h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This thread is for anyone who's interested in talking about Latin and its history, linguistic merit, etc in English. Roman history is also appropriate.

To start the conversation off... well, what should we say? I'd like some suggestions....

EMR

Well, I'm mostly only learning Latin (or trying to learn Latin) because I'm intrested in Roman History. Now I've got a few books about it I'm also starting to become intrested in how other languages have sprung up from it. I've always had a slight intrest in etymology but I think it's growing.

Yup, Romance languages are fun I'm just starting French (as of two days ago) and it's just amazing how alike to Latin it is. Apparently the same is true for Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Romansch (though only a couple hundred people in Switzerland speak Romansch so I don't know why anyone cares). It's such an excellent foundation for any Romance languages.

Some people make the mistake of assuming that English is descended from Latin, since we have so many words in common. However, English is Germanic in origin, from the Angles, Saxons and Jutes that settled in Englalond (what they called England) in the very early middle ages. After the Norman Invasion (in 1066) the Anglo-Saxon language (what we call Old English) was heavily influenced by French (which in turn came from Latin) and became Middle English. This is the language that Chaucer spoke, and is the primary reason that we have so many Latin words in our language.

We had the 'invaders and settlers' period when many different people cam over, invaded, and then settled, thus influencing our culture. This is really obvious in place names. You can tell by the endings who named what places. Places with names ending -cester or -chester where named by one lot (and I think it was the romans) while places ending -ton or -ham were named by someone else.

Romans were the -ceaster and -chester and -cester lot. That roughly means 'fort' or 'military installation' in Latin, and so Gloucester and Cirencester are some of the places where the Romans might have had forts.

I think -ton and -ham are Old English/Anglo-Saxon. -thorpe and -thwaite are Viking/Norse.

It's quite fascinating, language change. And especially in the British Isles, where each invading race brought a different language to the place. It's quite a layered language, English.

The south-west of England is brilliant for that kind of thing... we can't move for old Roman, Saxon and Norman place names.

I know. I would move to the UK simply for the linguistic diversity - much more so than here in the States. Of course, there's the BBC as well. In fact, there's a lot to be said for me coming there for my Ph.D. in seven years or so.

I thought you might appreciate this anagram:

COLONIALIST = LATIN IS COOL!

Regards

Paulus Niger

Thank you for that!

Just occurred to me that you might like to contribute to this thread: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F48874?thread=3420705&post=40112855#p40112855

Thanks for that, Rudest Elf! I shall take a look at some point soon.