PART 7  –  Ch.XLI.16

The great Pelasgian empire

(The Pelasgian language)

 

PART 7

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XLI. 16. The corruption of the Latin and Arimic dialects in Italy.

 

In Italy, the two main dialects, ancient Latin and Arimic, underwent quickly a radical transformation.

The trading Greek colonies established in the southern part of Italy, named Great Greece, a megale ‘Ellas, had a disastrous influence on the national language of the peninsula. These Greek traders, scattered through all the cities of Italy, imported their national language and customs together with the industrial produces of the East.

The language of the cities of Italy adopted quickly a large number of Greek words and forms, then this language of the cities in its turn, contributed in a large measure to the decaying and alteration of the national language of the countryside.

Even before the times of Livius Andronicus, of Ennius, and Nevius (3rd century bc), the Greek language had reached the point at which it was considered as the most illustrious expression of civilization, and the ancient popular (vulgar) language (Arimic and Latin) was despised and persecuted. The Roman literati started to imitate the Greeks in grammar, in poetry, in philosophy, in history and even in geography. They adopted the same mode of thinking and the same views as the Greeks, new ideas, new words and a new style. The originality of the Italic peoples started to change.

Against this un-national current taking place in customs, in sciences and in literature, Cato the Old, a man of great authority, he who continuously asked for the destruction of Carthage, had raised with great energy. Pliny communicates a letter of Cato towards his son, in which he says the following (l. XXIX. 6, 7): “Marcus, my son, I shall tell you about these Greeks at the proper time and place. They are a race of wicked people, who cannot change any more. Consider these words as if delivered to you by an oracle. Each time these people come with their writings, you must know that they corrupt everything”.

But the wise counsel of Cato against the onslaught of Greek mores and ideas, and against the cosmopolitism of the Romans, was not heeded.

Around 100bc, writes Cicero (pro Archia, c. 3), Italy was full of people who occupied themselves with Greek studies and Greek arts, and these studies were cultivated at that time in Latium with an even greater zeal than in his days.

200 years later, Pliny states also the destructive influence of the Greeks on the moral life of the Roman people: “The Greeks” writes he, “are the initiators of all corruption”, Graeci vitiorum omnium genitores (l. XV, c. 1). Quintilianus, the renowned Roman orator, speaking about the language used by the Romans in his time, tells us (Inst. I. 5) that the greatest part of the Roman language was formed from Greek. Dionysius of Halikarnasus also writes in the 1st century bc: “The Romans use a language which is neither entirely barbarian, nor absolutely Greek, but a mixture of both” (I. 90).

About the corruption of the ancient Latin language we also find with Festus the following passage (p. 204): “The expression of speaking Latin derives from Latium, but this mode of speech is today so corrupt, that we barely recognize anything from this language”.

The difference between the ancient Latin language and the language spoken today by the Romans, says Polybius (2nd century bc), is so great, that even the most learned men can barely understand some words on which they stumble (lib. III. 22).

“Totus prope mutates est semo”, almost the entire language has changed, tells us Quintilianus in another place in his treaty about the principles of the art of oratory (Inst. Orat. vIII. 3).

While in Italy the ancient Latin dialect and the Arimic dialect were corrupted and modified, in the provinces, on the contrary, the popular or Arimic Roman language was less altered.

This barbarian Roman language, spoken in the times of the republic and the empire through the various provinces of Europe and Africa, did not have its origin in the popular language of Italy, but it was only a continuation of the Pelasgian barbarian dialects, on the base of which have later formed and developed the modern Romanic languages.

The same opinion is also expressed by the scholar Pirona of Udine, that: “the Romanic languages, as they appear in the written monuments of the Middle Ages, do not derive from the Latin language, neither by way of affiliation, nor by way of corruption, but they appear only as a reawakening of the popular, vulgar dialects, spoken even before the Latin language had been constituted in a noble language. These popular dialects had remained obscure during all the time when the Latin language was being used in writing, and as a language of instruction in schools, but as soon as the instruction ceased, and the noble language was lost in the times of the barbarian invasions, the popular dialects which until then could not move, were ready to replace the Latin language, and from that time a new civilization started in the Roman world (Vocab. Friulono. Venezia 1871, p. LXXXIII).

This is the origin of the neo-Latin or Romanic languages.

 

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