Chapter 10 Chapter 7 Languages: From Two to Dozens

There were two common languages ​​in the Roman Empire: Latin in the west and Greek in the east.To this day, the Greek language is still spoken in mainland Greece, Greek settlements east of the Mediterranean, and scattered Greek communities, although its form has changed slightly.However, no part of the world has Latin as a common language.Latin is often described as a dead language, and if so, it is an extraordinary living corpse. At first, Latin was spoken only by the Romans and the small surrounding countryside; as Rome expanded, it became the spoken language throughout the Western Roman Empire hundreds of years later.Latin in the west and Greek in the east are bounded by present-day Serbia. Therefore, although Latin is the common language throughout Italy, France, Spain and most of the Balkan Peninsula, it has not reached Great Britain.Although the Romans also invaded Britain, the Celtic language in Britain survived; as for the local dialects in other parts of the west, they all slowly disappeared after everyone began to speak Latin.

Rome itself does not have a clear language policy - the most self-defeating public policy.Suppressing a native language in one area and replacing it with another is as difficult as ever, and in ancient times no one would have thought of doing so.Rome was an inclusive empire that not only allowed the leaders of conquered societies to remain leaders of the region, but also allowed them to join the Roman elite, be promoted to generals, and even become kings.In this way, by 212 AD, all ethnic groups in the empire had been naturalized as citizens and were protected by its laws.After three or four hundred years, all local languages ​​have disappeared, which is nothing less than a tribute to the Roman Empire.Latin finally won a silent victory and became the only language of Roman administration, law, military affairs and commerce.

Scholars, lawyers, politicians, and you in school, in college, learned standard Latin, not the Latin spoken in the far reaches of the Roman Empire.This colloquial Latin, common among soldiers, magistrates, and merchants, varied from place to place, with many variations from region to region, even before the Roman Empire fell apart.Colloquial Latin spoken in Italy may not be the same as spoken in France.After the split of the Roman Empire, Latin evolved into many different languages, commonly known as Romance Languages ​​(Romance Languages, also known as Roman Languages, Latin Languages), which means the language from the Romans, just like Roman architecture is inherited from Rome same architectural form.

The main Romance languages ​​are French, Italian and Spanish.Take the word "horse" as an example. It is "cheval" in French, "caballo" in Spanish, and "cavallo" in Italian. There is no trace of Latin at all—the horse in Latin is "equus".The English horse "horse" evolved from Germanic, but there is also an "equestrian" in English, which means a person who rides a horse or something related to a horse. The etymology of this word is "equus". Latin words in English are usually more standard Latin.From "horse" comes the word "horsy"; "horsy" can be used to say that one loves horses or things related to horses, but "equestrian" is more polite.There is a slang word in Latin "caballus", which is a bit like the horse in English (gee-gee, nag), and the horse in the Romance language family-"cheval" (French), "caballo" (Spanish), "cavallo" (Italian), is derived from this word.For this word, Spanish and Italian are much closer to the source than French.

The French are very particular about their language.The French National Academy is very selective about the English that is allowed to be included in the French: are t-shirts (T-shirts) and bulldozers (bulldozers) acceptable?Also, should the t-shirt be feminine or masculine—is it la t-shirt or le t-shirt? (It's masculine, and English doesn't have to worry about that.) You'd be too unintelligent to tell a Frenchman that their carefully guarded language is actually derived from Latin. Latin is an inflection-rich language. In other words, the meaning of a word in a sentence depends on the inflection of the word.For example, the Latin word for "year" is annus (the English word "annually" is derived from this word, which is slightly more formal than yearly), and "master" or "God" is dominus.If we say "God's year" in Latin, the endings of both words change, becoming anno domini. Anno means year, domini means God.Today our calendar uses AD to calculate the year, which is the abbreviation of these two words, which means to count from the year when Jesus Christ was born.

Latin itself is rich in inflections, and there is no need to resort to prepositions such as in or of.English "AD" consists of six words: in the year of the lord; Latin only needs two words: anno domini, which is one of the reasons why Latin is suitable as a motto-so concise and concise.You won't find redundant words in between keywords.Latin also does not require the definite article the or the indefinite articles a, an. Annus refers to a specific year (the year) or any year (a year). In Latin, the order of the words does not matter; domini anno still means God's year.If it is English, changing the order does not mean changing (such as: in the lord of the year) or it is meaningless (such as: of the lord in the year).

However, Latin still has words similar to English in, at, and of, which you can use to emphasize the mood.Because Latin speakers are not very clear about these rules, they are more and more commonly used words such as in, at, of, and no longer care about how the endings of the words change. Over time, Latin has evolved from a language with many endings. into a language in which prepositions (in, at, of) are frequently used while the word forms of the keywords remain unchanged.This is why noun endings in the Romance languages ​​do not change, but the order of the words matters. There is no definite article the in Latin, but if you want to emphasize something, you can say "I want 'that' apple" or "give me 'that' peach". The Latin for "that" is ille or illa, depending on whether the noun it modifies is feminine or masculine.Later, people who speak Latin more and more often use ille or illa regardless of the suffix, so they are shortened to le and la in French, il and la in Italian, and el and la in Spanish. in front of nouns.Those Latin bastards who added the definite article to the Romance languages ​​were quite proud of it, come to think of it.

In the 5th century, the Germanic barbarians invaded today's France, Spain, and Italy. However, the Germanic language family did not follow the invasion, and the language spoken by these people evolved from Latin.How did that happen?Take a look at the language map of Europe. Most of the languages ​​we speak today belong to some large language family, which may be Romance, Germanic, or Slavic.But there are a few countries that are solitary, with little connection to all other languages, such as Greek, Albanian, Hungarian and Finnish. In Western Europe, Germanic languages ​​prevail in the north and Romance languages ​​prevail in the south.There are two countries that are compatible: Germanic languages ​​are spoken in the north of Belgium and Romance languages ​​are spoken in the south; Germanic languages ​​are spoken in the north of Switzerland and Romance languages ​​are spoken in the southern corners.To these few Romance languages ​​we have to add the Portuguese spoken along the edges of the three great powers (France, Spain, Italy) and, surprisingly, Romanian in Eastern Europe.Romania sits north of the Danube, the former customary frontier of the Roman Empire.For a hundred years, the tentacles of the Roman Empire extended far north of the Danube, but that period did not seem to be long enough for Latin to become the cornerstone of Romanian.Some people therefore hinted (Romanians don't like this hint very much) that the Romanians originally lived in the south of the river, had a long immersion in Latin, and moved northward later.

Most of Central and Eastern Europe, including Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and formerly Yugoslavia, speak Slavic languages.This has to mention the Slavs, a nation that lived farther than the Germanic barbarians. They settled in the Balkans after invading the Eastern Roman Empire in the 6th and 7th centuries.Some Slavs still live in areas that were never part of the Empire, such as Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic.After the Slavs took root in Europe, they converted to Christianity one after another; the Poles were close to the West, so they believed in Roman Catholicism; most of the residents on the Balkan Peninsula came from Constantinople, so they believed in Greek Orthodox Church.

Latin (and descendants of the Romance languages), Greek, Slavic and Germanic languages ​​all descend from the same root, a language called Indo-European.Linguists trace the many languages ​​it has spawned, trying to construct some of its basic elements from the commonalities of these languages.They disagree as to where the Indo-European peoples should settle—somewhere in the East, anyway.Their language has the word "snow" and their sea seems to mean the inland sea.It is called "Indo" European because the Sanskrit and Iranian languages ​​of India are also derived from it. This discovery, or the construction of this language, was not realized until the eighteenth century.Prior to this, European language research had always believed that these languages ​​were all descended from Hebrew, because this was the language spoken by Jesus, and it was also implied by the Bible that it was the language spoken by the first two people, Adam and Eve.Hebrew, unlike all European languages, does not originate from the Indo-European language family, so tracing the origin of the Hebrew language is a complete dead end.

Until the 18th century, thanks to the Enlightenment, scholars cast off the shackles of the biblical framework and developed new theories.William Jones, a British judge living in India, made the breakthrough.He noticed that the basic vocabulary of Sanskrit is quite similar to that of many European languages, such as numbers, body parts, and family members.Take the word "brother" as an example: Jones sees these similarities as no coincidence, speculating that they shared a common ancestor that no longer exists today.The reconstruction of the Indo-European language family began in Yan. There are two European languages, Hungarian and Finnish, that do not originate from the Indo-European language family and are related.Speakers of these languages ​​migrated from Asia to Europe at two different times; the Finns came here in prehistoric times; the Hungarians came later - in the 9th and 10th centuries when the Vikings landed by sea to plunder Europe At the same time, they also came here on horseback to rob houses.They were later persuaded, not only to settle down in the Danube Valley, but also to become Christians. Figure 7-1 presents the current distribution of languages ​​in Europe.If you compare it with the situation after several invasions by the Slavs and Germans, there is not much difference; the invasion of the Roman Empire by the Germanic barbarians did cause some changes in the distribution of languages, but as we have learned before, Latin borrowed from the Romance languages. The form survived in France, Spain, and Italy.Figure 7-2 depicts the current boundary between the Germanic and Romance languages ​​in more detail, and the magnitude of the change can be seen.The Roman Empire at that time was bounded by the Rhine River. Figure 7-2 shows that the Germanic language family extended far beyond the Rhine River.However, it can be seen that it has not gone too far. Why the new language boundary is what it is today is still a cloud of fog.In Belgium, the dividing line between different languages ​​is drawn in open and empty countryside, with no natural barriers such as rivers or mountains.You drive straight along a road, right here on the Chu River-Han border: the village on the right speaks Romance languages ​​(Walloon), and the left speaks Germanic languages ​​(Flemish).For 1,500 years, this language boundary has not changed.Some people therefore infer that Rome may have set up a defense line from west to east as a barrier to prevent the Germanic barbarians who had crossed the Rhine from taking a step further.The Germanic barbarians may have been stopped here, but they evidently took a detour and penetrated further to the east. You can see that, generally speaking, the width between the Rhine and this language boundary is about 100 to 150 kilometers, and it does not become narrow until the southern mountains.In this area, Germanic settlements were densely populated, and Germanic languages ​​thus replaced Latin or the burgeoning Romance languages.The Germanic barbarians once crossed the whole of Western Europe, drove straight into Spain, and crossed the sea into North Africa, but these places still spoke Latin or Romance languages, which means that the Germanic settlements in this area are much sparser than those on the border of Rome. In the 17th and 18th centuries, France opened up its territory as a powerful country. Although the territories in the east and north were greatly advanced, the language map did not change.People living on the eastern border of France still speak Germanic languages, and the northern part near the Atlantic coast still speaks Flemish, which belongs to the Germanic language family.The map shows that there are other parts of France that do not speak French; the southwestern region near the Spanish border, whose inhabitants demand independence from France and Spain, speaks Basque.Basque does not belong to the Indo-European language family, and its origin is unknown. (See Figure 7-2) On the western side of the peninsula of Brittany, the inhabitants speak Breton, a surviving Celtic language.When the Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded Britain, some British people crossed the strait and came to Brittany. Until today, the residents here still speak the Breton language, although the area where this language is spoken has been shrinking. After entering France, the Germanic barbarians did not completely eradicate the local Latin or Romance language, but this language has been evolving, and they have also contributed some Germanic vocabulary, especially the vocabulary about the king, government, and feudal system. That is, the proper term commonly used by the new ruling class. In Britain, the Germanic language family has won an all-round victory, which should be expected in view of the fact that the native British people suffered from the invasion of Angles, Saxons and Jutes. From the 9th century to the 10th century, Britain was invaded by foreigners for the second time. This time, it was the Vikings who also spoke a Germanic language.With the blending of these Germanic dialects, the basic vocabulary and grammar of English emerged, and in the process of evolution, English lost the declensions of its Germanic origins. In 1066, Britain was invaded three times, this time led by Duke William of Normandy, France.The ancestors of the Normans were Scandinavian Nordics. They were inspired by the king to settle in France, and they stopped burning, killing and looting.They spoke their own distinct French, a Romance language with a lot of Latin mixed in.For hundreds of years thereafter, the new British ruling class continued to speak Norman French, but eventually fused it with English, resulting in a massive increase in the English vocabulary.In today's English, almost everything has more than two words. For example, "king" and "king's" are king and kingly in English, and royal, regal and sovereign were added later.In terms of quantity, English vocabulary is several times more than French and German - after all, it is a mixture of French and German. Language evolution in Western Europe and Britain after the fall of the Roman Empire is summarized on the previous page. Spoken Latin has disappeared among the common people and is no longer their common language, but it is still handed down as a special language for academics, literature, and churches, allowing many Latin words to spread and spread to all European languages.Churches and scholars still spoke and wrote Latin, and it was therefore a living language, and therefore mutated—a degraded quality, by purist standards.And even in these areas, Latin may follow in the footsteps of the Romance languages.The first reconstruction of Latin was under the command of Charlemagne, who instructed scholars to copy ancient Latin manuscripts, trying to make the Latin language used at that time match the meaning of the classical original text. Scholarship and literature became out of reach because Latin was the exclusive language of scholarship and literature.If you want to be educated, you must first learn Latin, which is like a foreign language.During the Middle Ages, the vast majority of people were illiterate, illiterates abounded, but most unusually, even the rich and powerful were illiterate because they did not know Latin.Therefore, permeating the whole society is an oral culture of songs and stories.Noble lords entertain themselves with jesters or entertainers in their castles, and there is no way for these lords to read books quietly.The role of tradition and custom is extremely important, because relying on written records to understand the world and learn how to treat people is like a dream.During the Crusades, when European nobles and knights came to the Holy Land, the Muslim gentry class was stunned because these people were so rough and uneducated. Slowly, a literature written in the local language, that is, written in the mother tongue of the whole people instead of Latin, flourished day by day.The earliest French romances are called romans, after the language in which they were told.This is actually a pejorative—if you say it's a roman, it means it's an unpopular local work. The word roman later evolved into "story" in French.Since the content is always nothing more than knights, heroic deeds, and the love of handsome men and beautiful women, such stories are positioned as romance novels (romance).This explains the double meaning of the word romance: both a language derived from Latin and a novel subject without depth. The second major reconstruction of Latin took place during the Renaissance.Scholars and experts look down on the Middle Ages. Among other things, Latin has been mixed with many impurities and its level is so low that it may be one of the reasons.These scholars aspired to be able to write the Latin of the great writers of the classical era.During the Renaissance, Francesco Petrarca, the first scholar to call for the revival of classical culture, traveled all over Europe in order to find a manuscript letter of Cicero, an ancient Roman writer and rhetorician.Having recovered these letters, he wrote himself a letter to Cicero in impeccable Latin, imitating Cicero's style, paying tribute to him. At that time, the aristocrats and gentry class of the famous families had generally received education. They learned Latin not because it was a language dedicated to the church and involved in theological disputes, but to be able to read classics and write in Latin of the classical era.Until the 20th century, Latin was the center of gravity of secondary and higher education.This was the case myself, having to pass a Latin exam to be admitted to university.University graduation ceremonies are held in Latin, and the proper nouns for degrees today are often Latin: ad eundem gradum means "with equal academic ability", cum laude means "with distinction" (praise), summa cum laude "most cum laude", honoris causa "to award honors" (referring to honorary degrees). Latin was the strong tie between learned men (women didn't read Latin) throughout Europe.It is their shared second language, both a social bond and a pass code.In the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, speakers often export it, quoting a classic quote in Latin without translation.If you can't understand, that means you shouldn't be there.Words about "sex" should not be printed in black and white, but they can be printed in Latin, so that ordinary people can't understand them and won't be misled.In this way, you are reading a book with gusto, and suddenly alien texts appear. Today’s English still bears such traces of chiseling: “sexual organ” is replaced by Latin genitalia (genitalia); there is also pudenda, which is a good example to highlight the conciseness of Latin and the stern attitude towards “sex”; The word also refers to "sexual organs", especially the female genitals (vulva), which literally translates to "things to be ashamed of". The Renaissance tried to restore the glory of Latin, but the regional languages ​​also gained new status and respect during the same period.The first reason is thanks to the invention of modern printing in the 1450s.The first batch of books that were printed in black and white were classic ancient books written by classical authors, but unfortunately few people read them.Later, printers published books in local languages ​​or translated classics, and the reader market expanded.Everyone says that Shakespeare didn't know Latin, let alone Greek. He was familiar with classical history because he had read Plutarch's "Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans". Shakespeare read Thomas North's English translation in 1579, when Shakespeare was only fifteen years old.Shakespeare plays "Julius Caesar" and "Antony and Cleopatra" are based on it. The second reason is that the religious reformers in the 16th century hoped that the people could read the Bible themselves, so they translated it into local languages.The first task Martin Luther was given was to translate the Bible into German.For Protestants, Latin was no longer the language of sacred affairs. There is also a flower in the Latin family that bloomed very late but still survives today. It is the system of naming plants in Latin created by the Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus in the 18th century.Linnaeus learned Latin during his school days, and also read Aristotle's classification of natural organisms in Latin.This system gives plants two Latin scientific names, one for the genus and one for the species.The name of the discoverer of the plant must be translated into Latin to be part of the plant's name.The British botanist Joseph Banks (Joseph Banks) who accompanied the navigator Captain Cook on his great expedition was named Banksia (longan), an evergreen shrub with bottle brush flowers. , Immortal. After the beginning of Christianity, Latin was the common language in the West.This kind of language has become exclusive for the convenience of church governance, to transcend doctrinal disputes, to spread faith, and to carry out church ceremonies.It is different from Arabic, which is the language of God spoken by the Prophet Muhammad.Jesus spoke Aramaic, and his teachings were recorded in common Greek, the language common in the Eastern Mediterranean. The language of the Old Testament is Hebrew.But Latin united all believers, and it remained the exclusive language of the Catholic Mass until the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) declared that the vernacular could be used for liturgy.The papal encyclicals have always been published in Latin. In 1968, Pope Paul VI issued the Holy See's instructions on birth control and abortion in the "Humanae vitae" (Humanae vitae).Some devout Christians continue to perform church liturgy in Latin, as if they were ceremonies of underground societies.The current Pope Benedict XVI also prefers to use Latin for mass. Latin, like the concept of the Roman Empire, has been alive for a long time.