Yesterday i visited my Father in law. He is a
normaly peasant in north of Germany.
We have spooked about this and this and during our
speach, i changed the programm on CNN to hear some news.
He begun to laugh and he asked me if i understand
something from this " komische englische Sprache" -meaning funny english
language..
That made me to think about.
And hard
We life in 21 century. And the possiblities to
learn a language are more diverses as in the time of roman
empire.
We have schools, internet,teachers, a very daily
conntact with the langauge, and the communities we live in, they use as usually
this language.
This was not the same in 100 CE.
Definitely not.
Today, are millions people who speak english,but
are too millions of people who dont do it.
Like my daddy.
That make me to think that is very hard to learn a
language as "population" from an ocupation force.
How you will like to learn latin the peasants who
are living in the plains and making agriculture?
Do you will have a roman legionar to be daily
with him to learn it?
Do you ever heard about schools made by romans to
learn the conquered population the latin language?
I did not heard about.
And i can hardly imagine a legionar teaching latin
a peasant somewhere. Not because he doesnt want it. But in the most of the
cases, even the legionars werent not able
to speak latin more as some sentences.Because few
of them were from latium. We just need to take alook at the ethnic appartenence
of the soldiers. Do not forget that the cohortes used their own language and
their own weapons . Just the centurions and the officers from these cohortes
have had to know latin..
Please, dont missunderstand me. I have nothing
against latin language.
But even this one is died. Today is spooken just in
Vatican.
What we learn about?
A langauge dies when the folk which spoked it
dies.
The latins were few. Very few. Even in 1000 years
they have had not the posibility D e m o g r a p h i c a ly to impune
themselfs somewhere.
Italian as word , they have been there in the same
time as latium. And they were known in the Roman Empire as "italians" Evene the
Legion XIX Italica is known to be.
So, it is really hard to accept this latinisation,
phenomen which even in Italia did not to constrange the people to use the same
language unitary. They use even today many dialects and someone from Napoli
could hard understand someone from Milano if they do not use the Hochitalian
-literary or classic italian.
Sure, the folks got a lot of words from latin
language.. Every folk. Even until today. But from this point to completly adopt
a foreign langauge, forgetting your own language is a big way. I hardly can
imagine a indigenous woman from the teritorry occupied from romans that she is
singing to her child " pater nostrum" with a hand making food and with another
hand learning from an abacus latin language.. the more you think about, the more
hilar become the idea....Or is there someone who tell to his lover " I love you"
in english instead of his own language? ( both belonging to the same folk).Maybe
once in year.Maybe in joke. Maybe as funny. But i do not use to tell to my wife
"I love you. " I just say "Ich liebe dich." It has
an another deepness. It has soemthing which make me to feel what i say and her
to fell, not to hear , what i say.
I did specialy this "human aspect" to his points
because as scientists, we in very much cases forget it and we are not searching
for molecules in an element, we are searching about relationships in languages,
implicitely relationships among peoples.
Best regards
A. Moeller