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World Script Symposia 2014 World Script Symposia 2014 On the relation between speech and writing: The case of the Latin alphabet and the Romance languages Julien Eychenne Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Writing • Writing probably represents Homo Sapiens’ greatest cultural achievement • It makes it possible to represent, and therefore store, human thoughts and thus detach them from the constraints of real-time communication • It enables us to pass on information from one generation to the next, often in an unaltered form • It has allowed a tremendous growth in terms of cultural production and shared knowledge • See development of science and technology Speech and writing • Writing is a relatively recent invention in the history of Humanity • Recent estimates situate the apparition of spoken language around -100,000 • Writing frst appeared some 5,200 years ago in Mesopotamia (nowadays Iraq) • There are between 3,000 and 6,000 languages in the world, many of which are not written • Non-pathological humans spontaneously learn to talk, whereas writing requires explicit training Outline • Origins of the Latin alphabet • From Latin to the Romance languages • Writing in contemporary society • Conclusion ORIGINS OF THE LATIN ALPHABET The origins of Latin • Latin is an Indo-European language, related to the majority of languages spoken in Europe and Northern India • It was spoken in the Latium province (modern Italy), more specifcally in the city of Rome, from around 700 BC • It is related to a small group of dialects spoken in the Italic peninsula (the Italic branch), which included Ombrian (North East) and Oscan (South) Indo-European languages Source: h*p://www.verbix.com/languages/proto-indo-european.shtml Rome • Latin-speaking people settled around Rome (Latium) around 1,000 BC • Successful expansion, frst controlling the Latium, and then the Italic peninsula by 300 BC • Eventually, the Roman empire controlled a large territory from Britain to the Middle East and North Africa (around 100 AD) The Etruscans • First appear as a distinct group around 700 BC • Infuential culture in the region • Intense contact with other groups present in the peninsula and Sardinia (import of bronze artifacts) Source: h*p://magistramacisaac.pbworks.com/…/Etruscans%20II left to right Source: Rogers (2005) Usually from written • ) Italy in colonies Greek via borrowed ( alphabet alphabet Greek Alphabet Alphabet on West West on based • understood poorly still is and languages known other not not is Etruscan to to related • The The Etruscan language The Etruscan alphabet Source: Rogers (2005) Adaptation of the alphabet • Letters which were not used in Etruscan were slowly dropped • Voiced and aspirated consonants /b d ph th kh/ • Vowel /o/ • Three diferent letters were used for the sound unit /k/ • <C K Q> • Possibly 3 diferent realizations of /k/ The Latin alphabet • Romans borrowed the Etruscans’ alphabet • However, there were important diferences between the sound systems of the two languages • The alphabet had to be adapted to match the pronunciation of Latin • Romans reintroduced the letters for /b d/ and /o/ that were present in the Greek alphabet <C K Q> Under the infuence of Etruscan, Romans used the 3 letters <C K Q>: • <C> was the default way to write /k/ • <K> was seldom used as a variant • <Q>was used to represent the sound a consonant close to /k/, namely /kw/, which didn’t exist in Etruscan The letter <G> voiceless P T C / K voiced B D ? • Latin had another voiced consonant, namely /ɡ/ • Greek had a letter for this sound, but it had become a variant of /k/ in Etruscan • Initially, Romans used this letter, <C>, for both /k/ and /ɡ/ • Eventually, they created a new letter for /ɡ/ by adding a stroke to <C>: it became <G> The classical alphabet • In the 1st century BC, the Latin alphabet counted 21 letters: A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X • Remarks: • <I> was pronounced as<i> in niche or <y> in yawn • <V> was pronounced as<oo> in fool or <w> in water • Latin made a distinction between short and long vowels, but this was not indicated in the alphabet Inscription Latin Later innovations • Because they had borrowed many words from Greek, Romans reintroduced 2 letters at the end of the alphabet: • <Y> « i graeca » • <Z> « zeta » • The modern Latin alphabet arose much later: • <W> was introduced in the Middle Ages • <J I U V> became distinct letters in the Renaissance period e.g. IVVENIS à juvenis ‘young’ FROM LATIN TO THE ROMANCE LANGUAGES How speech and writing evolve The evolution of Latin • With the expansion of Rome, Latin came into contact with other languages • Under the infuence of political changes, invasions and local substrates, it slowly evolved into a family of languages: the Romance languages • These languages evolved from late spoken Latin (Vulgar Latin) and not from the classical language • e.g. classical equus vs vulgar caballus ‘horse’ The Romance languages Indo-european Indo-iranien Celtic Italic Hellenic Slavic Germanic Gaulish Latin Frankish Italian Spanish Portuguese Romanian French Adapted from Perret (2008: 22) Map of the Romance family Source: h*p://indoeuro.bizland.com/tree/ital/rom.html Proto-Romance • After the fall of the Western Roman Empire 476 CE), Western Europe becomes linguistically more fragmented • Latin became the language of Christianity • This led to a situation of diglossy: • Latin was the language of an educated elite (clergy, aristocracy) • Ordinary people spoke one or several low- prestige dialects (Romance, Frankish) Evolution and change • As a result, the Latin alphabet became less and less well suited to transcribe these languages • As some Romance dialects got ofcial recognition, there was a need to adapt the alphabet to their pronunciation • 1539: French replaces Latin as the language of administration and law in France • The transcription of some of these languages underwent a number of important changes Illustration from French Palatalization of /k/ color cera caru(s) /k/ /s/ /ʃ/ couleur cire cher ‘color’ ‘wax’ ‘expensive’ Illustration from French (2) French also developed a complex system of accents: • To transcribe its rich vowel system • <e> <é> <è> je ‘I’ salé ‘salty’ mène ‘lead’ • To distinguish grammatical words a ‘has’ à ‘at, to’ • To remember the etymology of a word • The circumfex accent often corresponds to an old /s/ pâte ‘pasta’ fête ‘festival’ Illustration from French (3) The spelling of many diphtongs became fxed even though they later changed: • <ai> = <é> or <è> [see Korean ㅐ] • <au> <eau> = <o> • <oi> = <wa> Il aime boire de l’eau ‘He likes drinking water’ Singular Plural Late Romance animal animals Old French animal animaus Variant: animax Nowadays animal animaux Pronounced: /animo/ Consequences • Over time, such gradual changes, in addition to many others, led to a system which is very opaque • No one-to-one relation between spelling and pronunciation • One sound may be written in diferent ways /o/: <o> <ô> <au> <eau> <aux> <eaux> • The pronunciation of a word is not always predictable: /kt/ pronounced in correct but not in aspect • As a result, few French native speakers master the complexities of the spelling of their language • e.g. décidé ‘decided’ vs décider ‘to decide’ WRITING IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY Normative language Written language is usually regarded as more prestigious than spoken language: • The standard language, which defnes the norm, is usually written • Standardization bodies (policy making) • Reference grammars • Classic authors Spelling reforms in French • Spelling reform (1990) • Only recommandations • Very minimalistic: remove or change a few accents and a few inconsistencies • événement à évènement, porte-monnaie à portemonnaie • It did not solve most of the problems • Yet, it generated a hot debate in the media and among intellectuals about the status of spelling • a tool for social selection? (see Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of ‘symbolic capital’) • a tool for spreading culture and knowledge? Why is reform difcult? • French (like Korean, but unlike Finnish) has a writing system which partly refects word structure: • grand ‘big (masculine)’ see 맞고 [마꼬] • grande ‘big (feminine)’ • Linguistic variation: • patte ‘paw’ vs pâte ‘pasta’ are identical in France but diferent in Québec • Cost: • reprinting of ofcial documents, manuals, etc. • training • Opposition from certain groups of the population Creative usage of language Modern media (Internet, text messaging...) have given rise to new forms of writing • English: r u smart bcoz i need some1 smart • French: comen va? la fami? lé zétud? Why?
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