Latin Alive: The Survival of Latin in English and Romance Languages

370 Pages·2010·2.63 MB·English

by  Joseph B. Solodow

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LATINALIVE
In Latin Alive, Joseph B. Solodow tells the story of how Latin developed into
modernFrench,Spanish,andItalian,anddeeplyaffectedEnglishaswell.Offeringa
grippingnarrativeoflanguagechange,SolodowchartsLatin’scoursefromclassical
times to the modern era, with a focus on the first millennium of the Common
Era.AlthoughtheRomancelanguagesevolveddirectlyfromLatin,Solodowshows
how everyimportant featureofLatin’s nature and development is also reflected
inEnglish.Hisstoryincludesscoresofintriguingetymologies,alongwithmany
concreteexamplesoftextsandstudies,scholars,anecdotesandhistoricalevents,
observations on language, and more. Written with crystalline clarity, this is the
firstbooktotellthestoryoftheRomancelanguagesforthegeneralreaderandto
illustratesoamplyLatin’smany-sidedsurvivalinEnglishaswell.
Joseph B. Solodow is Professor of Foreign Languages at Southern Connecticut
StateUniversityandLecturerinClassicsatYaleUniversity.HeistheauthorofThe
LatinParticleQuidemandTheWorldofOvid’s“Metamorphoses,”andhereceived
theModernLanguageAssociation’sScaglioneTranslationPrizeforhisrendering
ofG.B.Conte’shistoryofLatinliteratureintoEnglish,LatinLiterature:AHistory.

LATIN ALIVE
THE SURVIVAL OF LATIN IN ENGLISH AND
THE ROMANCE LANGUAGES
JOSEPH B. SOLODOW
SouthernConnecticutStateUniversity
YaleUniversity
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore,
São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521515757
© Joseph B. Solodow 2010
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the
provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part
may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published in print format 2009
ISBN-13 978-0-511-65851-8 eBook (NetLibrary)
ISBN-13 978-0-521-51575-7 Hardback
ISBN-13 978-0-521-73418-9 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy
of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication,
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
Thisbookisdedicatedtothoseteacherswhoearliestandmostdeeplyfomentedin
metheloveoflanguagesandliterature.
Tothemen:myfather,PhilipSolodow,whointhecourseofmigratingfromhis
native Russia to the United States became acquainted with Yiddish, Russian,
Hebrew,Polish,German,andEnglish;AaronKrumbein,BrooklynJewishCen-
ter,Brooklyn,NewYork;JackWeiss,PublicSchool61,Brooklyn;GeorgeBartelt
andWayneE.Mytty,ErasmusHallHighSchool,Brooklyn.
And to the women: my mother, Yetta D. Solodow, born in New York City,
who loved studying French, German, and Latin, and was always observant
of the niceties of language; her cousin, Rose Klepper, a font of learning and
encouragement, and of books early treasured; Miss Einsidler, Lefferts Junior
High School, Brooklyn; Harriet K. Felder and Grace Denman, Erasmus Hall
HighSchool;and,bothlastandfirst,mywife,GraziellaPatruccodeSolodow,
whowasborninArgentinaandlaterlearnedItalianinPeruandthenEnglish
intheUnitedStates,andwhoisthetruefonsatqueorigoofthisbook.

CONTENTS
ListofMaps pageix
Acknowledgments xi
1 Introduction:EnglishIsNotaCousintotheRomanceLanguages,
But... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
part one: latin
2 TheCareerofLatin,I:FromEarliestTimestotheHeightofEmpire 9
3 TheCareerofLatin,II:TheEmpireSucceededbyBarbarian
Kingdoms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4 LatinatWork,I:NatureoftheLanguage;NamesandQualities;
Pronunciation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
5 LatinatWork,II:ActionsandStates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
6 VulgarLatin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
part two: the romance vocabulary
7 TheLexiconinGeneral;ShiftsintheMeaningofWords . . . . . . . . 127
8 ChangesintheFormofWords. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
9 WhenWordsCollide:ConflictandResolutionintheLexicon. . . . . 158
10 Immigrants:Non-LatinWordsintheRomanceLanguages. . . . . . . 181
part three: proto-romance, or what the
languages share
11 TheSoundofProto-Romance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
vii
Contents
12 TheNouninProto-Romance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
13 TheVerbinProto-Romance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
part four: earliest texts and future
directions, or where the languages
diverge
14 French. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
15 Italian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
16 Spanish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
SuggestionsforFurtherReading 333
GeneralIndex 335
IndexofEnglishWords 340
viii