Re: [tied] Sanskrit

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 14520
Date: 2002-08-25

I don't quite undestand your question. "Extraterritorial" branches of English like Canadian English and Australian English are genetically connected since they can be historically derived from varieties of English once spoken in Britain, but before the British colonial expansion and the concomitant spread of English overseas there had been no Proto-Canadian or Proto-Australian Englishes there. Sermo plebeius was a collection of _Latin_ dialects that came into existence with the rise and territorial expansion of the Roman Empire. Latin was not the "common denominator" of the various minor languages spoken throughout the Empire but a lingua franca that competed with them and in most cases steamrollered them out of existence (absorbing some substratal leftovers in the process). Dacian and Latin were related, of course, just as Latvian and Portuguese are, but their common ancestor was a very ancient form of Indo-European, close to the "Proto" stage.
 
Piotr
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: alexmoeller@...
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, August 25, 2002 11:11 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Sanskrit

[Moeller] Piotr, do you see the possibility that certain languages of the "sermo plebeius of late Roman period" could be genetically connected ( at leas in Europe ) even _before_ the roman empire, where latin acted in some cases just as a common denominator ( gemeinsamer Nenner)?