How Latin became Italian 🇮🇹

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

To try everything Brilliant has to offer - free - for a full 30 days, visit brilliant.org/polyMATHY . The first 200 to sign up will get 20% off Brilliant’s annual premium subscription. Following up on my assertions in this video, I have just published a video on the secondary channel where I discuss the evidence against lax vowels in Classical Latin, namely that [ɪ] and [ʊ] are wrong for ĭ and ŭ: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g6aQpJ-Fd9qlrK8 Thanks for subscribing to both channels! 🦂 Support my work on Patreon: www.patreon.com/LukeRanieri 📚 Luke Ranieri Audiobooks: luke-ranieri.myshopify.com 🤠 Take my course LATIN UNCOVERED on StoryLearning, including my original Latin adventure novella "Vir Petasātus" learn.storylearning.com/lu-promo?affiliate_id=3932873 🦂 Sign up for my Latin Pronunciation & Conversation series on Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/54058196

[@tongobong1]

Great now you should create a video of Slovenian language - how it became Slovenian from the old Church Slavonic and you can compare the transformations.

[@michalpijocha4691]

A

[@Raphe9000]

I've long been looking for a comprehensive video on Latin's evolution into the Romance languages. This surely does not disappoint.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

I’m very glad! I had to leave out a lot of details. The sources are in the description

[@viictor1309]

Same

[@FairyCRat]

Josh from NativLang did the same thing with French, his video is a lot more condensed, but as a native francophone, I found it quite accurate.

[@antonioconstantinmusic]

romanianpelasgian.blogspot.com/2022/10/romanian-is-pelasgian-thracian-language.html

[@BigSmallTravel]

Latin to Italian ... Very important.

[@ForgottenHeroes]

Hello Luke, this is a bit off topic with the video, but I have to tell you a story that you will like to read, I think. I'm half Greek and half Spanish, I was born and raised in Spain, so my Greek is good, but I don't have a native level. The thing is that when I can, I go to Greece in the summer to see my family and friends. Well, this summer I went to the island of Thassos where a friend was waiting for me. To go to Thassos I had to take a ferry from the city of Kavala, in the region of Macedonia. When I got to the port I didn't know which ferry to take, so I asked a young Greek guy he was walking in front of me. He was also going to Thassos and he didn't know which ferry was ours either, so we went together to ask someone from the staff. Once this was resolved and already on the ferry, we started talking. He noticed a weird accent in my Greek and asked me where I'm from, to which I replied him I'm from Spain. The boy told me that he is studying Spanish on his own and we began to have a basic conversation in Spanish (the truth is that he spoke it very well). From there, he told me that languages are his passion, and that he was learning classical Greek and Latin at the same time, and I told him that he also had an interest in these languages. And almost simultaneously, we said each other: "Do you know the KZbin channel polýMATHY?" We both laughed and were amazed. There you had two strangers who had just met, on a boat in the middle of the Aegean Sea, and both followers of your channel. :) Since that day we have maintained a good friendship and we talk regularly on instagram. How capricious life is.

[@Philoglossos]

That's wonderful!

[@schrire39]

Wonderful story! Are you guys still dating ?

[@ForgottenHeroes]

@@schrire39 Well he is living in Greece while I'm from Spain, but we have a very good friendship!

[@baronmeduse]

Excellent.

[@sbclaridge]

It doesn’t surprise me that a Greek person would speak Spanish pretty well, specifically accent-wise. That’s because Castilian Spanish and Standard Modern Greek share a lot of common phonological features. Despite the large differences in vocabulary and grammar, as well as the geographical separation between Greece and Spain, to the ear they sound almost the same in terms of phonology and rhythm. Being attuned to Spanish (albeit Mexican Spanish), I noticed the same thing when I listened to Anna Vissi’s songs; it sounded strangely “familiar” but I couldn’t understand the words. At the same time, I believe that Standard Modern Greek is based on the Ionian-Peloponnesian dialects spoken in the Athens area. I know Athens isn't technically in the Peloponnese (Peloponnesos), but the Ionian-Peloponnesian dialect area does include the Athens region. To my understanding, although SMG is known and taught all across Greece and Cyprus, other parts of Greece such as Macedonia have their own dialects too (northern dialects in Macedonia's case).

[@danielrodelli345]

As an Italian that studied Latin at school, thank you for this!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Grazie!

[@antistiolabeo8950]

Not only this guy displays an incredible knowledge in all things regarding ancient Latin and Romance languages, but he also has a very distinctive taste in videography and music that can't go unnoticed. It really helps his communication as a whole giving it a deeper and more effective meaning.

[@antistiolabeo8950]

What strikes me the most about these videos however is the very peculiar and interesting way the narrating voice pronounces every "wh-word" in English, almost emphasizing the "h" in it and separating it from the rest of the word. It's kinda like the "Cool Whip" gag in Family guy, if you know what I'm talking about XD Is that a deliberate choice or just a regional accent thing (which would be surprising considering how much effort he puts in perfecting phonetics and pronunciation even in "undead" languages)?

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

That’s really nice of you, thanks for the comment. As for my pronunciation habits, I have changed my accent somewhat over the years to include a number of archaisms, as I like how they sound.

[@anypercentdeathless]

Yeah, I like his joke about solecisms. I mean, the irony of purposefully misspelling it as "soloecism"-genius.

[@PC_Simo]

@@antistiolabeo8950 I’ve noticed that, too. That voiceless ”hw”-sound is too archaic, even for most Brits. 😁

[@PC_Simo]

@antistiolabeo8950 The music (and, somewhat, the videography, too) really reminds me of NativLang’s ”The Grammar of Romance” -series, on KZbin; based on his book(s), by the same name. The topic is also very similar, but it has far more focus, on the horizontal comparison of different Romance languages, and their antecedents; than, on the vertical tracking of phonological, morphological, and syntactic changes; and it seems to favour the ”Allenian” model for (”Vulgar”) Latin vowels; and it definitely doesn’t explore the collapse of the case system, in the more nuanced way. In the series, it’s simply stated that: ”The Accusative case replaced the Nominative case (and others), as the ”basic” form of a noun or an adjective.”; and that’s the end of the day, for Josh. He does mention some exceptions; like, in Old French: ”Loups” (Nomin. Sing.); but, even, for that exception, Josh then goes on to say that it, too, was replaced by the Accusative ”Loup”, in the Singular form; when it’s much more likely that the Nominative Singular ”Loups” simply simplified to: ”Loup”; given that French has always tended to lose final ”-s”:s and ”-t”:s, among some other consonants. Even now; the final ”-s”, in the Plural form: ”Loups” [lʉː], is silent (though, it’s still written).

[@IntoMattyPlays]

As an Italian i can say that this video is absolutely perfect!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Grazie mille!

[@nigelwiseman8644]

Phenomenal. I speak Spanish and French (and learned some Latin), not Italian, but this explains so much for me. I always wondered about the change in the future tense (which is the same in French and Spanish). He should get an honorary doctorate for this video. I am in absolute awe of this guy.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Very kind. Let me know where to pick up the doctorate

[@OverlySarcasticProductions]

Babe wake up new vernacular just dropped -B

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Haha thanks for watching, my friend

[@SoulEternalPeaceWarrior77]

You've outdone yourself Luke, such an AMAZING, well-produced video! Having grown up in a Spanish speaking household & later visiting Italy, it was super intriguing to hear so many identical expressions & words being used. I've come to realize that (even today) Latin is the well-worn bridge many of us use to travel & become acquainted with each other across the Romantic World!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks very much! I hope to do Latin to Spanish in the future

[@paulfaulkner6299]

@@polyMATHY_Luke I very much look forwards to seeing it

[@Valerio_the_wandering_sprite]

*Romance

[@PC_Simo]

@@Valerio_the_wandering_sprite Exactly! 🎯👌🏻👍🏻

[@josephe5717]

Please do this for Spanish and Portuguese! I would like to understand the shift to Argentine Spanish as well with Sicilian immigration and in Brazil as well

[@SoulcatcherLucario]

gosh, hearing the italian and latin terms right next to each other are so beautiful

[@Pandadude-eg9li]

Neat! Seeing Latin become Italian is something I've waited for so long to be documented. Can't wait for Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian! (Nativlang already did French).

[@davidlericain]

Nativlang's video was amazing. So well made. I've watched it many times.

[@Pandadude-eg9li]

@@antonioconstantinmusic KZbin doesn't like links. It got deleted, but luckily I got the link.

[@jasminevictoriana8999]

It's better for Polymathy to make another (and his own) video of this topic (French) , since the one made by NativLang is a bit short.

[@SionTJobbins]

.... and Catalan.

[@EnglishOrthodox]

NativLang is top tier

[@davidesperanza7701]

I'm italian and this is so interesting. Thank you Luke!

[@Brandon55638]

It was also interesting for me too. Similar vowel changes happened when a dialect of Latin became European Spanish. I'm an American L2 Spanish speaker.

[@DanielLagunaIHS]

Very good video. In Portuguese, we can see the phenomenon of the ''new future tense'' using the verb ''to have/habere'' with the ''mesóclise'': ''I will love him = amá-lo-ei (originally ''amar-lo-hei'')''. ''Mesóclise'' sounds arcaic in Brazil nowadays and it's interesting how it proves that the future tense of modern Romance languages come from the infinitive + habere.

[@zidokthepriest]

Noto que eis cá um homem de cultura 🗿🍷

[@zidokthepriest]

E aparentemente temos uma visão política semelhante, um dissidente?

[@jnmg19]

As a graduate in modern languages, your channel is just pure gold!

[@jnmg19]

@@LongshanksLongdicc you’re right! Thank u for letting me know! ♥️

[@luisag2014]

Thank u 4 this viedo being Italian Toronto beautiful Italy 🇮🇹 ❤️

[@DenspanskeVikingo]

I feel like your presentation is useful for learning stress relief :) the soothing music, combined with your calm and patient voice, really facilitates learning, and calming of the mind. :-) 🤝👏

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

I’m really glad you think that, thanks!

[@shaughnfourie304]

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU

[@Elv1s_TCB]

Pelicula pulcherrima. That was incredibly interesting. I've enjoyed it and I think that's one of the most complete videos I've ever seen on KZbin about evolution of Latin.

[@Elv1s_TCB]

@Mar Coac yeah pulcherrima, why?

[@Elv1s_TCB]

@Mar Coac bro are you kidding me?

[@Elv1s_TCB]

Don't you like Latin?

[@malachi5813]

I love language, being armenia from the ussr, grew up with that then russian now english and learned some spanish and french but latin and italian is a must for me, this is amazing PolyMath! Love your WORK! Awesomus Maximus man! :)x

[@georgesfeydeaufeydeau6235]

Thank you. This was a thing of beauty. I enjoyed your focus on Italian (a language I love) but have also learned much about my own language (Spanish), as you anticipated in the introduction.

[@pile333]

Super competent, prolific, linguist and creator. 👏

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Very kind. I’m just reporting what I’ve read in those books, plus a few opinions of my own thrown in

[@potman4581]

I've been waiting for a video like this, and I'm delighted to see you made it. Can't think of a better person to learn this from. Thanks, Luke. Can't wait to sink my teeth into this.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks! I’m just reporting what I’ve read in others’ works

[@whathappens6877]

Amazing video! Although it is over an hour long, it still fills short. I'd love to see a video like this about the changes that occur from Latin to my native language, Romanian. You gave us a small glimpse of those changes but I want more. People often neglect our Roman heritage based on the differences between our language and the other, more well known, romance languages and all of the words that we adopted from Turkish and Greek during the Ottoman era and especially from Slavic prior to that. I also wonder if a pre-slavic migration proto-romanian can be reconstructed based on what we know about the evolution of romance languages.

[@PodcastItaliano]

Amazing video, Luke!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Grazie, Davide!

[@pestolingo9134]

Amazing as always. All of the exceptions are intimidating, but I’m glad to know that they’re mostly well-described! Definitely going to be referring to this later

[@MrSupernova111]

Fascinating! Thanks!

[@ItalianByLatin]

Thank you for this excellent video, which I absolutely have to recommend to my students who want to delve deeper into the relationship between the two languages.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks very kindly!

[@rattotakki]

Bravissimo, un video meraviglioso che apre la mente! Ogni paese ha le sue radici e diversità, non necessariamente oggetti di conflitto o diffidenza, ma al contrario inesauribili fonti di curiosità... Come mi hai implicitamente insegnato 👏👏👏

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Grazie, molto gentile

[@radix133]

It is such a treat to study Italian!

[@gennarotesta4228]

Molto esaustivo e denso di informazioni importanti. Da notare che la transizione dal latino parlato all'italiano è ancora più sfumata e complessa. I casi sono totalmente persi nella flessione di nomi ed aggettivi ma sono conservati quasi intatti in quella dei pronomi personali (io, me, mi(hi), tu, te, ti attestato nei primi documenti come "tebe") ad esempio ed in parte in quella dei pronomi relativi (che, cui...). La conservazione nei nomi del caso accusativo non è sempre vera al 100%, uomo, re, vengono da nominativi puri... Il neutro è perso, ma sostantivi come uovo, dito e pochi altri non hanno altro modo di formare il plurale che quello classico in -a dei nomi neutri...Vestigia residuali e tenaci (ma vive) di un passato antichissimo

[@guillermorivas7819]

One of your best, Luke. The music, visuals, and soft spoken English reminds me of when I would watch Eugene Weber give his lectures on PBS television. I would like to see you do this exact same thing with Spanish and Portuguese. I'd think it would be a hit, you could incorporate the Latin with the Italian. What Portuguese retained from Latin so well and what is something that makes it unique. Ditto for Spanish. I do believe it's long overdue. Naturally of course you'll get plenty of insight from speakers from Latin America and the Iberian peninsula.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks! I intend to at some point

[@guillermorivas7819]

@@polyMATHY_Luke, You're welcome. In a way, you did briefly go over what Spanish retained from Latin in this video. Ditto for Portuguese. For a few instances. For example: Latin = Spanish Maior = mayor Cuius = cuyo Etc. Portuguese: Cauda = cauda Cum = com

[@teresajohnson1352]

I would love to hear about the Subjunctive in European languages, if possible. Spanish has lost the Future Subjunctive in the last two centuries, though I still uße it in some very unplausible situations; my Castilian mother (Segovia province) used it more than I do and her mother much more often. I find the Subjunctive very useful in the majority of its uses, but I do observe its lack of use in some situations in young generations (people under 45 yrs old or so) in Spain. Fascinating!! I AM in my early seventies born in Madrid, Spain.

[@Glossologia]

Interestingly, the future subjunctive is an ibero-romance innovation - Latin had no such thing.

[@briccimn]

Grazie, Luke. Bellissimo e interessantissimo documento!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Grazie per aver guardato!

[@teresajohnson1352]

I LOVED thisvideo. THANK YOU!!!!!!! I AM a MFL teacher and I just love all the research about language development. Much appreciated 😊

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks!

[@davideaquila]

I absolutely love it. I wish I could spend a lifetime listening to videos like this. Thanks Luke

[@Krystic111]

I am in awe of the pronunciation system of Latin in its varieties.

[@Raphael_NYC]

Amazing. The quality, the content, and the delivery. Thank you. Raphael nyc

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks for watching!

[@iulianbogasieru5919]

Great video as always. How about doing something similar for Romanian? I find impressive that so many changes in Italian parallel the changes in Romanian. In fact, it feels like Romanian is some sort of an extension of Italian. No wonder then so many Romanian speakers feel Italian is the closest of all other Romance languages.

[@BigSmallTravel]

Latin to Italian is a video I thought I would see more commonly. Thanks for the video and information.

[@jean-philippeplanas9682]

Outstanding. Thank you.

[@martindiaries]

Grazie mille Luke! I watched a documentary about the evolution of french from latin through middle french to modern french a couple months ago and since then I craved a similar video/documentary about Italian, in which I have immensely more interest in! I searched everywhere and yet to no avail, until I saw this video of yours! Thank you a thousand times magister, maestro, amico!!!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks very much!

[@NovaSeven]

I really enjoyed the footage accompanying this interesting essay 👏🏼

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks! It’s 182 clips of video from around Italy (plus a bit of England)

[@marcomonz49]

The language of the Vulgate, the late 4th century translation of the Bible from Greek to Latin, shows thats much of the basis for the innovations of the modern romance languages were already in place. For example the use of ‘quia’ to introduce indirect speech, the stretched uses of ille/illa as generalized 3rd person pronouns, overuse of prepositions (dixit ad illos…) and the use of ‘romance’ vocabulary: manducare instead of edere etc…

[@tylere.8436]

They even used 'quod' and 'quoniam' as well, it was originally a bad habit of Greek speakers to introduce indirect statements in this way as opposed to the oratio obliqua construction; then as Christianity became widespread, so did this practice. Eventually 'quod' won out and got generalized to que/che in the Romance languages.

[@guillermorivas7819]

"Manducare" took hold in France and Italy, evolved there into "manger" and "mangiare". However, in the Iberian peninsula "edere" evolved into "comer" from comedere.

[@NormanF62]

A more interesting question is why Classical Latin was no longer understood by the eighth century. Before that, people had no difficulty understanding the Vulgate and during the Dark Ages that disappeared and then people needed to have a book they were once familiar with explained to them.

[@ekesandras1481]

a lot of this is already present in Caesar's "de bello Gallico", because he deliberately wrote in a more vernacular Latin to adress the common people. What we learn in school is Classic Latin from the first century BC, which at that time already was a bit oldfashioned and under pressure from more simple, more innovative vernacular of the common people, the city dialect of Rome itself, but also a sort of Easy Latin spoking in the provinces.

[@askadia]

Thank you!

[@Florentia1963]

I really enjoyed it. Well done!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Grazie!

[@nicolaignazio]

From province of Macerata, here we also nail raddoppiamento fonosintattico! :D

[@giovannisantostasi9615]

Thank you, so amazing video. Your Italian pronunciation is beautiful.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Molto gentile

[@aarontaylor434]

Fabulous video. You rock!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thank you!

[@tylere.8436]

This video has been a delight and certainly very informative for those unfamiliar with IPA, though I want to add something about your take on the indirect statements. I believe, based on the information I had gathered, that the que/che word from the Romance languages came from Latin quod, rather than quia. Quod served as a casual conjunction also, was substituting the acc. inf. construction alongside quia and even quoniam, and quod was also used as 'that' in other constructions . Quia merged with quam as 'qua' and survived in a few languages like Romanian and Neapolitan as 'ca'. Very great video nonetheless and looking forward for more videos from you.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks. The notion that quia > che in Tuscan is reported by D’Achille in his book I cited. I was pretty glib when I mentioned it, but I meant by my swift statement there that they all merged, quod with quia

[@tylere.8436]

@@polyMATHY_Luke That's certainly the case, those conjunctions were blending with each other in the end, along with quid more plausibly . If you check out "Latin at the End of the Imperial Age" online, there is a lot of interesting insight into Latin around this time and how different it was from the Classical period since the Crisis of the 3rd Century. It even explains how Spanish got usted, seemingly from a Late Latin honorific, vostra merces. Best wishes Luci Ranieri. 😉

[@pogeman2345]

This is very important and interesting for me as a conlanger (constructed language creator) as a resource for examples of phonological and morphological shifts as languages evolve.

[@sergejbozinovic6096]

I am so glad you mentioned the development of the future tense in Italian. I always found it cool that it (though in a not so obvious way) Italian uses the verb avere (to have) for both future AND past. I would like to think that in an alternate universe only the word order would be the difference between I loved and I will love in Italian lol. Lovely video

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks!

[@PC_Simo]

Kind of the same thing goes on, in Finnish, where the auxiliary verb: _”Olla”_ (= ”To Be”) is used for both the (more lyrical and rarer) Future tense _(”Olen rakastava”),_ and 2 of the past tenses: Perfect tense _(”Olen rakastanut”),_ and: Plusquamperfect tense _(”Olin rakastanut”);_ with the difference being in the verb conjugations: *Future:* Present + Participle _(”Olen rakastava”;_ lit. ”I am loving”) *Perfect:* Present + Supine _(”Olen rakastanut”;_ lit. ”I am loved”) *Plusquamperfect:* Imperfect + Supine _(”Olin rakastanut”;_ lit. ”I was loved”). 😅

[@TeodorLavilota]

Less substratum and superstratum in French rather in Italian. In French there is the Celtic substratum (Gallic) and the Germanic superstratum (Frankish) that have influenced development. When you hear Italian, you sense that the variation from Latin is the smallest of all the Romance languages. Thousand thanks for these very interesting videos.

[@ekesandras1481]

for me Castilian sounds much closer to Latin. This is due to the early codification of Castilian (Nebrija 1492), while Italian looks and sound very much like a dialect, that has been made a standard language only much later.

[@zaqwsx23]

​@@ekesandras1481According to the linguist Mario Pei, Italian is 12% phonetically distant from Latin whilst Spanish is 20% distant.

[@carymnuhgibrilsamadalnasud1222]

​@@zaqwsx23Sardanian and Romanian are closer to Latin apparently

[@zaqwsx23]

​@@carymnuhgibrilsamadalnasud1222 Sardinian is, not Romanian. Romanian just kept more grammar features but Italian has more Latin vocabulary and it's closer phonetically.

[@carymnuhgibrilsamadalnasud1222]

@@zaqwsx23 I see. I think Corsican is also close to Latin too.

[@italianfoodmadefromthehear8729]

Wow, Bravo! This video is Absolut in the delivery a complete comprehension.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Many thanks

[@Michael_Walsh]

I've been looking for a summarized but fairly thorough coverage of Classical Latin to modern romance languages, and by the length, I know this will not disappoint. I'm so excited to hear about the development from vulgar to old Italian to modern romance

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

I hope you found it useful. Soon I’ll do one on Spanish too

[@mattiafioravanti8475]

Ineccepibile come sempre!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Grazie, caro!

[@caraboska]

That magical talking bear got me too. Old English is on my list of languages to learn. Now I know where to go. Now if you just offered Middle English too...

[@hoangkimviet8545]

How Latin becomes Italian? Easy, just change the order of the letters in "Latin", then repeat "i" and ""a", and finally arrange all to get "Italian".

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Haha

[@ValeriusMagni]

Change the order of the letters? Repeat i and a?

[@Cyclonus2377]

Che dolce video! Molto grazie per fare! Non vedo di vedere i video per spagnolo, portoghese, e rumeno! 😃😃😃😃

[@Brandon55638]

Anche io.

[@emilehuang1581]

I really like your voice. I think your voice sounds really pleasant, it's very magnetic, and listening to it is very calming.😇

[@CabinFever52]

I'm going to have to check out your whole series. It sounds quite interesting!

[@LaPrincipessaNuova]

Thanks so much for making this!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks for watching and sharing!

[@Reazzurro90]

I can't even imagine how long it took you to create this video. I appreciate al your hard work. It's utterly fascinating and even after an hour I feel like it was just beginning to scratch the surface. I'm a bit disappointed that it's over, kind of like a good book. I found particularly interesting the evolution of the future tense and how that occurred. In addition to the excellent content, tangentially, the music and the images you used were incredible as well.

[@BopWalk]

This was the video we all waited for...... Thank you.

[@fredcaprilli220]

Amazing video, Luke. You mention that the Latin accusative form can be considered the antecedent in some way of the Italian word. But it seems to me that the ablative form, which lacks the usual terminal "m" of the accusative, is almost always a closer match, e.g. "latte" from "lacte" rather than from "lactem".

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks, Fred. Yes, I used to be of the same opinion. I mentioned in the video that it’s best to think of the various inflected endings collapsing together. Since final -m was weak and by the late 2cAD wasn’t pronounced at all anymore by most people, the accusative became similar to or identical to the ablative. It’s more accurate to say that it’s the accusative singular that gives most Romance forms, since we see inscriptional mistakes of the accusative being used with ablative prepositions, of the type “dē amīcum meum,” and the accusative even being used in place of the nominative. Also consider that third declension nouns like tempus become tempo in Italian, not tempore.

[@fredcaprilli220]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Apropos of "inscriptional mistakes", The "Romans Go Home" scene in "Life of Brian" comes to mind here... :)

[@PC_Simo]

⁠@@polyMATHY_Luke Yes; and (at least, with Italian), this collapsing together of different case endings; due to the loss of final consonants, phonemic vowel length, and the different vowel quality mergers; it is feasible to say, also, that: ”At least, for some words/declensions, the Italian words come from the Nominative, as much, as from the Accusative, as much, as from the Ablative, etc.”; because, as far, as I’m aware, Italian has lost all final ”S”:s. So, together with the loss of all final ”M”:s, the Nominative and the Accusative cases merged together; and it’s not necessarily a very fruitful excercise, to try and distinguish, whether a given word ”comes from the Nominative, or the Accusative”, if those cases are identical, anyways. 🤔😅

[@franktaylor7978]

Wow. I loved this. As someone who speaks italian and Spanish this was fascinating. So many of these patterns and shifts apply to Spanish equally.. E.g. palatium -> palatyum -> palacio (pah lah thi oh)

[@MenelionFR]

Wow, what a great Halloween/Samhain gift! Thank you Luke, it's just gorgeous!

[@massimolisoni4990]

Luchino hai tirato fuori un video perfetto.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Troppo gentile

[@leonstevens1382]

Very scholarly explanation. Much appreciated!

[@enzofabbrucci3467]

DA STUDIOSO ITALIANO DI LINGUA LATINA DEVO DIRTI CHE QUESTO VIDEO È GENIALE!!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Grazie!

[@sazji]

What a journey! Phonology is one of my favorite areas of linguistics and what a great hit you’ve given us here. I’d also never considered phonology as the driver of case loss. Fascinating. If reincarnation is real, perhaps in my next life I’ll jump down the Latin > Romance languages rabbit hole, but I’m happy to be able to participate as a spectator. :-) And of course the visuals here make want to visit Italy…

[@ironinquisitor3656]

I love the length of the video! So much juicy info. Very early on Classical Latin and spoken Latin hardly had any differences between each other. Classical Latin WAS how upper-class Romans spoke in the late republic early imperial times. So there was no "Vulgar Latin." But even later on when the spoken dialects of Latin were becoming very different in late antiquity, written Latin was still considered the standard way of writing their language. It's like how modern French works today. The spelling is so different from the pronunciation and verb endings are even pronounced differently from how they write French. There is no reason the "proto romance" dialects and their speakers in the early Middle Ages and late antiquity couldn't have done the same thing to the verb and case endings of literary Late Latin when reading out loud. I'm trying to reconstruct the different regional pronunciations of Latin in all the major regions from late antiquity to about the 9th or 10th century before/around the time the Carolingian reforms spread to the other Romance speaking areas. Gallo-romance is easy because all you have to do is figure out the sound changes and phonology that occurred over time. I was discussing it with KZbinr ABalphabeta on Discord and he told me that the dialects in Gaul at the latest until the early 7th century had a 3-case nominative, genitive-dative, and accusative-ablative system, then in the mid and late 7th century it went to the two-case system we see in medieval French and Occitan. So the Gallo-romance pronunciation of Late Latin texts over time is easy to figure out when applying Roger Wright's theory to it. I did a translation of the Oaths of Strasbourg into Late Latin and applied the reconstructed pronunciation of the original Oaths to my Latin version and despite only 2 case endings in medieval french and the huge difference in phonology from the two I was able to treat the Latin version as if Latin was still the correct way of writing Romance. Trying to figure out Italo-romance and Ibero-romance pronunciation of Latin texts in that later period is a bit harder because finding information about generally when the case system completely went away or how it evolved as it was going away in those regions is harder to account for. Phonology is the easy part. From what I know with Italian, there is a theory that at some point accusative -os became -ois which become became -oi, and then -ei and then -i, becoming identical with the nominative -i. We find in Old Latin the nominative form "Poploi" which also is found in certain surviving writings as "Poploe" or "Poplei" before it becomes nominative plural "Populi" in Classical Latin. So we can see how that evolution of -oi to -i could have happened if -os became -ois and then the -s got deleted. The same thing could have happened to accusative plural and nominative plural -es. -es -eis -ei -e -i. Could the nominative plural -us have possibly gone -os -ois - -oi too when a dual case system like French had at one point before it disappeared existed in Italo-romance? Or another theory I have is possibly in Italo-romance at one point we could have had a dual case system sort of more closer to Romanian where the nominative and accusative merged earlier (so we have a situation of -us to -os to -o, so both nominative and accusatives in the singular become identical) and so we have an Accusative-nominative-ablative as one case and then we have a genitive-dative case as the other. Then when the merged genitive-dative disappears we have no cases at all by the time Italian or other Italo Romance languages are written down. This was a great video! Anyways, these are my thoughts and commentary on the subject as long as my comment was lol.

[@freki9940]

superb video as always! looking forward to the next one :)

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks!

[@creeproot]

bravissimo Luke, complimentiiiii👏👏👏👏im so glad for this video,i had been waiting for it and you are very well educated

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Very kind!

[@apm77]

It's worth noting that some dialects of present day English _have developed_ phonemic vowel length to some degree. For example, for most speakers of Australian English, the vowel in SUM or MUCK is identical in quality to the vowel in PSALM or MARK, length being the only difference between them.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Hi Adrian, this is absolutely true. There are also long vowels in British accents. However, these differences don’t occur in unstressed syllables, which is where it’s really important in Latin, so the simplification as a generalization I think is warranted.

[@burnvictim77]

Those are differently rounded vowels.

[@quirelll]

Beautiful work of art! Thank you!

[@buddharuci2701]

I am embarking very now on a journey through Dante’s Commedia. Fortuitous timing, my friend!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Excellent! I’m this video I shall be your Virgilio, and you Signor Alighieri.

[@contacthigh1]

I vote for any video on dialects and regional languages of Italy. Occasionally my father would break out into a stream of Sicilian and it was fun. Enjoyed your soothing masterful video.

[@tlacorp.3813]

Totally different topic. You prolly want a video by someone for Basic Italian generalizations.

[@davideconedera9521]

Fantastic job!! You could do it for other romance languages too, like Frioulian!

[@elisabettamacghille4623]

"Sao ko kelle terre, per kelle fini que ki contene, trenta anni le possette parte Sancti Benedicti." Capua, 960 d.C., Italiano, anzi Italianissimo! .. e quindi intimamente Latino.

[@nnsqutr]

I found the last ten minutes the most interesting, and would like to see more on that -- how the grammar evolved, especially as prodded by changes in phonemes.

[@12_xu]

Now, THIS is a professional video. Sei un'ispirazione!

[@MrRabiddogg]

it'd be interesting to hear a Proto-Germanic vs Latin comparison. See how different those cousin languages are.

[@edgarazevedo1306]

I recommend this book,"De una a cuatro lenguas: del español al portugués, al italiano y al francés", it obviously writen in spanish but it was one of the best books that confronts those four romance language plus the european portuguese and the brazilian portuguese. I'm brazilian and I have discovered some curiosities about my own tongue that i never hoped i would find in any portuguese grammar book.

[@gavinopiana2869]

Ci sarebbe anche il Romeno, il fratello spesso dimenticato

[@CleverNameTBD]

This is very interesting and I'm learning Italian now as a French speaker who learned passable Spanish and sometimes have to stop myself to remark at how both languages are similar to Italian yet distinct enough from each other. That said, the œ dipthong is still present in French words like œil. But also sœur, œuf.

[@jamiemattinson]

Hell yeah, thanks Luke

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks for watching

[@RURK_]

Excellent video! Would love to see one for Spanish

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Some day! Thanks

[@susannewcomer9614]

Luke, thank you for this very informative video. In several years of studying Italian, I had puzzled over the origins of some practices. Your video shed some light on the vestiges of the Latin neuter gender, the nouns with irregular genders in the plural form, and reason why there are so many Italian words with double consonants due to changes from Classical Latin to modern Italian. Italian also has a number of verbs that have irregular stems when conjugated in some tenses. My Italian professor told us that the infinitive ended up shorter in Italian than it had been in Latin, but these commonly used verbs retained vestiges of the original Latin infinitives in the stems used for conjugation. I have seen your highly amusing videos of speaking Latin to native speakers of Italian. I wonder how much Italian would be understood by a time travelling Ancient Roman landing in the middle of modern Rome.

[@vintop95]

Adoro questo approfondimento

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Grazie per aver guardato

[@travelingonline9346]

Thank you very much for this delightful and soothing video. The most intriguing are the examples of words changing through time and in fashions I would never have guessed. As to what I would like to hear about next, there is this curious phenomenon that in Romance or Latin there was at some time a congruence of verb forms with the object (instead of the subject) which I only know from French. I.e.: l'homme que j'ai vu la dame que j'ai vue les hommes que j'ai vus les dames que j'ai vues. I find it completely mystifying. If you know more about this and could make video on the development of habere in Latin and Romance one of these days that would be great.

[@Benu-Reflos]

Does there exist any kind of “reverse” etymologic dictionary for Romance Languages? What I mean by that is if I were to search for a Latin word there, I’d get all the known descendants of it in all Romance languages. It’d be even better graphically kind of like the branch graphic for language families, but for words, with some representation of time, be it relative or absolute. Does that exist at all? It’d be an amazing resource!

[@patrick-sprachenmusikstudi5351]

wiktionary

[@ghostdog7575]

I love History of Italian and Historical Italian Grammar and have studied it a lot. Your video is very good, I wouldn't change a yod, just add more and more examples, especially from various Italian dialects (vulgars) and differences between the trafila popolare and the trafila dotta.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks! Oh yes, there is much more to the story than the superficial representation here. Ah, to have more time…!

[@oferzilberman5049]

Literally the only place that teaches actual Latin and Old English and it costs a kidney or two ;-; I think it's really great that it exists though, at least there's that chance in the future

[@paulfaulkner6299]

I'm not studying Italian, Luke - I have been able to speak French decades and am now studying but fairly proficient in Spanish too. That question *WHY* Does French do this and Spanish do that comes up over and over and over again in my head; all of this evolution and divergence is fascinating. I will have to do some Italian and Latin too if I can once I've properly acquired Spanish. Thank you for making such compelling films. Your output is just so incredibly interesting

[@user-ze7sj4qy6q]

to be fair im coming from a kind of weird background as a linguist and someone who has a tiny bit of experience with a ton of languages, but in my experience, learning multiple closely related languages at the same time can make learning all of them easier. of course, if you're learning spanish italian and latin all at once, your progress with any one of them will be slower than if you were only learning that one just from a time distribution perspective, but i think it makes any amount of time you spend with one of them more effective and valuable. might be worth your time to start them all at once. in particular, while latin is less similar i can imagine that learning it simultaneously could be really helpful bc its the last point of convergence for them (or rather its the closest to that that a specific language you could learn is). cant speak for that particularly tho bc ive never learned a protolanguage as the same time as its daughters

[@bernardobeninifantin509]

Very cool video indeed. Awaiting for a video entitled "How Latin became Portuguese" :)

[@kaisy5826]

I feel like the loss of final consonants contributes more to the loss of the case system than phonemic vowel length. The fourth and fifth declension aside, the only length based distinction in the first three conjugations is the 1st declension ablative. Even with the loss of final consonants, Proto Romance kind of had to have a case system because Romanian still has a case system derived from Latin, one with a nominative/accusative and dative/ablative/genitive merger (notably all the inflections that would be indistinguishable without final consonants (ignoring genitive plurals) are merged)

[@tylere.8436]

Yes, because of Romanian (and also Old French & Old Occitan) There had to have been still a case system, but were being confused and mixed. We can still observe fragments and relics of the Latin declension system to this day, like the Genitive plural illorum turning into: Italian loro; French leur - and various others fossilized as adverbs and prepositions.

[@nicholasphelps3872]

It's amazing how they almost all ditched the consonants at the end of many words.

[@PC_Simo]

Thank you. This video resolves the discrepency between the evidence presented by Joshua Rudder, of NativLang, and the modern Romance languages with more, than 5 (usually 7) vowel qualities (of 9 vowel qualities); and other evidence presented by you, Metatron, and others; as well, as my own high school Latin classes (of 5 vowel qualities): The quality distinctions *_DID_* occur; but they did occur significantly later. 😌

[@lupus_croatiae]

very nice. I read about how spanish castillian was relatinized by the aristocracy in 13th century in order to purify the languages people were speaking. By that time there had been lots of influences on local spanish languages, from arabic, old germanic, basque and celtic languages.

[@saddasish]

Is Italian really one of the few Romance languages to retain /kwa/ from "qua"? It seems to also be retained in Spanish (cuando), Portuguese (quando), Catalan (quan), Occitan (quan) and numerous other Romance languages.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

In other Romance languages it’s only retained in very few words, such as the interrogatives. Otherwise it has vanished, or there are learned spellings and pronunciations directly from Latin

[@guillermorivas7819]

@@polyMATHY_Luke , There are some Spanish words preserving the "kw" sound with interrogatives but also others: Cuando = when Cuanto/a = how much Cuandoquiera = whenever he may Cuantía = amount Cuántico = quantum Cuán = how Cuaderno = notebook Cuota = fee/share Cuestion = question/issue Etc. Not to mention that Spanish highly retains this "w" sound when verbs are conjugated, it essentially becomes a diphthong. Just like arguably it would happen with the older versions of Latin -- i.e., Archaic Latin. Suepnos = somnus = soño = sueño

[@Valerio_the_wandering_sprite]

It does, in fact it's one of those sounds with which we can spot foreign accents. Quattro (four) Quale (which) Quadrato (square) Quasimodo (Kwuh-SEE-moh-doh) Qualità (Quality) Squattrinato (Penniless) Squalo (shark) Etc.

[@michaelm-bs2er]

​@@guillermorivas7819 good comment. And on the matter if the diphtong in archaic latin, suepnos > somnus. I've this could actually be a retention rather than a mutation.

[@alex10291]

Exactly what I was looking for

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

I’m delighted!

[@alex10291]

@@polyMATHY_Luke I know Portuguese fluently and because of you I've become interested in italian and latin!