Not true. Vulgate latin was simply non-literary latin, and most written latin was very likely vulgate forms. See graffiti in Pompey circa 1st century BC. See also the account of Egeria's pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and various medical texts, written in vulgate latin.
But, VERY little of it survived, basically because medieval monks didn't think it
was worth making new copies of texts which were either:
a) in "bad" latin
b) too "pagan"
Very little literature in dialect of any period has survived, in fact.
If you study the extant sources of vulgate or late latin, you will in fact notice a fairly smooth transition from latin to romance forms, with the exact crossover point arbitrarily determined by some cultural event of importance, like the "Serments de Strasbourg" (842 AD IIRC), or Dante, or somesuch.
> The first person to write anything down in Italian was Dante circa 1320
> AD. French is written down in England soon after the Norman conquest
> to replace native saxon records.
But there are 9th & 10th century texts in French still extant (written down in France!), very similar to contemporary late latin. (But somewhat divergent syntax.)
> Yet these languages were growing apart
> from each ever other since the Western Roman Empire collapsed. Despite
> this people were using written latin to communicate with each other. I've
> already pointed out that spoken latin was little good for communicating
> with foreigners and gave the example of Katherine of Aragorn.
Yes, and I imagine similar communication difficulties even during the dominance of the western Empire.
> >An alphabetic system must relate to the spoken system or it won't work.
>
> And what makes you think that it _doesn't_ in the case of Western?
> The Western Languages are descended from one very ancient tongue
> that is highly respected and people still write in it. Despite
> this, most westerners speak a vulgar form of this language which is
> incomprehensible to outsiders. This is a good description of the
> languages of Italian, French and Spanish around the turn of the
> millenium. It is also a good description of Loskalmi, Seshnegi,
> Carmanian etc in glorantha.
>
> AF>> Just like English you mean, whose spelling has of course mutated
> >> to _exactly_ match pronunciation?
>
> >Compare English, Dutch and German for a more comparable spread of change in
> >languages. Languages tend to get partially frozen when 'the rules' get laid
> >down and spelling standardised (Dr Johnson has a lot to answer for) but have
> >a look at what common prejudice and ignorance are doing to the spelling of
> >'lite', 'nite' and 'thru'.
>
> FYI this happened as a result of the Printing Press. There are no
> printing presses in glorantha.
Television is a far stronger influence towards the standardisation of language IMO.
> >> I think there probably is a common(ish) spoken form, it's just what
> >> you hear on the streets. A sort of "Church Western", as it were.
>
> >This is directly contrary to the sources.
>
> Could you then give a source citation? The Church Western would be
> similar to if not the same as spoken Brithini which is mentioned in
> the sources.
>
> >Now, that (not being a scholar of that part of the world) I didn't appreciate.
> >All right try written Chinese as a communication between the very different
> >dialects of spoken Chinese. Oh, no someone argues with me against that analogy
> >a little further on.....
>
> Which gives the lie to the argument that only an ideogrammic system
> can represent the Western Script, does it not? A RW alphabetic
> system can represent Western script and a RW ideogrammic system
> does not have the virtues of comprehensibility that is commonly
> supposed.
>
> >Why don't people like this? I don't understand why you want to alter the plain
> >sense of the source to change something that will not make all that much
> >difference. Just to preserve the analogy with Western Europe?
>
> Given that the source mentions nothing whatsoever about an
> ideogrammic system and given that the parallel of arabic has been
> brought up, I find accusations that I am trying to 'change'
> something to preserve the western european analogy to be utterly
> bizarre.
Otherwise, agreed, and a good response!
cheers
Julian Lord
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