Re: [tied] Re:Digest Number 1216 -Re: Latin versus *Proto-Romance

From: P&G
Message: 18456
Date: 2003-02-05

>But I am sure that Latin was a lot like modern
> English in that there were all these different Italic dialects with
influence in
> some cases from Etruscan and in other cases from Greek or Celtic(?),

You are almost certainly right, but there is surprisingly little evidence
for them. Far less than we would expect. Inscriptions (showing formal
language) and graffiti (showing an informal mix of vulgar Latin and formal)
offer different forms of Latin, but both show an unbelievable uniformity
right across the Latin-speaking world. We suspect that that cannot have
been the real situation.

Peter