Standard And Non-Standard by Moran

eaders would do well to keep in an artificial construct. Which of litteras fatuum esse (‘You aren’t of our Rmind at all times the following , whose Latin [my italics], and bunch, and on that account you jeer at distinctions when reading this : who is to say with confidence how the the words of poor people. We know standard/classical and non-standard; literary form of these languages you’re mad because of learning.’) native and non-native speaker; literate corresponded to the that people (). and illiterate. I use ‘second’ and ‘foreign’ spoke on the streets?’ (Greenwood, atque id dicitur non in compitis tantum interchangeably of a language, as any pp. 202–3). neque in plebe volgaria … (‘And that is said distinction that may be made is not ‘… the question of language use in not only at crossroads nor among the relevant in the context of a world in the case of social groups for whom a common people …’) (Gellius). which there were no nation-states (or language is not a second language, but who quod vulgo dicitur ossum, Latine os notions of political correctness). If I are regarded as secondary users of that dicitur (‘What is called ossum in the were to prefer one to the other it would language.’ (Greenwood, p.208). language of the common people, in be ‘foreign’: native speakers of Latin … quid tibi ego videor in epistulis? nonne Latin [i.e. ‘correct’ Latin] is called os’) regarded everyone else but Greek- plebeio sermone agere tecum?… epistulas (Augustine). speakers as foreigners, or, as they called vero cottidianis verbis texere solemus. (‘… Ironically perhaps, only two of these them, barbari. The foreigners came to what do I seem to you in letters? Don’t I extracts (those from Petronius and have a higher regard for Latin than the (seem) to deal with you in the language Augustine) actually contain any (three native speakers of Latin had for their of the plebs? … letters to be sure we words only) of the kind of Latin that their languages; but unlike the British in more usually weave in everyday words.’) authors attribute to the mass of the recent times the latter never sought to (). people. If you didn’t spot two of them1 impose their language on the former, nor … quae sit cotidiano sermoni that is probably because your experience even to encourage its adoption by them. simillima, quo cum amicis, coniugibus, liberis, of Latin, like most people’s, has not ‘All of the terms used to describe servis loquamur … nam mihi aliam quandam prepared you for such usages. bilingualism, multilingualism, or learning videtur habere naturam sermo vulgaris, aliam It is important for our students to languages introduce metaphors that viri eloquentis oratio (‘… which [the be aware that the kind of Latin they colour the terms of the debate. A mother antecedent is ‘eloquence’] is most like the learn is not the kind that was used by the language, a native language, a first or second sort of everyday language with which majority of Latin-speaking people in the language, a language, a standard we talk with friends, wives, children, slaves Roman world, and the reasons for this. language, a foreign language … These … for the language of the common It is also important that they have a potent metaphors are reinforced in the people seems to me to have one sort of clearer understanding of the case of classical Greek and Latin, where nature, the speech of the man of relationship (more complex and the languages in question are underwritten eloquence another.’) (). complicated than is commonly by powerful myths of cultural priority nam ut transeam quem ad modum vulgo supposed) between the standard Latin that trump the native language.’ (Emily imperiti loquantur (‘For to pass over the that they learn and the non-standard Greenwood, Learning Latin and Greek from way in which the uneducated Latin which, if they have heard of at all, Antiquity to the Present (CUP, 2015), p.201). commonly speak’) (Quintilian). they know by the traditional (and often ‘… the very conception of “Greek” non es nostrae fasciae, et ideo misleading) name of ‘Vulgar Latin’. This and “Latin” as single stable languages is pauperorum verba derides. scimus te prae article is written to help teachers to

The Journal of Teaching 19 (37) p.58-63 © The Classical Association 2018. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits Downloaded58 from https://www.cambridge.org/corenon-commercial re-use, distribution,. IP address: and170.106.40.139 reproduction, on 01in anyOct 2021medium, at 09:06:56 provided, subject the tooriginal the Cambridge work is unalteredCore terms andof use, is properlyavailable atcited. The written https://www.cambridge.org/core/termspermission of Cambridge. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2058631018000090 University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work. enable their students to gain this seem to have to do with real differences The difference between the two awareness and understanding. of social classes in the Roman world. As varieties has been expressed by scholars in It is surely not snobbish or we have seen, this is not to say that there many different ways (and more than a disrespectful to say that the kind of were not usages that they had in common, dozen definitions of ‘Vulgar Latin’ alone English used by a university professor including ones ‘borrowed’ by the one have been proposed): Vulgar Latin and (depending on the subject), both in from the other (and it worked both ways). (or derivatives of it); speech and writing, is likely to differ in There is no reason then to suppose standard and non- or sub-standard; elite various ways from that used by (say) an that a person conversant in standard and sub-elite; educated and uneducated; unskilled (so-called) factory worker. Latin, and who normally had recourse to written and spoken; H(igh) and L(ow); Again, the kind of English used by a standard Latin in certain situations, both upper class and lower/under class; respected literary figure will be very written and spoken, would not have been well-off and poor; ‘careful’ and ‘casual’; different from that of a person of the able to communicate easily enough with a formal and informal. Often several of same age who has not learned to read or person who routinely used non-standard these pairs are used to express the write. It would be remarkable if similar Latin, any more than their counterparts difference. None of these distinctions is distinctions of language use, perhaps even in English nowadays (see note 1). (See watertight: as we said, there are usages more marked, did not exist in the ancient also the extract from Quintilian above common to both varieties in all of these world. In fact we know that they did. and in particular the reference to slaves.)2 pairs, though generally speaking the Today we make a distinction between It would be bizarre to suppose otherwise: usages do tend to be found more in one ‘standard’ and ‘non-standard’ English. In they spoke (forms of) the same language, variety rather than the other (the Latin too it is customary to observe a not different languages. Standard Latin in frequency of distribution of a usage distinction between standard and the Classical period was similar enough to across social groups is what distinguishes non-standard Latin. The Latin that we non-standard Latin for the two forms of the varieties). There is sufficient overlap, learn is standard Latin, and non-standard the language to be mutually intelligible. It however, for us to be confident that the Latin is a closed book for most of us. And was a very different story a few hundred varieties belong to a single language yet standard Latin was used by only a years later when the standard had system. small minority of people in the Roman changed little and the spoken language Latin is a continuum. If it is a world; the overwhelming majority used (of both the elite and the ordinary plurality of any kind it is a plurality of non-standard Latin, and most (upwards person) had changed greatly. Standard what social linguists call ‘sociolects’, i.e. of 80% perhaps) males in the Classical written Latin was to become in effect a social dialects, not a plurality of period in Italy (it would have been even foreign language to both of them, and languages or language systems. Actually, higher for women and for people outside learned as such by the elite. Imagine that we may not be in a position to make rigid Italy) could not read or write any kind of standard English nowadays were the technical distinctions here, since, Latin, or indeed any other language. In English of Chaucer (say), and that you extraordinary though it may seem, we spite of this distinction between standard wanted to read and write (or speak) it. It can’t really say what a language is, nor and non-standard varieties of Latin, it is would still be a form of English, but for how it differs from a dialect Many important to realise that they are interacting all practical purposes it would be treated linguists say that there is no difference forms of the same language system, not as a foreign language, or a second and that dialects are languages, whatever separate and discrete languages, as they language at any rate. either of them is. (See James Clackson, tend to have been regarded until recently. As it is, standard English today is Language and Society in the Greek and Roman Most (if not all) of the few books that much more similar to non-standard Worlds (CUP, 2015), pp. 11–16.) have been written on ‘Vulgar Latin’ (the varieties than standard Latin was to During the period of what is called traditional and usual term for non- non-standard Latin, after the classical ‘Classical Latin’, from . 100 BCE to 200 standard Latin) have tended to treat the period at any rate. There has been much CE, a form of written Latin became two varieties of Latin as if they were more standardisation generally in English, established as the standard for correct discrete languages. the effect of which is to reduce variety Latin, first by the educated minority, Latin writers themselves, especially and increase homogeneity, of course, chiefly writers, and subsequently by those who wrote about Latin, remark in thanks to universal education, print media grammarians and literary stylists, who places on differences between the Latin and other mass media. Actually, the use endorsed the ‘best’ practice of the ‘best’ people like them use (a highly educated of the term ‘standard’ for forms of writers, thus setting in train an ongoing social elite) and that used by the people Greek and Latin, since it suggests a process of further standardisation of the they call the vulgus or plebs or imperiti (the misleading parallel with , reflected in the texts and uneducated or poorly educated mass of languages such as English, has been called grammar books that we use today, but not the people). They also say that on into question in recent years It seems necessarily in the actual usage of the occasion they too use the language of the possible (?likely) that ‘standard Latin’ will writers themselves, according to the common people, even in writing. (See the tend to be avoided before long, as ‘Vulgar evidence of the manuscripts. It was to extracts at the beginning of this piece.) So Latin’ has been. If this happens then remain the standard, if not one that was the distinction between varieties of Latin, presumably ‘non-standard Latin’, the always or even usually attained in the time whatever the precise determinants of replacement for ‘Vulgar Latin’, will itself to come. As medieval or even ‘late’ Latin difference between their users, is not a be replaced. One wonders what the title it was frequently thought to fall below the modern scholarly invention and would of this article might be then. standard set by standard Classical Latin.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.139, Standardon 01 Oct And2021 Non-Standard at 09:06:56, subject Latin to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at 59 https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2058631018000090 The attempt at the preservation of a indistinguishable from the written H occasion for linguistic slumming or prestige standard eventually led to a register. More informal situations such as castigation on the grounds of growing gulf between standard (especially ordinary conversations would have called incorrectness or impropriety by the written) and non-standard spoken Latin for much more ‘casual’ types closer to and educated elite, and even though features that was to lead to the demise of non- actually incorporating features of the of it had actually been taken up by elite standard Latin (which if not an L(ow) register. Letters to friends and Latin or been taken over from elite Latin. undifferentiated unitary constant was other informal writing often included Writing ability varied hugely, from remarkably homogeneous across the such features too, as we can see in the highly literary Latin to barely literate Latin empire) and its transformation into the extracts at the beginning.3 scratched on curse tablets and on walls as separate . Non- We know a lot about the written graffiti. This variation in written Latin standard Latin is the main progenitor of Latin of this educated minority: they have generally reflected different levels of the Romance languages, first attested left a lot of it for us to read. We know education, which in turn reflected broad 800–900 CE, though features of standard much less about the versions of Latin differences of social class. (Except in a Latin, and of both non-standard and they spoke: obviously there is no direct few cases we cannot locate usages within standard Latin, had outcomes in Romance evidence for it (any more than there is for a particular sub-group of the lower class, too, though we do not know in many spoken non-standard Latin). Some might though we know that such existed.) cases for how long they had been features say that we do not have, or do not know Latin was learned for a variety of of their respective types. It has usually that we have, direct evidence for the Latin purposes and requirements, to varying been assumed, taken for granted one they wrote, especially literary texts, as we levels of proficiency, for speaking, reading might say, that Romance consists solely of cannot know in many cases the extent to and writing. As we said, only a tiny elite, at outcomes of features that had existed which the texts as they have come down , in Italy or the provinces, learned it only in non-standard Latin; this is an over- to us represent the autographs (none of for reading and writing belles lettres. It was simplification, in fact a mistake. which we have), and we know that generally learned for more practical and Versions of standard Latin, more or grammarians were responsible for mundane purposes. (It is surely a mistake less approximating to standard Classical misrepresenting the actual usage of the to suppose that most people who learned Latin, continued to be learned and written writers by their officious standardising to read and write Latin learned to read (in some situations spoken) throughout practices, quite apart from the vicissitudes and write standard Classical Latin.) the Middle Ages and and of alteration the texts were exposed to as Non-native speakers would have needed beyond, for a variety of purposes, chiefly manuscripts that could only survive at all to learn to speak Latin primarily, native scholarly, educational, literary, medical, by being copied and recopied by hand. speakers to learn to read and write Latin, to scientific, legal and ecclesiastical, and Most of the manuscripts, which form the the required or desired level. often fulfilling functions that the bulk of our earliest evidence for standard literary However, even for a native speaker, vernacular languages were not (so well) Latin, date to the Middle Ages, centuries learning to read and write standard Latin equipped to perform, quite apart from the before our time and centuries after the hundreds of years after the standard had fact that it was the only lingua franca in texts were composed. (But we do have been fixed, and had changed little in the western Europe for centuries (as the lots of official inscriptions written in the interval, while the spoken language had non-standard form had been too to some standard language, however repetitive, changed almost out of recognition from extent, in most cases ousting the because formulaic, they tend to be.) As forms that were much closer to the indigenous languages of the conquered for the uneducated majority, most of written standard, would be like learning to peoples). No other written language has them illiterate or barely literate, we read and write a second or a foreign ever managed to achieve this, though possess various kinds of written material language - as we said earlier, much like our Greek (spoken and written) did become a which enable us to make a comparison of learning to read and write Chaucerian lingua franca in the eastern Mediterranean, it with the standard Latin of the elite: English today.4 Presumably, for a native parts of north , Egypt and the near graffiti, ostraca, papyri, wooden tablets, speaker, learning to read and write a form east for centuries after about 300 BCE. defixiones, and a tiny number of longer of the non-standard Latin that represented Standard Latin was used routinely pieces of writing that have survived in the (more) the familiar contemporary spoken only by the educated minority. As the manuscript tradition (but see the caveat language would not have been so vehicle for belles lettres it was written by a above about manuscripts), as well as daunting and would not have presented tiny elite only. For such purposes it would citations of it, usually condescending or many more difficulties than acquiring the have been necessary to learn it beyond the disparaging, by writers and grammarians. skills of basic literacy in one’s own level of basic literacy, even for native From it we can gain some impression too language. For a non-native speaker, learning speakers of Latin (see note 4).The spoken of what the spoken Latin of the ordinary either form of Latin, spoken or written, Latin of those who could read and write people was like. And much of this written would have been more difficult, and there the H(igh) register, i.e. Classical Latin or material comes to us first hand, as it was must have been problems arising from the versions of it, would have varied with the actually produced. There is evidence of language of instruction, especially as context or occasion of use and the type this kind for standard Latin too, in the many of the used in the called for. The most formal situations, e.g. form of the official inscriptions. Roman world were on the wane. On the public speeches of various kinds, would Non-standard Latin is still often other hand, many non-native speakers have called for the most ‘careful’ type, thought of as the peculiar property of the managed it, and spoken non-standard which would have been almost uneducated majority, if dipped into on Latin once learned would have been

Downloaded60 from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.139, onStandard 01 Oct 2021 And at Non-Standard09:06:56, subject Latin to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2058631018000090 passed on to their descendants as a first vulgaris, ‘edition/reading for common/ theory, strange though it may seem, is not language that did not need to be learned, general use’), though it was not written in that easy to refute, especially given the thus hastening the demise of the Vulgar Latin, and most people would have uncertainty about what a language is. And vernaculars and the spread and the experienced it by having it read to them.6 if there were to be any truth in it I eventual primacy of Latin. There is So, ‘vulgar’ here has nothing intrinsically suppose we would have to say that if Latin evidence too of bilingualism of Latin and to do with what is improper, tasteless, is a ‘dead’ language then it is standard, vernaculars in parts of the empire at indecent or disgusting, though I expect elite Latin that is dead, not that (in its certain periods, with Latin speakers that many of those who did not belong, written uses at least) it had ever been alive, learning the vernacular as well as vice or did not regard themselves as belonging, in any real sense that a linguist would versa. In fact bilingualism might have to the vulgus, found that those who did recognise anyway. Latin in the form of been the norm if the parent(s) had not were all of these things. As we have seen, the (mainly written) Latin that survived been happy to produce monolingual Quintilian uses the term sermo vulgaris became, even though it continued to be offspring knowing Latin only and thereby (‘language of the ordinary people’), used extensively for centuries, as James enjoying the benefits and advantages of a probably referring to what was later called Clackson calls it, largely a ‘cultural prestige language that the vernaculars ‘Vulgar Latin’. artefact’. But the fact that it continued to could not offer them. How do we know about Vulgar change and adapt, around a fixed core of Non-standard Latin, especially that Latin? What are our sources and our features, and continues to do so, may by a used in the period of the , evidence for it, especially if it is true that certain definition of ‘dead’, mean that it is is (or was) often called ‘Vulgar Latin’. it was not thought to be worth still alive. Since it continues to be used It Although the term still has a use as a preserving? The sources are in a word, is certainly not a ‘lost’ or ‘extinct’ language broad and rather crude (no pun) marker scanty, as you might expect, and what they like Hittite or Etruscan, and thousands of of language variation between upper and contain is scanty too. Since it was the lesser known languages. The same cannot lower social classes in general, its use is Latin of uneducated, largely illiterate, be said for Vulgar Latin, whether or not it unfortunate, since it suggests (a) that it is people, you would not expect much to continues to live on in some sense as sub-standard and somehow indecent; (b) have been written in it in any case, in any Romance. that it is a form of Latin that tries and form or for any purpose (but see note 5). Our main evidence for this very late fails to be ‘real’, i.e. standard Latin; (c) that Very little Vulgar Latin survives from the form of non-standard Latin, perhaps it is the kind of Latin that was used to pre-Classical and Classical periods. Most surprisingly, does not come directly from write the Vulgate translation of The . of what survives dates from 300–500 CE. attested Latin at all, but rather indirectly or None of these suggestions is correct. There is very little from then on until reflexively from the earliest forms of the (Please note that the use of the term c.800 CE, by which time it is hardly Latin vernacular languages, i.e. the Romance ‘Vulgar Latin’ in what follows should not at all, but rather a very early form of languages that late non-standard Latin be taken as an endorsement of the term.) Romance. Vulgar Latin at this time was turned into. This has in fact been Not much of this non-standard Latin sometimes called rustica romana lingua hypothetically reconstructed from these has survived (most of what has dates (a term first attested in 813 CE), to non-Latin sources, by working back, with a from 300–500 CE). This is not surprising, distinguish it from lingua latina, i.e. very high degree of probability, to what are since most of what was written (relatively ‘proper’ (standard) Latin, and to suggest the most likely Latin forms to have given little, presumably)5 was not intended for that it was not really Latin), or a form of rise to the forms we find in these other posterity but for practical, occasional, language transitional between the two. languages. Linguists call the sum total of immediate use. And, given the low status The Romance languages are those these non-attested reconstructions of this kind of Latin (because of the languages that evolved chiefly from the ‘Proto-Romance’. Despite the name, it is a lowly status of its users), it would not very late form(s) of Vulgar Latin hypothetical reconstruction (like Proto have occurred to anyone that anything stigmatised as lingua romana. We are not Indo-European) of a very late form of written in it was worth preserving able to say exactly when Vulgar Latin non-standard, mainly spoken Latin, not a indefinitely. Most of what has survived disappeared, and obviously it did not reconstruction of a very early form of has survived by accident or because it is disappear everywhere at the same time; Romance, i.e. of a language that is no longer embedded in works that were written in but hardly anyone has claimed that it regarded as Latin - insofar as the two can be standard Latin that were intended to survived anywhere beyond 1000 CE at the distinguished at this time (c. 800 CE). It is survive. very latest. An exception to this is Italy, also to be distinguished from rustica romana ‘Vulgar’ Latin is so called because it is where well into the second millennium lingua, which was an actual form of a real the Latin of the vulgus/volgus, that is of the people there continued to distinguish language. One must emphasise that so-called common, ordinary people who between two forms of a Latin , Proto-Romance is not itself a form of made up the vast majority of the grammatica and volgare, rather than between attested Latin, i.e. a form of Latin actual population, the people the poet Latin and Italian.7 Some people like to instances of which are extant. In fact there professed to (his words probably have a think that it did not disappear at all, but is little attested late non-standard Latin, different meaning from that which is continued to exist in the different guise of hence Proto-Romance as a kind of ‘missing commonly attached to them) hate and to the Romance languages. For how long link’ between attested Latin and Romance. keep at arm’s length (odi profanum vulgus et they do not say. Perhaps they think Vulgar After all, the different forms of Romance arceo). The same word vulgus is the origin Latin is still with us, since the Romance must have come from somewhere, and of the ‘Vulgate’ of the Bible (editio/lectio languages certainly are. Actually, this standard Latin is so very different from

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.139, Standardon 01 Oct And2021 Non-Standard at 09:06:56, subject Latin to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at 61 https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2058631018000090 Romance for it to be considered as a spelling (misspelling, if you like) concealing who were not native speakers of Latin did not candidate. Even so, as we said, features of a similarity of pronunciation. The writings learn to speak or write it in anything like the standard Latin played a part in the of the Church Fathers also provide numbers that men did; and native speakers did formation of Romance; it did not all come examples of non-standard Latin, where not learn to write it at all or to the same level that men did. They did not engage (certainly from non-standard Latin, as used to be ease of understanding has been preferred not to the same extent) in the sort of activities thought (and still is by many). The Latin to linguistic correctness. (This also that men did that called for the use of Latin, or that turned into Romance comes from happens in writings in other genres too, of written Latin. According to the Historia three sources, (a) standard Latin; (b) both usually of a technical nature.) There is also Augusta, even a woman as highly placed as the standard and non-standard Latin; (c) the tiny number of longer writings in sister of the emperor had non-standard Latin, the largest by far of non-standard Latin that have come down not mastered standard Latin, which became which is the last one, but by no means the only to us in the manuscript tradition (see such a source of embarrassment to him that he sent her back to Africa. But surely this one. Thanks to the reappraisal of the above). These are the main sources for story, if it is true, indicates that women (of her evidence in recent years, (a) and (b) have non-standard Latin - varied, but by no class at least) were expected to have learned expanded and (c) has shrunk. The net result means as copious or accessible (in both standard Latin as well as men - or as well as is that the gap between the two forms of senses) as those for standard Latin. other women of her class? Or perhaps, more the language has been breached, or at least Generally speaking, works on likely, that they should conceal their ignorance has been perceived to be much smaller than non-standard Latin (which nearly always of it in public. (In more recent times, was previously thought to be the case. refer to it as ‘Vulgar Latin’, and also discrimination against women in France has, paradoxically perhaps, taken the form of As for the attested sources, i.e. extant accept uncritically at face value the approval of their learning Latin, for reasons examples of non-standard Latin, there are pronouncements of the ancient which are as bizarre as they are demeaning. See a few literary sources, i.e. sources from grammarians) that do not take into the contribution by Francoise Waquet to the (non-standard Latin was account the findings of modern book containing the Greenwood contribution not the stuff that Latin literature on the sociolinguistics are unreliable and not able cited at the beginning of this article. See also whole was made of), especially and to be recommended. This leaves very few her book (trans. J. Howe), Latin or the Empire of Petronius, or in the occasional, that can be recommended. Probably the a Sign (Paris, 2001).) unintentional lapses (if that is how they most important book in recent times on 3When considering spoken Latin, both should be described; and they are bound to the topics covered in this article is the non-standard and the more casual speech occur, as they do in all societies in which monumental work by J. N. Adams, Social adopted by writers of standard Latin, one there exists an actual or virtual diglossia) Variation and the Latin Language (CUP, must not lose sight of the obvious fact that we from standard Latin. James Adams, in the 2013). Also recommended are James have no direct evidence for it. What survives work cited below (pp. 869–70) has Clackson, Language and Society in the Greek of the written record may not reflect compiled a list (nine items altogether) of and Roman Worlds (CUP, 2015); (ed.) A accurately the spoken word, especially the spoken word of non-standard Latin speakers. the sorts of context in which non-standard Companion to the Latin Language (Wiley- Latin is employed by writers of literature. Blackwell, 2011); (with Geoffrey 4In the classical period and for some time after, Non-standard Latin usages are mentioned Horrocks) The Blackwell History of the Latin when classical Latin was more similar to the too, rather than employed, by (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007). For the language of the instructor and of the learner writers of standard Latin, as we can see theoretical basis see William Labov, The (presumably it was some version of the more from the extracts at the beginning. It Social Stratification of English in New York formal contemporary language), it must have should be pointed out that there are many City (2nd. ed.) (CUP, 2006). been easier, once one was literate, to learn to more examples of usages to be found in read and write classical Latin, the standard language. It would also have been easier (but both non-standard and standard Latin than Jerome Moran is a retired teacher only in theory) for a native speaker of a much used to be supposed. And words of Classics and Philosophy who less formal vernacular, if such a person could originating in a lower sociolect have found knew nothing at all about most of have acquired the skills of basic literacy, which their way into a higher one, and vice versa. the content of this article when he were only available to those with money and leisure. In an age of more or less mass literacy Many usages that were thought to be was a student, and for much of the and universal educational provision we tend to peculiar to non-standard Latin can now be time that he was a teacher. He seen to exist in standard Latin also. As for forget how limited were the linguistic prospects suspects that most of his teachers of the mass of the people in the ancient world. the sources outside (high) literature, there didn’t either (In her chapter of the book with contributions are graffiti, inscriptions, ostraca, writing [email protected] by Greenwood and Waquet (see note 2), Ann tablets, defixiones, papyri (and not many Ellis Hanson writes, commenting on . . papyri in Latin compared with Greek), and Harris’ authoritative study, Ancient Literacy the works (in standard Latin, of course) of (1989), ‘The vast majority of ancient peoples ancient grammarians and other writers 1The genitive pauperorum and the accusative were unschooled and lacking opportunities for who cite and discuss examples of non- litteras. This is fiction of course, written in the extensive writing and reading. Low socio- first century CE, but note that the speaker of political status and poor economic prospects standard Latin. Actually, many of the marked those thus disadvantaged’. Not unlike examples given by the grammarians are the ordinary person’s Latin assumes that his learned addressee can understand him. the situation of Latin and Greek (especially the found in standard Latin too, and the latter) learning today, in non-selective state misattribution to non-standard Latin alone 2And to wives too (I hope I won’t be accused schools at least - and what kind of universities is often due to a confusion between of relegating women to a footnote). It would are they that offer beginners’ courses (especially spelling and speech, the difference of seem that women across the Roman world in Greek)? - and for similar reasons, i.e. lack of

Downloaded62 from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.139, onStandard 01 Oct 2021 And at Non-Standard09:06:56, subject Latin to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2058631018000090 money and poor social status. The big 1800. Reading and writing Classical Latin the 20th century. Conversion/translation into difference, of course, is that most people in the would have been easier for a literate Latin- non-standard Latin, for the benefit of native ancient world were effectively prevented from speaking person in 1CE than in 400CE. The speakers and those who had learned to speak learning to read and write their own language. same is true of Classical, i.e. literary Attic, Latin, either to be read aloud to the illiterate or Greek, which was also preserved as a prestige read by the literate, would not have been an In summary, the level of difficulty involved in standard, with similar consequences to those option either, in regions where the Vulgate was reading and writing standard Classical Latin that befell Latin. adopted as the authoritative version of the would have depended on: scriptures, simply because, as a sacred text, its 5The extent of illiteracy in the Roman world language was as unchangeable as its content. It (a) whether one was a Latin speaker, first or means that non-standard Latin was mainly is possible too that less estimable causes were second language; spoken rather than written - the opposite at work, as they were in later times, causes that perhaps of standard Latin. This does not had to with exploiting the ignorance of the (b) whether one was already literate in Latin; necessarily in itself account for the smaller population as a form of control. It is written record when compared with standard questionable whether non-standard Latin (c) how similar standard Classical Latin was to Latin. A great deal more of non-standard could have adequately rendered the content of the Latin that one was used to, i.e. the Latin may have been written by the literate the original in any case. As for translation into everyday Latin one spoke and wrote (if minority than we suspect, that has not a non-Latin vernacular (even supposing that its literate in Latin). This Latin changed survived, either disposed of or allowed to resources would have been up to the job any greatly over time for every Latin user, perish without trace. (After all, we estimate more than non-standard Latin was), one must whereas Classical Latin changed much less. that a lot more of standard Latin has remember that in many/most parts of the Also, the Latin one was used to was not the perished or been lost than has survived.) empire and former empire, Latin had become same for everyone and differed according And the writers of standard Latin whose the only language, the vernaculars having been to social class and other determinants of works have survived belonged mainly to a ousted by Latin, a situation that was to remain difference, e.g. region, gender. It would small elite, smaller in number, one assumes, the same in most parts of Europe until the have been more similar to Classical Latin than those who could write non-standard Romance languages became established. for some (the male educated elite in Rome) Latin. than for others (female illiterates in the 7If we ask whether the vernacular that provinces); 6For as long as they could understand the Latin spoke after (say) 900 was a form of Latin or in which it was written, though it did make whether Italians just believed it was (perhaps (d) the opportunities available to one for concessions to the language that was more because they believed proprietorially that Latin learning Classical Latin, especially in later familiar to them, which of course became less was their language), the probable answer is times when it would have to have been and less familiar to them as it changed with the that a form of Latin did persist as the learned as if it were a foreign language. passage of time until it became no longer vernacular - but not for as long as Italians Usually it would have been available only to Latin at all. During all this time the Latin of believed it did. When exactly it ceased to be people with high economic and social the Vulgate stayed more or less the same, as Latin and became Italian we cannot say, any status who were also male. one might expect of a sacred text in any case. more than we can for the other Romance And in fact it continued to be read aloud, to languages. And of course a speaker of early Reading and writing Chaucerian English would people for whom it was an unintelligible Romance would not have been aware that he have been easier for a literate person whose foreign language, and, along with the rest of was speaking a different language. How native language was English in 1400 than in the liturgy, to Catholic people until well into could he?

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.139, Standardon 01 Oct And2021 Non-Standard at 09:06:56, subject Latin to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at 63 https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2058631018000090