:22

aristocrats until they reach ordinary workers

9:24

or vice versa sometimes

9:27

they seep outward from people in places

9:30

through social networks in everyday contact

9:33

is is called contagious diffusion

9:35

or the neighborhood effect in

9:38

other cases those language innovations

9:40

jump from urban center to urban

9:42

center skipping the countryside in

9:44

between this is called hierarchical

9:47

diffusion or parachuting

9:51

when we put them all together what we get

9:53

is a language change and whole bunch

9:55

of different dimensions all at once its

9:58

happening everywhere the time in

10:00

the speech of every single person

10:03

you dont have to be one of greats to participate

10:05

in these kinds of shifts every

10:08

time we try out a new word or accent

10:10

shifts a bit were contributing to these kinds

10:13

of long term large scale changes

10:18

if language is always changing does that mean

10:20

language changes random sound

10:23

change is regular and follows particular

10:25

rules when we compare

10:27

languages we can work backwards and find

10:30

the features their common ancestor shared

10:33

this comparative method is how we

10:35

can split languages up into families

10:39

eventually by working backwards we

10:41

can reconstruct the common ancestors or

10:44

say french and spanish we know

10:46

the common ancestor was latin what

10:49

what about english german or

10:52

irish greek or

10:54

russian hindi we

10:56

dont have texts that represent their common

10:58

ancestor all

11:01

these languages belong to the indo european

11:04

language family they share a common

11:06

ancestor called proto indo european

11:09

was spoken thousands of years ago probably

11:12

on the eurasian steppe north of black

11:14

sea within

11:16

the indo european family we have sub families

11:19

germanic which contains english

11:21

and german descended from proto germanic

11:25

celtic with irish and welsh along

11:27

with extinct languages like gaulish slavic

11:30

with russian czech and so and

11:34

italic with latin and its descendants

11:37

language change is a glacially

11:40

slow process for

11:42

example we can still easily understand

11:44

the english spoken century ago

11:46

listen to teddy roosevelt give a campaign speech

11:48

in nineteen twelve great fundamental

11:51

issue before our people

11:53

can indians

11:56

are the american people fit govern

11:58

themselves to to control

12:02

i believe are i parents

12:04

do i believe in the people

12:08

i believe majority plain

12:10

people the united states will

12:12

day in than day out make fewer

12:14

mistakes in governing themselves than

12:16

any smaller glass or body of men

12:19

no matter what that training will make

12:21

trying the govern

12:22

and heres winston churchill in nineteen

12:24

o nine how

12:30

of addressing how many thousands people

12:33

whom i thousands on

12:36

many grounds we

12:38

may commend the

12:42

make provisions the

12:44

exactly we

12:47

, know exactly how english would of sounded

12:50

centuries ago but heres shakespearian

12:52

actor ben crystal giving hamlets famous

12:54

to be or not to be speech in reconstructed

12:57

original pronunciation of the seventeenth

12:59

century to that or not not

13:04

to or outrageous

13:09

or take arms against that

13:16

no more say we

13:19

end the heartache thousand natural

13:21

shocks to flesh say

13:24

cons wow

13:27

just listen to that it sounds like a mixture

13:29

of a whole bunch of different regional

13:31

english accents with regional bit of american thrown

13:34

in there as well doesnt sound like anything

13:36

that you would hear on its own today and

13:38

yet we can still hear ourselves today in

13:40

it

13:40

even that is still easily

13:43

understandable to us today four centuries

13:45

after the fact

13:48

this gives you a sense for how long the time

13:50

scales are talking about here really are

13:53

we can still make pretty solid sense

13:55

of shakespearean english from four hundred years

13:57

ago then it stands reason

14:00

that cicero and saint augustine could understood

14:02

each other the same goes

14:04

for augustine charlemagne

14:07

when we talk about the transformation from

14:09

latin to romance were talking

14:11

about a series of up and down overlapping

14:14

ongoing processes that lasted

14:16

from millennium

14:19

latin wasnt static over centuries of

14:21

use by millions people

14:23

the shift into what we call the romance

14:25

languages was just a continuation of

14:27

changes that had already been happening for centuries

14:31

before we start to talk about those shifts lets

14:33

briefly go over the linguistic situation

14:35

in roman empire wasnt

14:37

nearly as straightforward as we might think

14:41

in the early days of roman republic italy

14:43

was a tapestry of linguistic diversity

14:47

latin was just the language of the city of rome

14:49

and its environs the region of latium

14:52

in had closely related cousin pelican

14:55

in the same region more

14:57

distantly related cousins like askin

14:59

umbrian and volkan could be found elsewhere

15:02

italy

15:04

these all belonged to the italic

15:06

language family one of branches of indo

15:08

european that we talked about earlier

15:12

just to the north of rome were the etruscans

15:14

who spoke a language totally unrelated to

15:16

latin it wasnt

15:18

italic it wasnt even indo european in

15:22

the south of italy and in sicily were

15:24

a number greek colonies as

15:26

youd expect the spoke greek as

15:29

the romans expanded outwards from the city

15:31

into peninsula so did latin

15:35

theres a famous saying that a languages

15:37

a dialect with an army and navy

15:40

language followed empire throughout

15:42

first italy then beyond

15:45

spain north africa the balkans

15:47

gaul and britain all the fell under roman

15:50

power latin went with

15:52

the soldiers merchants and colonists

15:54

who followed the expansion of roman power

15:57

eastern mediterranean where greek was

16:00

language latin never really

16:02

took hold

16:03

even in areas where latin eventually became

16:05

dominant it wasnt the only language

16:09

in africa punic went right on

16:11

being spoken into fourth or fifth century

16:13

if not even later

16:14

were were still gaulish speakers gaul into

16:17

the late empire

16:19

latin obviously never fully displaced the celtic

16:21

languages of britain which became welsh cornish

16:25

todays albanian is the descendant of

16:27

an indo european language that survived

16:29

right alongside lat

16:31

in the east where latin never took hold

16:33

there was a wild amount of linguistic diversity

16:35

we dont fully need to explore here so

16:39

this was the environment in which latin was

16:41

operating as the language of the roman

16:43

empire or at least the western

16:46

part the roman empire this

16:48

was the base from which the romance languages sprang

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latin wasnt static during the roman

18:37

empires time of dominance languages

18:41

, changing it always

18:43

varies from place to place and social

18:45

group to social latin

18:47

was no exception its

18:50

not necessarily easy for us to tell

18:52

precisely how latin varied changed

18:54

over time obviously

18:57

we dont have sound recordings to tell us how

18:59

people actually spoke instead

19:02

we have to rely on written texts but

19:06

written texts can obscure as

19:08

much as they tell see see

19:10

people dont write as they talk

19:13

have have to learn to write you have to learn

19:15

to spell

19:16

that process of learning a being

19:18

taught by someone who has themselves

19:21

learned obliterates a lot the

19:23

regional and social distinctiveness

19:25

of language

19:28

we might use a dialect word or phrase

19:31

speech

19:32

if we were talking about the house on the opposite

19:34

corner the street for example id probably

19:37

say kitty corner id never

19:39

write kitty corner though

19:41

if i were writing about that same house on opposite

19:44

corner id say diagonal

19:46

the same is true for spelling pronunciation

19:50

natives of london sydney calgary

19:53

or los angeles might all pronounce car

19:55

a little differently but would all write

19:57

it precisely the same

20:00

there's a written standard an english

20:02

that admits only minor differences in spelling

20:06

even leaving aside regional differences nobody

20:09

alive today pronounces

20:11

english as they write

20:13

we have a late middle english orthography

20:16

married to constantly evolving pronunciation

20:20

we say a word not the

20:22

letters that make it up

20:24

latins written standard was even more

20:26

powerful than that of english today

20:29

it lasted for centuries more or

20:31

less unchanged as long as the

20:33

latin educational system survived

20:37

to learn to write was to learn to write

20:39

in particular way that

20:42

particular way was based

20:44

on the same curriculum and same ideal

20:47

of what latin was supposed to look like thats

20:50

not to say the written language was always

20:52

the same everywhere and it every time and

20:54

absolutely was it

20:57

, by educational level and by the kind

20:59

of text were talking about but

21:03

changes in the written language were often

21:05

just that changes and the written

21:07

language they werent necessarily

21:09

connected to shifts in how people were actually

21:12

speaking the language

21:13

so

21:16

if written latin it is its own

21:18

beast what can tell us about

21:20

spoken latin well

21:22

we have direct evidence of people

21:24

talking about their language

21:27

they might mention particular words as belonging

21:30

particular regions

21:32

sometimes they talk about accents about sounds

21:35

otherwise consistent misspellings

21:38

of words can point to buried underlying

21:40

differences between pronunciation and

21:42

writing inscriptions

21:45

are common over the roman empire

21:48

they can tell us a bit about regular speech

21:50

but not as much scholars used to think

21:53

are also some casual texts that

21:55

are less influenced by the written standard

21:58

that are pretty revealing about everyday speech

22:01

category would include things like the papyri

22:03

found in egypt or the wooden tablets

22:05

from the fort at indiana on egypt wall

22:08

in britain

22:10

scholars have carefully studied all of this

22:12

evidence and theyve come up with some really interesting

22:14

key points

22:17

i won a point in particular to the work of a

22:19

scholar named j n adams who wrote

22:21

a trio of definitive books on

22:23

the actual use of latin bilingualism

22:26

in the latin language the regional diversification

22:29

of latin and social variation

22:32

and the latin language adams

22:34

his the over the of the field of latin sociolinguistics

22:38

and his work looms over most of what

22:40

telling you here today read

22:42

this whole section with his name in mind as

22:44

footnote when we put all this

22:46

together what do we learn

22:49

from foremost we learned that latin did

22:51

vary from social group to social group and

22:53

place to place were

22:55

were accents and words that contemporaries

22:58

thought were characteristic of particular places

23:02

we know that those patterns of accent or how

23:04

people perceived them changed over

23:06

time in

23:08

the republic of the second and first centuries

23:10

bc when latin was mostly restricted

23:13

to italy still people remarked

23:15

on the difference between the city accent and

23:17

the country accent of surrounding region

23:21

in the empire as latin spread across

23:23

europe and north africa folks mentioned

23:25

features that they considered characteristic

23:27

of whole regions outside italy when

23:30

latin the moved into provinces changed

23:34

adams lists five reasons for this

23:36

and theyre worth going over

23:38

first when you put a language in a new

23:40

physical environment it has to adapt

23:43

to topographical and biological features

23:45

that dont exist in homeland

23:48

think about words like mesa or

23:50

cougar english

23:52

you didnt need terms for them back essex

23:54

or yorkshire

23:55

second

23:57

provincial varieties latin in

24:00

contact with other vernacular languages

24:03

unique in africa galician goal

24:05

iberian and spain and so on

24:08

those contacts could influence a whole array

24:10

of things from loanwords to pronunciation

24:12

third latin

24:15

back in the homeland didnt stop evolving

24:17

once the language was planted in provinces

24:21

there were changes in latin in italy that

24:23

the provincial varieties didnt share just

24:25

like there changes in england to day that we dont

24:27

share in america

24:30

fourth the reverse was also

24:33

provincial varieties of latin could accumulate

24:35

changes that the latin italy didnt acquire

24:39

fifth and finally there may be interaction

24:41

between different dialects provinces

24:45

speakers of multiple varieties of latin

24:47

came into contact with one another and features

24:49

blended together

24:52

regional variation in latin matters

24:54

because we know how this story ends with

24:56

latin splintering into whole whole array

24:59

a regional romance languages if

25:03

latin already had regional variations

25:05

in the first couple of centuries already does

25:07

that mean the romance languages already

25:09

developing during the roman empire

25:12

well a lot of scholars of romance

25:15

have argued for exactly that

25:18

by using the comparative method that we talked

25:20

about working backwards from the later romance

25:22

languages theyve made the case that

25:24

there were already proto romance

25:27

languages hiding underneath

25:29

written standard of latin some

25:32

have even argued that this process started as

25:35

early as the first century bc

25:39

but this almost certainly wrong

25:41

its based on lot of unfounded assumptions

25:44

about language basically getting set

25:46

at the moment its introduced into a region

25:48

then evolving on its own unconnected

25:51

from whats going on elsewhere

25:53

are also some weird ideas here about

25:55

the relationship between the written standard and

25:57

spoken language

26:00

the flip side to this view is closer

26:02

to the truth but it's still kind of wrong

26:05

that there was a really homogeneous spoken

26:07

latin hiding underneath written standard

26:11

scholars of this particular viewpoint called spoken

26:13

language vulgar latin vulgar

26:17

doesnt mean dirty it just means belonging to

26:19

the public or people in

26:21

this view vulgar latin the spoken

26:24

language was the actual ancestor

26:26

of romance it wasnt the written

26:28

latin of cicero or seneca this

26:31

makes sense in an intuitive kind way language

26:34

that the vast majority of the people are speaking

26:37

every day is going to have more

26:39

of an impact on the spoken language that evolves

26:41

from it than a really restricted written

26:44

standard

26:46

there were a lot of words and word meanings

26:48

and usages that we know existed

26:50

in spoken latin that rarely

26:52

made appearances and high class written language

26:56

for example the words that gave us ablate

26:58

in spanish and parle in in french

27:01

to speak

27:02

derived from terms that werent used that

27:04

way in classical written latin

27:07

but theres of problem of evidence here

27:11

most of the support for this vulgar latin

27:13

hypothesis for the idea of a homogeneous

27:16

spoken latin everywhere throughout the

27:18

empire comes from inscriptions

27:20

we have tens of thousands of these inscriptions

27:23

from the roman empire roman huge

27:25

body of texts to work with given

27:28

that volume we might expect there to be real

27:30

regional differences but

27:33

there arent

27:34

this is why those scholars infer

27:36

a pretty uniform spoken vulgar

27:39

latin across the empire but

27:42

its easy to forget that inscriptions are still written

27:44

text theyre not speech people

27:46

had to be taught how to write were

27:49

were conventions of formula and spelling

27:51

that went into inscriptions

27:53

once again the written standard obscures

27:56

the actual fact of peoples everyday speech

28:00

so there wasn't a protos spanish

28:02

and a proto with how he in in a pro to french

28:05

running around the towns of iberia italy

28:07

and goal during the roman period

28:10

but there also wasnt a homogeneous

28:12

vulgar latin that was exactly the same

28:14

in rome london carthage and media

28:18

there really were regional varieties of

28:20

latin but they were more what we think of

28:22

as accents than genuine divergent

28:24

dialects

28:27

how theyre both kind of squishy terms but

28:29

dialect implies fairly deep

28:32

differences structure accent

28:34

is more about sound and word choice thats

28:38

the middle ground that the most recent and the most

28:40

thorough scholarship brings us to so

28:44

what does that mean practice

28:47

well it meant that latin speakers had

28:49

thoughts on what defined regional accents

28:51

somebody from rome could

28:53

presumably tell that someone from spain or

28:56

africa had a way of speaking that

28:58

differed in meaningful ways from their they

29:01

pronounced things differently used different

29:04

words this

29:06

isnt the same thing as anticipating

29:08

the romance languages that would eventually develop

29:10

in those areas when

29:12

a roman from italy compared the way she spoke

29:15

to the latin of somebody from gull it wasnt

29:17

because she saw french coming a thousand years

29:19

down the road

29:20

as because she had concept of gaul

29:23

as a geographic region and a concept

29:25

of gauls as people with notable

29:27

characteristics

29:30

but lets get more concrete what

29:33

kinds of differences do we actually

29:36

well we see a lot regionally specific

29:38

words were

29:41

quite a few of these so we wont list them all we

29:44

see deus deus instead of deus

29:46

for god and britain thats influence

29:49

from the native celtic language the

29:51

the serves the beer in

29:53

gallic latin thats a

29:55

loan word from the celtic gaulish language

29:59

the word has survived present day in spanish

30:01

but it was replaced by one germanic origin

30:03

in french itself the

30:06

latin of northern gaul and that of britain seems

30:08

to of shared a lot of similarities they

30:11

shared a common background related varieties

30:14

of celtic been spoken there before the roman

30:16

conquest the were also

30:18

pretty close geographically were

30:20

bit isolated from the rest of the empire

30:22

or at least the dominant mediterranean

30:24

part

30:26

spanish and italian latin likewise had

30:28

some distinctive features

30:32

the accent attracted the most attention

30:34

from contemporaries was the latin of africa

30:37

this africas how africanus

30:40

was consistently noteworthy for centuries

30:43

about outsiders and africans

30:45

themselves talked about

30:48

the great saint augustine one of the most important

30:50

christian theologians was a native of

30:52

hippo regius whats now algeria

30:55

riding in the fourth century he said this should

30:59

, say the you will easily attain

31:01

state of language free from faults of expression

31:03

and pronunciation i would certainly lie

31:07

for i myself upon whom there has

31:09

been has great compulsion to learn these things

31:11

thoroughly am still criticized

31:13

by the italians in the matter of many sounds

31:15

within words and they in their turn

31:17

are criticized by me in the matter of it

31:21

is one thing to be secure ones training

31:23

another in ones birth

31:26

unlike the other varieties where we mostly

31:29

have evidence of particular words that stood

31:31

out we know that african latin sounded

31:33

different augustine tells

31:35

us so as we just heard whats

31:38

very cool is that we know how sounded different

31:42

so latin has the vowels of variable

31:44

length

31:45

long eye short eye long

31:47

eye short eye and so

31:50

latin speaker would distinguish between us

31:52

with a short vowel meaning bone and us

31:55

with a long vowel meaning mouth african

31:59

variety latin these distinctions

32:01

between long and short vowels were lost

32:05

people like augustine couldnt hear the difference

32:07

while people elsewhere the empire still

32:10

i mean think about their their vowels in every

32:12

word even educated

32:14

speakers of african origin like augustin

32:17

or the emperor septimius severus didnt

32:19

make that distinction you

32:21

would heard this every time somebody

32:23

opened their mouth

32:27

so we know there were regional varieties

32:29

latin roman speakers of the

32:31

language had accents and particular words

32:33

that folks thought of defining those regional

32:35

varieties

32:38

we know this because dedicated research

32:40

has laid out scattered but substantial evidence

32:43

for social

32:45

variation also played a role here

32:48

writers occasionally commented on rustic

32:50

or plebeian speech

32:52

educated speakers of latin were more aware

32:54

of the standard of what proper latin was

32:57

supposed sound theres

32:59

evidence that they could shift their speech to accommodate

33:03

i mean this is true speakers of practically

33:05

all languages today so this isnt really shocking

33:08

i know folks with phds whose language shifts

33:10

depending on whether theyre with theyre friends and private or

33:13

speaking publicly academic colleagues

33:16

im sure you can think of examples of you doing this yourself

33:18

people who do

33:21

would all that evidence hasnt turned up

33:23

as a lack have mutual intelligibility

33:27

as weve discussed someone from britain

33:29

would have been aware that someone from africa spoke

33:31

latin differently but theres zero

33:34

indication that the two couldnt have understood

33:36

each other why

33:38

is

33:39

how in an empire that stretched

33:42

from britain to the sahara and its latin

33:44

speaking parts how could everybody

33:46

understand each other

33:49

the answer to that question lies in term

33:52

called coin ization

33:54

comes from the greek word coin a which means

33:56

a standard language or dialect that

33:58

comes about through the mixing of a bunch

34:00

of dialects or varieties of that language

34:03

the classic

34:05

example of this process is the version of the greek

34:07

language that came about during the hellenistic

34:09

period after alexander the greats conquests

34:12

this was when the dialects of classical greek

34:15

all got mixed together into new

34:17

and widely intelligible standard

34:19

during

34:21

the roman empire in those first few centuries

34:23

the the latin was constantly

34:26

undergoing this process colonization

34:29

the reason folks from britain and north africa

34:32

from spain the balkans could all

34:34

understand each other was because people

34:36

were constantly moving within the

34:38

roman empire

34:40

weve talked about this before remember

34:42

the episodes on cities and the volume of trade

34:44

between them well trade

34:47

goods didnt move on people

34:49

had to move

34:50

merchants sailors and carter were

34:52

always traveling from port port city

34:55

to city

34:56

soldiers were constantly in motion moving from

34:58

one posting to next government

35:01

officials and tax collectors were always on

35:03

the road attending to official business

35:06

slaves obviously werent making the choice to move

35:08

but they too were mobile people within the

35:10

roman empire others

35:12

moved from province to province for voluntary reasons

35:16

long and the short of it is that the roman

35:18

empire has be understood as a space

35:21

of movement the empire

35:23

encouraged enabled that movement

35:27

this has clear implications for the latin

35:29

language regional

35:31

varieties of latin accents we talked

35:33

about earlier were constantly coming

35:35

into contact with one another

35:38

they werent isolated through

35:40

that constant contact they were leveling

35:43

out the major differences between regions

35:48

latin wasnt the same everywhere there were

35:50

real noticeable differences and accent

35:52

and word choice regional

35:54

and local varieties were always evolving

35:56

and the roman empire

35:59

but because of that constant

36:01

movement of people variations

36:03

never became too large

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the end of the roman empire as a political

37:11

unit eventually brought about the

37:13

end of the roman world as a space

37:15

of movement interaction

37:18

the direct action of the state in moving

37:20

goods like grain and olive oil through the tax

37:22

system and people through the army

37:24

came to in so

37:27

to did the environment it had created which made

37:29

it easy for private individuals to move

37:31

around within that space over

37:34

, course the fifth sixth and seventh

37:37

centuries it got harder and harder

37:39

to move around trade slowed

37:41

from a flood to a tiny trickle roman

37:44

provinces turned into barbarian kingdoms

37:48

borders harden

37:51

this was actually the subject of my doctoral dissertation

37:53

so its topic ive spent a lot time on

37:55

over the years

37:58

the implication of this shift a world

38:00

of easy movement one difficult movement is

38:02

clear

38:04

latin had retained its essential unity

38:06

because people from all over the roman world

38:08

were constantly coming into contact with one

38:12

when that contact stopped it was

38:14

only matter time before latin splintered

38:16

low and behold thats eventually

38:19

what we see this

38:21

was a slow process though for

38:24

that matter so was the end of the roman empire

38:26

as ive now spent thirty something episodes over

38:28

a couple of different shows talking about it wasnt

38:31

event but a long series of

38:33

interlocking things that played out over the

38:35

course of centuries

38:37

in that vein the kind of movement that had

38:39

defined the roman world and had kept latin

38:41

pretty homogeneous didnt die out overnight

38:44

but

38:46

as had had before latin kept evolving

38:50

we can see that evolution in sixth

38:52

seventh and eighth centuries

38:55

the written standard was there just as had

38:57

been all along

38:59

you can read an early medieval latin text

39:01

an not think that all that much changed

39:04

were still folks

39:06

teaching how to write latin in ways that werent all

39:08

that different from a couple of centuries before

39:11

maybe the bible became a little more influential

39:13

maybe fewer people were reading cicero but otherwise

39:15

not that much really changed

39:19

my favorite text from this period is by bishop

39:21

gregory tour and golf around

39:24

around the end of the sixth century right

39:27

off bat

39:28

gregory apologizes for his rough unpolished

39:31

language really though its perfectly

39:33

intelligible

39:34

hes not cicero or tacitus but hes not and

39:36

illiterate gregory knew

39:38

the

39:40

continuing power of the written standard

39:43

worked really hard to obscure

39:45

the developments in the spoken language that lay

39:47

underneath all of that seeming continuity

39:51

but there were the things happening underneath

39:53

written standard we

39:55

can see that bit in some fascinating texts

39:58

from seventh century spain recalled

40:01

the visigoths slates as bizarre as

40:03

visigoth us under a collection of a few

40:05

dozen informal taxed scratched

40:07

in asleep tablets some

40:10

of them are bills sale contracts others

40:13

are legal declarations and theres even a letter

40:15

in there

40:17

because their informal texts everyday

40:20

kinds of things their less influenced

40:22

the by the written standard

40:26

in these slates we see characteristics

40:28

that we know show up the romance languages

40:30

later without

40:32

going to deep down technical rabbit hole

40:35

these are things like the use of definite articles

40:37

ile a and ipse a to mean the and

40:40

lots of propositions latin

40:44

didnt need those because it had case system

40:46

you changed the ending of a word to denote

40:49

what function served in sentence we

40:52

still have a couple of remnants this in english

40:55

who as a subject of a sentence versus whom

40:57

as an object and i versus

41:00

me those are good examples

41:03

so lets use dominus lord

41:05

as an example in latin if

41:09

dominus is the subject of sentence

41:11

it takes the nominative form the

41:14

dominos

41:15

it the direct object the sentence it takes

41:18

the accusative form the domino

41:20

were talking about

41:23

something that belongs to the lord say the

41:25

lords horse it takes the genitive case

41:27

were say domini

41:30

what about the indirect object if we want give

41:33

something to the lord

41:35

then it take the date of case would say domino

41:40

when that system started to fall out use

41:42

suddenly you needed definite articles

41:45

and more prepositions you

41:47

can just change the ending of the words denote

41:49

its meaning you needed hope words

41:52

this

41:54

isnt some kind degeneration no matter what

41:56

the language purists might say english

41:58

went through the same process long long

42:01

time ago

42:02

practically all languages have dropped

42:05

or the very least simplified the case

42:07

system because it's way simpler to use

42:09

prepositions

42:11

its essential to note that these kinds of usages had

42:13

absolutely existed latin too

42:16

what was changing was the frequency

42:19

of their use

42:21

was no hard line between latin and

42:23

the romance languages there was no definite

42:25

tipping point was just gradual

42:27

shift over a long period of

42:29

time

42:31

the folks who wrote those visigothic slates werent

42:33

aware that they were writing something that was on

42:36

its way becoming romance as

42:38

far as they were concerned they were just riding

42:41

this is essential to note for

42:43

a while scholars of romance in this

42:45

period argued for a situation of

42:47

languages that means

42:49

two languages were both in use in

42:51

the same social group the same time according

42:55

to this view the educated were still speaking

42:58

and writing latin but everybody else

43:00

was already speaking romance

43:04

and the mildest form of this argument it

43:06

meant that people were aware of difference

43:08

between their written language and their spoken language

43:12

but theres no reason think this was the case

43:15

no mater how much the spoken language changed

43:18

written language was still recognizably lat

43:21

we have no evidence to suggest that people

43:23

saw some sort of conceptual distinction

43:26

between the this

43:28

goes step further though

43:30

really sharp french scholar named michel donald

43:33

wrote a great book called viva voce a on

43:35

this topic back in nineties

43:38

the the encore proved that there was no conceptual

43:40

distinction between romance and latin how

43:43

did he prove this

43:45

by showing that people who were writing texts

43:48

this point expected them to be understandable

43:50

when read aloud

43:53

this sounds basic but its a key point lets

43:56

say youre a bishop in goal in seventh

43:59

century you know holy person saint

44:02

you want to compose a life of that st a veto

44:04

to instruct the since full in what it means

44:07

to be a good christian

44:09

if writing latin and the people dont speak latin

44:12

how can that work the

44:14

answer is cant work

44:17

and yet plenty a folks went on writing

44:19

texts in a language that was obviously latin

44:21

and they were meant be read aloud to and illiterate

44:23

audience was folks

44:26

werent wasting their time writing something that nobody

44:28

could understand in language that was only accessible

44:30

to the educated elite

44:34

but we still know that spoken language was changing

44:36

all the time how did the

44:40

solution banal and other scholars

44:42

have advanced to explain this is simple

44:44

when someone read latin aloud they

44:47

simply pronounce the word the way they normally would

44:49

speech we do this every

44:51

time we read english aloud we pronounce

44:54

the word not the letters that make up the

44:56

word as individual sounds

44:59

this kind creative pronunciation could

45:01

go a long way toward keeping written latin

45:03

and spoken latin as the same language

45:06

despite all this the written the language

45:08

was in fact changing over

45:10

all this

45:13

we know this because of repeated spelling

45:15

mistakes that start to creep into texts over

45:17

the course this period

45:19

was even more confusion about the became system

45:21

which i mentioned earlier particular words

45:24

and formulations fell out use other

45:26

words change their meanings

45:29

around the beginning of the ninth century according

45:31

to a really sharp scholar named roger

45:34

wright there was an actual

45:36

turning point in terms of how people thought

45:38

about the relationship between the latin an what

45:40

they were speaking

45:43

funnily enough it didnt come from native

45:45

speakers of the latin slash romance languages

45:47

on cotton it came from anglo

45:49

saxon monks natives of britain

45:52

who had learned latin as a foreign language

45:54

in monastery

45:55

so

45:58

the great holy roman empress charlemagne

46:00

who ruled the the end of the eighth century and the beginning

46:02

of the ninth well charlemagne was busy man

46:06

in addition to conquering huge stretches

46:08

of territory from iberia to modern

46:10

day germany he launched educational

46:12

reform

46:14

this was part of the cultural efflorescence

46:16

that scholars call the carolingian renaissance

46:20

we dont need to dig too deep into all of that but

46:22

for our purposes heres the important

46:25

to staff his new educational facilities

46:28

and bring everything up to standard charlemagne

46:30

imported learned monks from

46:32

britain

46:33

especially guy named alcuin alcuin

46:36

was anglo saxon he grew up

46:39

speaking old english he only learned

46:41

latin as a second language

46:43

when he learned to speak latin alcuin

46:46

when learned to pronounce every individual

46:48

sound itd be like saying the word

46:50

individual in that sentence as individual

46:53

with every letter getting exactly

46:55

the same phonetic value instead of pronouncing

46:58

the shape of the word as a whole as we do

47:02

when he read thats how he alcuin

47:05

didnt change his pronunciation the way and native

47:07

speaker and reader of the language would have

47:09

the way weve talked about here so

47:12

lets make this concrete lets take the word

47:15

corpus body the

47:17

plural of corpus is corpora

47:21

a native speaker in the ninth century probably

47:24

would said something like corpus or corpus

47:26

instead maybe even corpus compare

47:30

that to corpora

47:34

that difference would have driven alcoa

47:36

nuts him

47:38

what the natives of gaul and iberia and

47:40

italy were speaking was latin what

47:43

he had learned in the monastery where every letter

47:45

an the page was an individual sound that

47:48

was latin according

47:50

to that scholar roger wright this

47:52

was the transformational moment that split

47:55

latin from romance if

47:57

you were going to be educated according

48:00

the formula you couldnt read texts

48:02

with the old word for word pronunciation you

48:04

had to read every letter

48:07

suddenly what you were reading off the page wasnt

48:10

intelligible to masses anymore

48:12

this was the separation point between

48:15

medieval latin the latin of church and beyond

48:17

and the romance languages

48:20

the first full text the we see that looks

48:23

recognizably like a romance language and

48:25

latin with updated pronunciation is

48:27

called the strasbourg oaths

48:30

this is a remarkable trilingual

48:32

text from year eight forty two

48:35

part of it is in latin part of it is in old

48:37

high german and part is whats

48:39

obviously a romance language

48:43

two kings of the carolingian dynasty louis

48:45

the german and charles the bald got

48:47

together to swear allegiance to one another

48:49

against their brother lothar

48:52

im going to read selection to you so you can

48:54

get a sense for what this emerging romance

48:57

language sounded

48:59

if you know some latin or some of a romance

49:01

language youll probably be able to pick

49:03

out a bunch of words that sound familiar but

49:06

its going sound little weird give

49:08

it listen

49:11

rodeo encore at pro cristian

49:14

pablo at nostro comun salome

49:16

e the anand incan

49:18

deo salome at poder me donat si

49:21

salade was a a il kissed me on fredric

49:23

carlo atin rodeo the

49:25

atin comun cosa si cum

49:27

on padre on fredric salome

49:30

this ino , il men

49:32

al padre si tablo

49:35

der no plaid non campina

49:37

plaid non me on the was kissed

49:40

men fredric carlo in danos si

49:44

this is pretty obviously not

49:47

what we think of as latin

49:49

what across what had been the roman empire

49:51

latin was evolving into romance

49:54

romance languages that emerged didnt look the same

49:57

everywhere there were increasing

49:59

differences between how people spoke in southern

50:01

italy and how they spoke in northern france

50:05

eventually the time was coming when they

50:07

wouldnt be able to understand each other though that

50:09

point still probably wasnt in the ninth

50:11

century so

50:14

why was

50:16

in large part its just the natural consequences

50:18

time when those varieties werent in contact

50:21

with each other

50:23

languages always have a bunch of ways of saying

50:26

the same thing in spanish for

50:28

example youd say soup to denote

50:30

possessive adjective in french

50:32

its literal the former

50:34

comes from latin sees the latter from latin

50:37

of those ones both work just

50:39

fine latin but over

50:41

time people in particular places

50:43

tend to favor one usage over another

50:46

and the other way fell out of use same

50:50

held true for sound changes for changes in syntax

50:52

in vocabulary if you stack

50:55

up enough of those changes on top of one

50:57

another eventually youre going get major

50:59

differences but even

51:01

after the ninth century with alcuin and his

51:03

educational reform but didnt mean

51:05

that the distinction between the latin and romance

51:07

was set and stone

51:10

at definitely werent distinctions between varieties

51:12

of romance this point either

51:14

final split wouldnt take place until the

51:16

the twelfth or the thirteenth century

51:19

that eight hundred years after the roman empire ceased

51:21

to be going concern the

51:24

twelfth the thirteenth century was when the emerging

51:27

kingdoms of the high middle ages created

51:29

their own chance ries and started using

51:31

a particular vernacular language variety

51:33

of romance the

51:36

fact that the chancery used that particular

51:38

vernacular helped to make a written standard

51:40

with its own rules even

51:42

so as the languages diverged

51:45

they didnt diverge that much or all

51:47

once

51:49

lets say you started in the very north

51:51

of the romance speaking area along the north

51:53

sea and then headed south around twelve

51:55

hundred

51:57

it passed through what is now belgium and northern

51:59

france then into southern france in either

52:01

italy or spain

52:03

as you walked from village to village town

52:06

to town the language would change a little

52:08

at time

52:10

if you compared the dialect of southern spain

52:12

or southern italy to that in northern france

52:14

youd notice substantial differences but

52:17

you compared one village to the next

52:19

theyd be really close

52:23

in essence the western romance languages

52:25

formed a dialect continuum

52:27

some would say they

52:29

still do even after the introduction

52:31

of national educational standards in the nineteenth

52:34

and twentieth centuries

52:37

if we squint hard enough we made that

52:39

long walk today

52:40

be ancient unity of latin might still be

52:43

with even

52:45

latin exploded outwards from

52:47

italy along with roman imperial power

52:49

and the romans themselves it

52:51

established itself all over the western

52:53

provinces from the fringes of the sahara

52:56

to the moors of scotland the forests

52:58

of germany

53:00

as the roman empire split apart so

53:02

did the essential unity of latin

53:06

same way folks like you and i make choices

53:08

every day about words to use people

53:10

in this period did the same thing millions

53:13

of those choices over hundreds of years what

53:15

transformed latin into spanish

53:18

portuguese occitan french

53:20

walloon italian sardinian

53:22

romanian many more these

53:25

werent the direct descendants regional

53:28

varieties of it was something

53:32

a lot happened after the end of the roman empire and

53:34

the wild diversity of the romance languages

53:37

is reflection of

53:39

i hope youve enjoyed listening to this as much as i enjoyed

53:41

researching topic and writing the episode

53:44

its something ive been interested in for a really

53:46

long time its pleasure putting

53:48

this together thanks so much for joining

53:50

me today

53:52

next time on tides of history well be looking at great

53:55

roman emperor justinian the last

53:57

of the romans some have called

54:00

in constantinople justinian

54:02

did his best to re conquer the lost

54:04

provinces of the west in middle of the sixth century

54:06

he succeeded kind

54:09

the the roman world was slipping away

54:13

how and why all that went down will

54:15

be our next topic

54:17

when we return to rise of modern

54:19

world in january well be covering something really

54:21

stoked to dig into the renaissance

54:24

that great efflorescence of culture

54:26

learning and art be

54:28

sure drop me line if youd like talk about the fall

54:30

the roman empire or the rise of the modern world

54:33

you can find me on twitter at patrick underscore

54:36

wyman underscore on facebook at patrick wyman

54:38

emma

54:39

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54:45

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54:52

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54:56

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54:58

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55:00

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55:02

is sergio henriquez from wondery

55:05

executive producers are been engineer and hernan

55:07

lopez lopez producer

55:09

is leas is thanks

55:12

again for listening until next

55:14

time from wondery this has been tides

55:16

of history

55:27

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55:30

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55:32

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56:00

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56:03

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56:05

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56:07

prehistory