AHC: Italy stays Latin

Deleted member 67076

Odoacer decides not to segregate Goths and Latins, allowing the Romans to assimilate the Goths.

Furthermore, no Gothic war and the Lombards are repulsed/attack the Avars.
 
The Italian language is more or less "modern Latin". Of course somewhat changed and influenced by barbaric invaders but it's the closest thing to the vulgar dialects dominating the Italian Peninsula in late antiquity and early medieval. By that time pure classical Latin was used only by the higher classes, in administration, in Church and in the literature but common people has spoken all sorts of "polluted" dialects. Get real, romanophiles.
 
What de Ptysz said - plus, the Roman population never really got overwhelmed by Lombard settlers in the north and (maybe there were some?) Byzantines in the south ethnic-wise. New government, same Roman culture now evolving with some Germanic and Hellenic shots to the arm.
 
Avoiding the Gothic War should help. If you want to keep declensions around, what you need is probably a Slav/Magyar invasion. You'd get something akin to Romanian. The verbal inflections are going to be simplified no matter what. The future tense is gone because sound changes are making it homophonous with the perfect.
 
The Italian language is more or less "modern Latin". Of course somewhat changed and influenced by barbaric invaders but it's the closest thing to the vulgar dialects dominating the Italian Peninsula in late antiquity and early medieval. By that time pure classical Latin was used only by the higher classes, in administration, in Church and in the literature but common people has spoken all sorts of "polluted" dialects. Get real, romanophiles.

Yeah, the notion that everyone spoke like Cicero in ancient times is a great misconception. Most people, even in Italy, spoke dialectal forms of Latin, and these often diverged quite a bit from the Classical standard in terms of pronunciation and grammar.
 
Last edited:
The Italian language is more or less "modern Latin". Of course somewhat changed and influenced by barbaric invaders but it's the closest thing to the vulgar dialects dominating the Italian Peninsula in late antiquity and early medieval. By that time pure classical Latin was used only by the higher classes, in administration, in Church and in the literature but common people has spoken all sorts of "polluted" dialects. Get real, romanophiles.

Agreed. Modern Italian seems to bear more resemblance to Latin than Modern English does to Old English. There are many reasons for this, but calling Italian "Modern Latin" is pretty close to the mark.
 
Top