Re: Latin and Oscan


jimbo.tyson@xxxxxxxxx schrieb:

Marco Pagliero wrote:
That is why we call modern Greek "modern Greek" but we don't call
Italian "modern Latin".

Who is this "we"? Greek in English is just Greek, unless a contrastive
sense is needed and then it's modern versus ancient but neither is in
that case called "Greek" tout court.

Sorry, English is not my first language. In my language space "Greek"
tout court means the classical Greek one studies at school. If I talk
about today Greek I have to say "modern Greek".

The reason we don't call Latin "modern Italian" ....

Please, it was "we don't call Italian "modern Latin"". And this is
possibly because in Italy we feel Latin to be a very foreign language.
Well, that Latin we study at school says "equus", "caput", "ventris",
"gladius", "jocus", "jecur". We are not aware that a Latin was also
there that said "caballus", "testa", "pancea", "spata", "schertium",
"figatum".
Italian and classical Latin are definitively not mutually intelligible,
not for Italians anyway if we have not beeing learnig Latin at least
four years at school.

By the way, _written_ French and Spanish become intelligible to maybe
80% after having read slowly fifty to hundred pages in the language.

Today Greek is in contrast very similar to ancient Greek and some greek
people pretend they can read classical textes without having studied
it. And if I'm talking with someone in Crete or Athens I feel it is
almost the same language I read in Xenophon or Demosthenes.

Marco P

.

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