When did we start speaking our current language?

DonDaddyD
DonDaddyD Posts: 12,689
edited February 2012 in Commuting chat
When did people stop speaking Latin?

When did people start speaking Italian, French, Spanish and Greman?

When did we start speaking English?
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Comments

  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 30,227
    Its an evolutionary thing rather than there being a distinct boundary between each language. You probably wouldn't understand someone speaking Old English in the 7th century, but you can probably just about understand Chaucer (13990s, Middle English) in it's original form. You can definitely understand Shakespeare.
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  • bompington
    bompington Posts: 7,674
    Latina loquans quando cessabo? Numquam, utique, adhuc loqui latina cotidie
  • DrLex
    DrLex Posts: 2,142
    @OP LOL wut?
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  • clarkey cat
    clarkey cat Posts: 3,641
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  • DonDaddyD
    DonDaddyD Posts: 12,689
    Dr Lex,

    People living in this Country didn't, believe it or not, always speak English.

    There must be a turning point or chain of events where the spoken language shifted from Celtic and then Latin to English, I also suspect that the Normans didn't speak English.

    So when/how did English emerge. Then I got to thinking about other European languages, and there goes the question.

    Doesn't seem so dumb now.
    Food Chain number = 4

    A true scalp is not only overtaking someone but leaving them stopped at a set of lights. As you, who have clearly beaten the lights, pummels nothing but the open air ahead. ~ 'DondaddyD'. Player of the Unspoken Game
  • roger_merriman
    roger_merriman Posts: 6,165
    english is about 5th centry,

    latin fell from wide spread use as the roman empire retreated.

    as others have said languages evolve so they change slowly though some faster than others english has a borq like attude to other languges!
  • clarkey cat
    clarkey cat Posts: 3,641
    English is a hodge-podge of celtic, norman, viking, latin, indian, german and other stuff.

    It has evolved as a result of all these different people talking to each other over the years and slowly morphing into a pidgin variation on each others languages until we have this kind rather doollally lingua franca.
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  • Twostage
    Twostage Posts: 987
    Evolution and interbreeding which is why we have different names for the same thing :- Royal, regal and kingly have three different origins. Our language is also continuing to evolve otherwise 'munter' would not have recently made it into the EOD.

    By the way was does EPO mean (not the dope). Can't figure it out, something about partner ?
  • DrLex
    DrLex Posts: 2,142
    Diddy Don,
    You miss the point; my brevity in modern argot was an attempt to show how quickly language has changed just in the past decade - the question had already been answered and hence the trite attempts at humour could begin.
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  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 30,227
    English as a language is mostly of Germanic origin, but over the centuries has absorbed a fair bit of Brythonic, Norse, Norman French and Latin. You need to read up on early British history - the 'Dark Ages' to use an outdated term - to understand how the various influences came in to play.

    I could go all pub-bore and waffle on for hours, but I need to get some work done. :)
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  • DonDaddyD
    DonDaddyD Posts: 12,689
    DrLex wrote:
    Diddy Don,
    You miss the point; my brevity in modern argot was an attempt to show how quickly language has changed just in the past decade - the question had already been answered and hence the trite attempts at humour could begin.
    Ah my apologise, it needed to be a little more low brow for the likes of me....
    Food Chain number = 4

    A true scalp is not only overtaking someone but leaving them stopped at a set of lights. As you, who have clearly beaten the lights, pummels nothing but the open air ahead. ~ 'DondaddyD'. Player of the Unspoken Game
  • DonDaddyD
    DonDaddyD Posts: 12,689
    rjsterry wrote:
    English as a language is mostly of Germanic origin, but over the centuries has absorbed a fair bit of Brythonic, Norse, Norman French and Latin. You need to read up on early British history - the 'Dark Ages' to use an outdated term - to understand how the various influences came in to play.

    I could go all pub-bore and waffle on for hours, but I need to get some work done. :)
    Maybe one day in a pub (Morpeth) if I can ever get round to going.
    Food Chain number = 4

    A true scalp is not only overtaking someone but leaving them stopped at a set of lights. As you, who have clearly beaten the lights, pummels nothing but the open air ahead. ~ 'DondaddyD'. Player of the Unspoken Game
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 30,227
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language

    For starters.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • SimonAH
    SimonAH Posts: 3,730
    It could be argued that we don't.

    For example this is nominally English; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3PPnV2Uh-w

    but I suspect that DDD will understand about 70% more than I do. By comparison if I took a lot of you down from London to the Welsh valleys and introduced you to some friends in the Rhondda I rather think that there would be a lot of head scratching there too. It's not just an accent, it's almost a patois.

    By the way DDD, please translate what sounds like 'blood clot' for me! :-D
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  • London_Falcon
    London_Falcon Posts: 150
    Slightly off topic but I recommend reading "A Thousand Years of Annoying the French". Very educational and entertaining and the early chapters deal with 1066 onwards very well.
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  • il_principe
    il_principe Posts: 9,155
    bompington wrote:
    Latina loquans quando cessabo? Numquam, utique, adhuc loqui latina cotidie

    My latin is very rusty, but I'll have a crack:

    "When did we stop speaking Latin? Never actually, we still speak Latin today."
  • Paulie W
    Paulie W Posts: 1,492
    Latin was almost certainly never a spoken langauge in the UK
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 30,227
    DonDaddyD wrote:
    rjsterry wrote:
    English as a language is mostly of Germanic origin, but over the centuries has absorbed a fair bit of Brythonic, Norse, Norman French and Latin. You need to read up on early British history - the 'Dark Ages' to use an outdated term - to understand how the various influences came in to play.

    I could go all pub-bore and waffle on for hours, but I need to get some work done. :)
    Maybe one day in a pub (Morpeth) if I can ever get round to going.

    With the emphasis on bore...

    It says a lot about me that I find this website fascinating

    http://www.etymonline.com/
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    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • DonDaddyD
    DonDaddyD Posts: 12,689
    Paulie W wrote:
    Latin was almost certainly never a spoken langauge in the UK
    I thought the Romans spoke Latin and bought it here when they occupied England?
    Food Chain number = 4

    A true scalp is not only overtaking someone but leaving them stopped at a set of lights. As you, who have clearly beaten the lights, pummels nothing but the open air ahead. ~ 'DondaddyD'. Player of the Unspoken Game
  • Paulie W
    Paulie W Posts: 1,492
    DonDaddyD wrote:
    Paulie W wrote:
    Latin was almost certainly never a spoken langauge in the UK
    I thought the Romans spoke Latin and bought it here when they occupied England?

    Not really. It's rare for an occupying force to impose its langauge wholesale. Some of the British elite may have learnt Latin because that was a way to get on in life but most ordinary people wouldnt (which is not to say that Latin didnt have an impact on the language being spoken at the time). Many of the occupying soldiers wouldnt have been Latin speakers anyway (certainly not as a first language).
  • PBo
    PBo Posts: 2,493
    Also, difference between spoken and written word. languages were also very class based. So latin was used for educated people/learning/ruling etc. plenty of latin documents around, but was it actually spoken?
  • DonDaddyD
    DonDaddyD Posts: 12,689
    People would write in one language and speak in another? Where else or when has that ever been the norm in one Country.
    Food Chain number = 4

    A true scalp is not only overtaking someone but leaving them stopped at a set of lights. As you, who have clearly beaten the lights, pummels nothing but the open air ahead. ~ 'DondaddyD'. Player of the Unspoken Game
  • phy2sll2
    phy2sll2 Posts: 680
    One my granddad used to come out with regularly:

    Caesar ad sum jam forti
    Brutus et erat
    Caesar sic in omnibus
    Brutus sic in at
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,660
    DonDaddyD wrote:
    People would write in one language and speak in another? Where else or when has that ever been the norm in one Country.

    Any Christian area/group/population/nation before the reformation to name one example.
    _
  • Paulie W
    Paulie W Posts: 1,492
    DonDaddyD wrote:
    People would write in one language and speak in another? Where else or when has that ever been the norm in one Country.

    Throughout history it has frequently been the norm.
  • veronese68
    veronese68 Posts: 27,950
    DonDaddyD wrote:
    People would write in one language and speak in another? Where else or when has that ever been the norm in one Country.
    Commonplace before literacy came to the masses. A friend of mine did a phd based around the theory that witch hunts were taking place at the same time as literacy was becoming more commonplace and accusations of witchcraft were attempts to prevent the great unwashed becoming too educated.
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  • Ginjafro
    Ginjafro Posts: 572
    After various waves of occupation from foreign powers, the kind of "English" some of us might understand, began to emerge in the 8th and 9th centuries. The form of English most of us would understand emerged as late as the mid 1500s, around the time of Shakespeare. The kind of English some kids speak now is just unfortunate...
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  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 30,227
    DonDaddyD wrote:
    People would write in one language and speak in another? Where else or when has that ever been the norm in one Country.

    Mostly, people didn't write at all. As Rick says, writing in Western Europe was dominated by the Catholic Church, which used Latin as it was based in Rome. Most scholars were monks, and so secular texts tended to be in Latin too.
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  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 30,227
    Rick Chasey wrote:
    DonDaddyD wrote:
    People would write in one language and speak in another? Where else or when has that ever been the norm in one Country.

    Any Catholic Christian area/group/population/nation before the reformation to name one example.

    FTFY. There's the Orthodox lot as well, who use Greek/Cyrillic and then there's the Copts.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,660
    rjsterry wrote:
    Rick Chasey wrote:
    DonDaddyD wrote:
    People would write in one language and speak in another? Where else or when has that ever been the norm in one Country.

    Any Catholic Christian area/group/population/nation before the reformation to name one example.

    FTFY. There's the Orthodox lot as well, who use Greek/Cyrillic and then there's the Copts.

    It was rare that they used the vernacular written down though wasn't it?

    I'll be honest I'm not hot on Eastern Europe.
    _

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