I'm new, and I want to learn Vulger Latin.

[Theodiskaz]

So, I have translated a favorite inspirational piece titled 'Desiderata' into my approximation of undifferentiated, somewhat regularized Vulgar Latin. My aim is to arrive at a putative, common sort of Vulgar Latin that would have been intelligible throughout the provinces circa AD 500, when I assume mutual intelligibility was on the verge of being lost. I am eager to learn about other attempts in this vein, and I would welcome any comments or criticism, as I am striving for authenticity. I'd like to show you what I have done but can't seem to find a document extension which is allowed. Any help?

[Astraios]

So copy and paste it.

[Theodiskaz]

Here it is.
I pacifice inter ille sonor et illa festinatione, et recorda in tale pace quale tu posse venire in ille silentio.

Quanto possible, sine illa redditione, sta in gratia com omnes. Fabula sua vertate quiete et plane; et osculte alteros, metipsimo illos stultos et illitteratos; pro quod illos etiam habent illoro historio. Fuge illos clarisonos et violentes, pro quod illos sont molestias per ad ille spirito.

Si tu te equiparas ad alteros, tu fias arrogante ot amaro; pro quod semper eront illos milioros et pejoros quam tu metipse. Delecta suos factos magis etiam suas cogitationes. Permane attento ad sua occupatione propria, quamquam humile illa seat; illa est una possesione vera in illa fortuna mutable de ille tempo.

Cave com suas cosas de negotio; pro quod ille mundo est pleno de illa frode. Magis non permitte eccisto de te cecare ad quod virtute est; multas tentant exemplares altos, et ubique illa vita est plena de illa heroicitate. Sea tu metipse. Maxime, non simula affecto, nec sea mordace de amor, pro quod contra omne ariditate, est quam perenne quam illa herba.

Accepta benigne illo consilio de illos annos, deponendo suave illas cosas de illa juventudine. Nutre illa fortia de illo spirito pro te protegere per ad calamitate subita. Non te vulnera com meditationes obscuras...multos pavores se nascent de illa defatigatione et illa solitudine.

Ultra una disciplina salubre, sea lene com tu metipse...Tu es uno infante de ille universo. Non minos quam illas arbores et stellas, tu habes ille directo de stare ecc hic. Et metipsimo si tu non illo comprehendes, eja vero, ille universo explicat quomodo debet. Ergo, sta in pace com Deos, quisquis tu comprehendes qui ille seat.

Et quidquid suos labores et speres, in illa confusione clamosa de illa vita, tene illa tranquillitate in suo spirito.

Nilominos suo dolo, fatigatione et somnios fractos, est iam uno mundo formoso. Cave. Tenta de stare felice.

[Arzena]

Shouldn't /t/ and /d/ >0 _# in Vulgar Latin?

[Soap]

Well French seems to preserve them. Or is that a later restoration?

[Theodiskaz]

Shouldn't /t/ and /d/ >0 _# in Vulgar Latin?

I am unclear as to how long it persisted in the conjugation, but am under the impression that it may have persisted longer in single syllable words and/or particles ie French 'et'. But I can't quote anyone on that.

[Whimemsz]

I don't know enough about Latin to really be able to offer much in the way of a critique here, but I'm going to try anyway because I'm crazy and reckless. (Incidentally if you haven't read this yet it's very good).

By the fall of the western Empire, c. 500 AD, there wasn't any "undifferentiated" Vulgar Latin; the significant isoglosses separating Western and Eastern Romance, at least, had surely already appeared, even though all the Romance varieties would still have been mutually-intelligible. So you will need to make a choice at least of the approximate point of origin of this Vulgar Latin you're using. The page I linked to mentions the most obvious distinctions between Western and Eastern Romance.

It's also a little difficult to offer suggestions since you're still using the Classical-based orthography, which doesn't reflect how (any variety of Vulgar) Latin would have been pronounced in the fifth or sixth century. The vowels had already undergone their mergers (so the system was in general */i, u, e, o, ɛ, ɔ, a/, which you seem to reflect somewhat in your sample [but not universally, e.g. **inter should be enter or entre]--although the open-mid vowels may have already been diphthongized to */iɛ, uɔ/ in some dialects...I'm unclear on when that change happened), and unstressed vowels word-internally had (mostly) been lost. Initial /h/ had long long ago been lost, so you should have, e.g., something like omle instead of **humile. The demonstratives were already shortened articles, so you'd have something like el and los for **ille and *illos. Certain consonants had already been palatalized before front vowels and yod, so you'd have something like fɔrts(j)a for **fortia, and something like patʃe for **pace. And while you seem to mark the strengthening of older Lat. */j/ to some sort of fricative or affricate, you don't seem to mark the same change for */w/ and *-/b/- > */β/, e.g. you'd have *βenire for **venire, and deβe for **debet. Also you've retained some clusters that would have been simplified by this point, e.g. you should have something like metesse or metisse instead of **metipse.

You've also got some vocabulary that's confined to Classical Latin or earlier Vulgar Latin (e.g. quod, ergo). Plus there's a number of high-register words that in the Romance languages I'm familiar with are generally expressed by later borrowings from Latin, so I don't know how many of them were still around at this stage of Latin--someone who knows the subject better than I might be able to help.

Also, a bit more on the regional diversification of Latin. As I said, by 500 it does make a significant difference where your variety of "Latin" is. In (most of? all of?) Western Romance by this point, for example, the lenition of intervocalic stops had already occurred, so for example if this is a variety of Latin spoken in Spain or Gaul, your **magis, **cosas, **permitte, and **virtute would be majs, kozas, permite, and βertude. The prosthesis of e- in much of Western Romance had also already happened at this date, so you would have had esta in place of **sta, if this is part of Western Romance.

For a fuller example, I'll try to translate one brief line into some approximation of the Latin of Spain in c. 500 (Spanish being the Romance language I'm most familiar with and whose history I know best). In one section you have "I pacifice inter ille sonor et illa festinatione, et recorda in tale pace quale tu posse venire in ille silentio.." Here's my best attempt, although it's surely wrong on many points:

βa(ð)i kon kalma entre el ro(ɣ)ido e la [?]*, e rekɔrda ke a tale padze en el selentso**



*I really don't know what the VL word for "haste" was...

**Silencio looks like a later borrowing from Latin; selentso is what I'd expect the result to be of Lat. silentium but I'm not sure what term would actually have been used.

[Aurora Rossa]

@Whimemsz: Vulgar Latin sounds remarkably similar to Spanish, based on that description at least.

[Whimemsz]

Well the Vulgar Latin spoken in Spain in 500 AD was pretty close to Old Spanish by that point. But since I don't actually know Vulgar Latin I'm sure my vocab choices and syntax was heavily influenced by how I'd translate that sentence into modern Spanish. Take it with a grain of salt and the knowledge that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

[Whimemsz]

Oh also note that Dewrad (who knows more about this than I do) already addressed some of the issues I mentioned.

[Octavià]

For a fuller example, I'll try to translate one brief line into some approximation of the Latin of Spain in c. 500 (Spanish being the Romance language I'm most familiar with and whose history I know best). In one section you have "I pacifice inter ille sonor et illa festinatione, et recorda in tale pace quale tu posse venire in ille silentio.." Here's my best attempt, although it's surely wrong on many points:

βa(ð)i kon kalma entre el ro(ɣ)ido e la [?]*, e rekɔrda ke a tale padze en el selentso**

I'm affraid your Hispanic "Vulgar Latin" is more like Spanish 1,000 years later. For example, your articles are clearly modern and also lenition of intervocallic stops is too much developped for such an early date.

I also think that Spanish alone would give you a distorted picture of Hispanic Romance. You need to know other varieties like Mozarabic (mainly attested in glosses and toponymy) and Aragonese. Even Basque, which has a lot of Latin and early Romance loanwords, might be useful.

Also Vulgar Latin had early Germanic loanwords, apart from the well-known guerra 'war' which replaced Classical Latin bellum.

[Buks]

I think the way you wrote the pronunciation of that sentence is too much Hispanic. In the development from Vulgar Latin to the Italian language (or better to the Tuscan dialect, which is the basis of the standard Italian), many of these changes never occurred..

[Whimemsz]

I think the way you wrote the pronunciation of that sentence is too much Hispanic. In the development from Vulgar Latin to the Italian language (or better to the Tuscan dialect, which is the basis of the standard Italian), many of these changes never occurred..

Yeah, that's why I specified that it was spoken in Spain, though! For instance, those intervocalic consonant lenitions occurred throughout Western Romance, and probably happened reasonably early (I don't know when they happened though...I only know it was between early Vulgar Latin and ~1000 AD; my attempt at Vulgar Latin above was based only on what I know about the approximate ORDER various changes occurred in, since I don't know the dates for those changes...)

However, as I also said, I'm not at all an expert in this stuff, and I'll defer to Octavia's judgment here (although I have to say, 1500 is WAY too late for the kind of Latin>Spanish I wrote; the latest possible date is more like 1000). My basic point was simply that Theodiskaz's "Vulgar Latin" was too Latin and not enough Romance. My other point was that there was already significant dialectal differentiation by 500.

[Dewrad]

Intervocalic lenition at least can be safely dated to about the fifth century at the latest.

[Octavià]

On which evidence?

[Dewrad]

Oh no, I'm not going to play this game with you again. Just forget I spoke.

[Octavià]

Never mind.

[Ser]

Shouldn't /t/ and /d/ >0 _# in Vulgar Latin?

I am unclear as to how long it persisted in the conjugation, but am under the impression that it may have persisted longer in single syllable words and/or particles ie French 'et'. But I can't quote anyone on that.

A derivation of final Latin T is still seen in Old Spanish texts in the third person singular conjugations, written as <t> or <d>, although the T in the derivative of ET isn't, usually found as <E> in initial position. So you have the opposite situation here to what you hypothesized, but I guess you could still say that the final Latin T wasn't lost that early in Vulgar Latin at least.

A derivation of Latin final D doesn't appear at all in Old Spanish though.

[Theodiskaz]

Hi everyone. Oh boy, am I embarrassed by my early attempt at a Vulgar Latin "Desiderata". On the other hand, I am grateful for all the comments and attention it got, so thanks. I just started a new topic entitled simply "Vulgar Latin" today. I've been away, and now I'm back, I'm at it again. So, anyone interested in my project, or who would just like to be sociable with another language person, stop by there and say "Hi".

[Drydic]

If you hadn't posted to this thread, it is very unlikely that anyone would have ever remembered it.

[Theodiskaz]

I thought as much. I guess I'm just a bit of a perfectionist.