why did latin beget so many daughter languages and greek so few, considering how widespread the latter was in the roman empire? or did it and I'm even more clueless than i thought?
@erin_nerung, @eigenrobot?
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Replying to @realjdburn @eigenrobot
was greek as widespread? from what i remember, latin was the empire's commom language and greek was kept as a pet because the romans were filthy greekaboos3 replies 0 retweets 7 likes -
Replying to @erin_nerung @eigenrobot
it wasn't as popular as latin, certainly, but my understanding is that the upper classes spoke it throughout the empire, and in certain regions it was quite common. it seems like it should've stuck around here and there
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Replying to @realjdburn @eigenrobot
ah, that explains it - upper classes don't change language
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Replying to @erin_nerung @eigenrobot
which is to say, if the plebs don't speak it, it may as well not exist at all as far as spanning new languages is concerned. the upper classes threw a bitchfit and crafted a codex when latin started changing there's substantial Greek influence present in romance languages, but
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Replying to @erin_nerung @eigenrobot
that's mostly lexical, and a lot of the time reserved to more "difficult"/higher registers (there's usually two forms for the same word, a greek and a latin one, like portuguese 'cavalo' common word for horse vs 'equino' the adjective for 'of horse', and hípica, ...
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Replying to @erin_nerung @eigenrobot
the place where horses are ""stored"" - cavalo and equus come from latin, whereas the fancy work comes from the greek hippos) anyway sorry abt the sperg i forgot how much i liked this rofl
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horses are stores in the ba
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