WI: standard (Italo-western) latin/romance

In our timeline, after the fall of the Roman Empire, the divergence between the latin spoken by the people and the one written and used by the Church. While the first turned into different languages, the later fossilized into a tongue no one uses daily.

However, what if Western Rome had never fallen, or maybe was renowned, and thus the romance continuum in the west remained united under the same state and bureaucracy? Maybe then the official latin spelling slowly evolve to accommodate the changes that IOTL happened in the Italo-Western Romance languages, like the lost of the case system, of the future tenses and of the neuter gender. The writing language could be more conservative than the actual pronunciation, but still change significantly.

This is an example for what the language could look like. I based it mostly on portuguese, my native language, so it might seem more fitting for a dialect that evolves in Iberia and southern France than Italy, but it might still be interesting:

"Totos los esseres humanos/homines sunt natos liberis et aequales in dignitatem et directus. Dotatos de rationem et conscientia, debent agere unos cum los alteris en spiritum de fraternitatem."

Most/all of the spelling is based on the accusative case, which IOTL prevailed over the other cases in Latin.

What do you think?
 
Western Roman conlang? Followed, this is highly interesting

Maybe by modern day it would look like Interlingua I think? Considering it was made as a universal romance similar to latin but still including retroactively the changes the modern languages underwent

Also dont be too bummed about people not participating, I did a some linguistic threads as well and they dont tend to attract much attention
 
The spelling is incredibly conservative here, in that it maintains pronunciations which had long fallen out of use before the fall of the empire otl.

Also a little unclear on why there are three separate endings for masculine plural nouns- es, is and os. I'd have expected natos liberos et aequales, agere cum los alteros. The question that then arises is if you're willing to archaise so much in spelling and essentially use unchanged Latin spellings, why not simply use Latin?
 
Western Roman conlang? Followed, this is highly interesting

Maybe by modern day it would look like Interlingua I think? Considering it was made as a universal romance similar to latin but still including retroactively the changes the modern languages underwent
Yes, I too imagine it would look like interlingua. However, there are some factors to consider:

1) Interlingua isn't exactly a romance conlang. While it's actually perfectly intelligible for us romance speakers, it doesn't share some of our features, because it includes not only Romance languages (Italian, Spanish/Portuguese, French), but also English, German, and Russian. Thus, some of its characteristics don't fit the RE's evolution.

2) this language would be under the constant influence of latin, thus it might be more conservative in some ways.
The spelling is incredibly conservative here, in that it maintains pronunciations which had long fallen out of use before the fall of the empire otl.
That's actually one of the things I was going on for it: as this language would evolve from standard ("classical") latin slowly developing into something more similar to the spoken form, I thought this language's spelling would still be very conservative when compared to the actual pronunciation, for the roman intellectual elite would still try to emulate the classic writing while still changing the language.

This sometimes happened in romance languages. Portuguese, for example, has two words for "memory", both derived from the latin adjective "memor": "lembrança" and "memória". The first comes from the language's natural evolution, as the latin verb "memorāre" became "membrar" and later "lembrar"; the second one is borrowed directly from the Latin "memoria". I imagine this standard latin would do it even more.
Also a little unclear on why there are three separate endings for masculine plural nouns- es, is and os. I'd have expected natos liberos et aequales, agere cum los alteros.
That is actually my mistake. I confused the accusative and the ablative (I'm still beginning to learn Latin). You are absolutely correct.
The question that then arises is if you're willing to archaise so much in spelling and essentially use unchanged Latin spellings, why not simply use Latin?
I think about it sometimes. My goal is to create a language that is "trying" to hold and mimick to the classical standards while still going through inevitable changes that have already occurred.
 
"Totos los esseres humanos/homines sunt natos liberis et aequales in dignitatem et directus. Dotatos de rationem et conscientia, debent agere unos cum los alteris en spiritum de fraternitatem."
Interesting. Since it seems that the spellings IOTL tended to follow Classical Latin's ablative case in the singular (for some reason) and the accusative case in the plural, I'd do with something like this:

"Totos los homines natos sunt liberes et equales in dignitate et directos. Donatos sunt de ratione et conscientia, et debunt agere inter se in spiritu de fraternitate."

(You may have noticed, I changed the "ae" in aequales to an "e", because this was a historical sound change in later/medieval Latin. A lot of medieval documents get mixed up between ae, e, and oe, because they were all pronounced the same by this time.)

For a slightly longer text, here's the Lord's Prayer, the other standard text for sample translations:

"Patre nostro, qui es in los celos, sanctificato sit lo nomine tuo. Adveniat lo regno tuo, fiat la voluntate tua, sicut in celo ita in terra. Lo pane nostro cottidiano da ad nos hodie, et dimitte a nos la debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus a debitores nostros. Et non nos induca in temptatione, sed libera nos a malo: per quo tuo est lo regno, et la potestate, et la gloria, in secula. Amen."

I'll admit I wasn't really sure how the verbs might change, so I've mostly kept them the same as in Latin, except that I've changed "ne inducas" into a simple "non" + imperative "non induca", which seems like a plausible simplification. "Per quo" in the last clause is from the Latin "per quod", "by which", which was apparently the ancestor of the word for "because" in modern Romance languages.

Anyway, the above is quite conservative, at least in spelling, although languages do sometimes keep old spellings long after they've ceased to reflect how words are actually pronounced (English and French both say hi). Here's a slightly modified version, with some sound changes I think are plausible:

"Padre nostro, ki es illos celos, santificato sit lo nomine tuo. Aveniat lo regno tuo, fiat la voluntade tua, sico in celo ita in terra. La pane nostro cottidiano a nos da odie, et dimitte a nos la debita nostra, sico et nos dimittimos a debitores nostros. Et non nos induca in tentatione, sed libera nos a malo: perko tuo e lo regno, et la potestade, et la gloria, in segola. Amen."
 
Interesting. Since it seems that the spellings IOTL tended to follow Classical Latin's ablative case in the singular (for some reason) and the accusative case in the plural, I'd do with something like this:

"Totos los homines natos sunt liberes et equales in dignitate et directos. Donatos sunt de ratione et conscientia, et debunt agere inter se in spiritu de fraternitate."

(You may have noticed, I changed the "ae" in aequales to an "e", because this was a historical sound change in later/medieval Latin. A lot of medieval documents get mixed up between ae, e, and oe, because they were all pronounced the same by this time.)

For a slightly longer text, here's the Lord's Prayer, the other standard text for sample translations:

"Patre nostro, qui es in los celos, sanctificato sit lo nomine tuo. Adveniat lo regno tuo, fiat la voluntate tua, sicut in celo ita in terra. Lo pane nostro cottidiano da ad nos hodie, et dimitte a nos la debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus a debitores nostros. Et non nos induca in temptatione, sed libera nos a malo: per quo tuo est lo regno, et la potestate, et la gloria, in secula. Amen."

I'll admit I wasn't really sure how the verbs might change, so I've mostly kept them the same as in Latin, except that I've changed "ne inducas" into a simple "non" + imperative "non induca", which seems like a plausible simplification. "Per quo" in the last clause is from the Latin "per quod", "by which", which was apparently the ancestor of the word for "because" in modern Romance languages.

Anyway, the above is quite conservative, at least in spelling, although languages do sometimes keep old spellings long after they've ceased to reflect how words are actually pronounced (English and French both say hi). Here's a slightly modified version, with some sound changes I think are plausible:

"Padre nostro, ki es illos celos, santificato sit lo nomine tuo. Aveniat lo regno tuo, fiat la voluntade tua, sico in celo ita in terra. La pane nostro cottidiano a nos da odie, et dimitte a nos la debita nostra, sico et nos dimittimos a debitores nostros. Et non nos induca in tentatione, sed libera nos a malo: perko tuo e lo regno, et la potestade, et la gloria, in segola. Amen."
Your examples seem better and more organic. I wanted to make it sound archaic, or at least "wannabe archaic" (as I said, a language that still looks up to CL, despite suffering from reforms), but I probably exaggerated, since some changes are probably too drastic to not make an impact in the spelling. Thanks for the feedback.
 
Your examples seem better and more organic. I wanted to make it sound archaic, or at least "wannabe archaic" (as I said, a language that still looks up to CL, despite suffering from reforms), but I probably exaggerated, since some changes are probably too drastic to not make an impact in the spelling. Thanks for the feedback.
I guess they could represent different stages of the language, with yours being an older, and hence less altered, version.
 
I guess they could represent different stages of the language, with yours being an older, and hence less altered, version.
I suppose the way the origin of this standard would also influence a lot on the formation. I'm lusophone, so the version I was creating was probably very Iberian (lol I even fused the verbs sum and sedeo like how it happened in Portuguese and Spanish. In the timeline of this language, it could be the Iberian dialect). I have Busuu and Duolingo levels of knowledge of french and have been studying latin for some weeks because I found it fun.

However, thinking about it, a new standard for latin would probably be either a koine based on multiple dialects or based on the current dialect of prestige. The capital of the late Roman Empire was Ravena, but Rome still enjoyed some prestige and was the seat of the western Patriarch, so maybe it would be a mix of the dialects of Ravena and Rome?
I’d say a happy median would be an archaic form of Occitan, close enough to all of the western romance languages to be identifiable by all. Using the power of one orthography but different pronunciations like how English currently functions. It would probably be hard to learn but functional.
This could work well too, though we'd need a good PoD to make the dialect in southern Gallia the language of prestige.
 
This sometimes happened in romance languages. Portuguese, for example, has two words for "memory", both derived from the latin adjective "memor": "lembrança" and "memória". The first comes from the language's natural evolution, as the latin verb "memorāre" became "membrar" and later "lembrar"; the second one is borrowed directly from the Latin "memoria". I imagine this standard latin would do it even more.
But the thing is that the natural evolution of the language takes different routes in different parts of the empire- without the influence of a Portuguese royal court, the lembrar, lembranca spellings and pronunciation simply wouldn't be used, you'd use what everyone else is using. And thus no one would feel comfortable using their own dialect as the basis of a written standard, they'd just want to keep writing in Latin. Sure the Latin they write will show the influence of how they speak, especially if they're not that well educated, but the conditions for the creation of an alternative standard aren't really there.


Since it seems that the spellings IOTL tended to follow Classical Latin's ablative case in the singular (for some reason) and the accusative case in the plural, I'd do with something like this:
That's not quite true, it's just that quite early on in imperial Latin, word final m wasn't pronounced anymore, apart from one syllable words like cum and sum where it became an n like con and son.

I think you need to get some clarity on the pod- if the whole empire is still one speech community with a central administration where bureaucrats, traders and churchmen are always moving all over the place, the pace of language change is going to be different from if it's a feudal arrangement where no one really leaves the area they were born in.


Otherwise, enjoy learning linguam nostram praeclarissimam et consilium do tibi ut utaris libris cognomine "Lingua Latina per se Illustrata".
 
Last edited:
I imagine a standardized Western Romance language would make allowances for dialectical diversity. Looking at China, the standard dialect's grammar might fossilize in some places, especially if scribal ligatures get incorporated into the standard literature. It'd definitely be interesting.
 
But the thing is that the natural evolution of the language takes different routes in different parts of the empire- without the influence of a Portuguese royal court, the lembrar, lembranca spellings and pronunciation simply wouldn't be used, you'd use what everyone else is using
I was actually advocating for the use of conservative/archaic spelling when I wrote that text. Anyway...
And thus no one would feel comfortable using their own dialect as the basis of a written standard, they'd just want to keep writing in Latin. Sure the Latin they write will show the influence of how they speak, especially if they're not that well educated, but the conditions for the creation of an alternative standard aren't really there.
The thing is, even if the spelling of the words remained similar (something I could actually agree), the traditional latin grammar was already dying through all the empire. There's a reason why there's a concept of a Proto-Romance Language: the romance languages share more similarities between themselves than with classical latin, for the "destruction" of latin grammar was already happening even before the fall of the empire.
 
This could work well too, though we'd need a good PoD to make the dialect in southern Gallia the language of prestige.
Well there are two possible ones:
Oaths of Strasbourg are attested in some form of Frankish and a form of pre-French which is lacks many of the obvious features of French that we know. Assume in an alt-Carolingian Renaissance this form is frozen as the administrative language.

The other is that Occitan/Provencal is the first major vernacular form to see regular use, maybe a cultural movement among Latins to use Occitan for literature like Florentine for Italians. It also was a base for Lingua Franca used by the mercantile society in the Mediterranean. I'd guess a good POD would be Eleanor of Aquitaine remarrying someone else, ie Raymond V of Toulouse, Sancho III of Castille, or Frederick Barbarossa. In all these cases a large Occitan area will be fused with another Romance area.
 
Well there are two possible ones:
Oaths of Strasbourg are attested in some form of Frankish and a form of pre-French which is lacks many of the obvious features of French that we know. Assume in an alt-Carolingian Renaissance this form is frozen as the administrative language.

The other is that Occitan/Provencal is the first major vernacular form to see regular use, maybe a cultural movement among Latins to use Occitan for literature like Florentine for Italians. It also was a base for Lingua Franca used by the mercantile society in the Mediterranean. I'd guess a good POD would be Eleanor of Aquitaine remarrying someone else, ie Raymond V of Toulouse, Sancho III of Castille, or Frederick Barbarossa. In all these cases a large Occitan area will be fused with another Romance area.
I think Raymond V is better.
 
"Padre nostro, ki es illos celos, santificato sit lo nomine tuo. Aveniat lo regno tuo, fiat la voluntade tua, sico in celo ita in terra. La pane nostro cottidiano a nos da odie, et dimitte a nos la debita nostra, sico et nos dimittimos a debitores nostros. Et non nos induca in tentatione, sed libera nos a malo: perko tuo e lo regno, et la potestade, et la gloria, in segola. Amen."
This uses ecclesiastical pronunciation, right?
 
Top