Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 January 5

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January 5

qdm?

Any idea what "qdm" is supposed to mean in Homer#Etymological theories? Clarityfiend (talk) 09:30, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

"The east", apparently. That's what it says. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:38, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, it's the triliteral root for words meaning "east" (among other things) in various Semitic languages. It's a bit weird out of context...maybe it should be in italics, at least: q-d-m would be a more usual representation. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:21, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:28, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Did early modern Europeans speak Latin?

I know they loved to use Latin personal names. And people like Isaac Newton wrote in Latin. So, does that mean that Latin was a living language up to the early modern era? 66.213.29.17 (talk) 17:16, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

They did not speak it natively. According to language death, language death ... occurs when a language loses its last native speaker. So it was not a "living language". Loraof (talk) 17:36, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Also relevant is History of Latin, which discusses the evolution of Latin. The last language that could properly be called Latin which was a living, native language is probably Vulgar Latin which eventually evolved into the various Romance languages. There is not a specific day when Latin "died" per se. The transition between "classical Latin" to various dialects of "vulgar Latin" to individual and non-mutually intelligible "Romance languages" would have been gradual and would not have occurred at the same rate in all places. --Jayron32 17:43, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

University lectures were normally given in Latin both as a cant, to exclude the uneducated, and as a lingua franca among travelling scholars (almost always churchmen) who had no other tongue in common. That Latin was still in use for oral communication in England during the early modern period (between Chaucer and Shakespeare) is demonstrated by the fact that English pronunciation of Latin underwent the Great Vowel Shift, alienating Latin in England from Continental Latin. μηδείς (talk) 20:11, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

All of that is true, but none of that makes any of those people native Latin speakers. That it is used in certain contexts doesn't make it a native language. --Jayron32 21:12, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

I didn't see the word "native" in the OP's question, just living. One might ask, is Esperanto a dead language? Are pidgins dead languages? The answer is obviously no, they are indeed living tongues, if rarely mother tongues. μηδείς (talk) 04:20, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't know how common it is to grow up speaking Latin as one's first language, but it does happen. My business partner, born in Spain in 1931, spoke Latin as his first language, and learned Spanish only later. I've known of a few others who were raised speaking Latin. —Stephen (talk) 02:45, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm sure somebody has once raised their child to speak the Klingon language as their first language to. Such sui generis cases do not mean anything in this situation. There is not a native Latin-speaking community or culture around the world. --Jayron32 03:33, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Nicolas Slonimsky wrote in his memoirs: "I began speaking Latin to her [his then-young daughter Electra], inspired by a Polish couple, both professors of ancient languages in Warsaw who spoke to their offspring exclusively in Latin and Greek. I called Electra "Puella" and named household objects in Latin for her to learn". Apparently it progressed fairly well until "One day Electra announced, with a suspicious look in her eyes, 'Daddy, other kids don't speak Latin at home.'" Double sharp (talk) 09:26, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Here is a nice report all about Latin in the early modern period of Europe (link only contains preface and TOC). Here [1] [2] are two scholarly books that discuss the use of Latin in early modern Europe. I will not quibble over what "living" means for a language, but plenty of people spoke Latin then, especially academics and church types that medeis describes. The books I link include some discussion of how the language was changed and adapted by speakers in that period. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:25, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Latin was still commonly spoken (as a second language) by the nobility in the eastern parts of Catholic Europe (i.e., Hungary and Poland) well into the 18th century. Daniel Defoe wrote in 1728 that "who only knows Latin can go across the whole Poland from one side to the other one just like he was at his own home, just like he was born there. So great happiness! I wish a traveler in England could travel without knowing any other language than Latin!" — Kpalion^(talk) 10:34, 10 January 2017 (UTC)