Re: [tied] Re: Effects of Catastrophes on Language

From: P&G
Message: 11208
Date: 2001-11-17

> While a population is ruled by an educated literate
> upperclass who speak the same language, education would keep the
> upperclass in contact with the classical version of the language (e.g.
> Sanskrit in India, Classical Arabic in Arabic-speaking Islam),

This did not prevent Latin evolving underneath the "classical" form of the
language. Even in the time of Julius Caesar, a politician could shock by
using the "evolved" or popular form of a word. Claudius (about 60 BC)
changed his name to Clodius in order to gain the support of the mob (though
I suspect he gained their support in other ways too!). A hundred years
later we have a few texts which include a literary form of this popular
Latin (like attempts today to reproduce dialect in books). It shows clearly
that the artificial restraints of Classical Latin have not prevented the
language developing under the surface and out of sight.

Whether it would have evolved more quickly without Latin is an unanswerable
question.

Peter