65 Vulgar Latin.pdf

}OZSEF HERMAN

VULGAR

LATIN

TRANSLATED BY ROGER WRIGHT

THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS

UNIVERSITY PARK, PENNSYLVANIA

Contents

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Herman, Jozsef.

[Latin vulgaire. English]

Vulgar Latin / Jozsef Herman ; translated by Roger Wright.

p . cm.

First published in France as "Le latin vulgaire," Paris, 1967.

ISBN 0-271-02000-8 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN 0-271-02001-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Latin language, Vulgar. I. Wright, Roger. n. itle.

PA2617.H413 2000

477-dc21

Prologue by the Author to the English Edition

Foreword by the English Tr anslator

A Note on the Symbols Used

Chronology of the Authors and Te xts Mentioned

vii

xiii

99-35599

CIP

1 "Vulgar" Latin: Te rminology and Problems

2 The Historical Context

3 Sources and Methods

4 Phonetic Evolution

1.Vo wels

2. Consonants

a) Word-Final Consonants

b) Palatalization

c) Intervocalic Consonants

d) Consonant Clusters

5 Inflectional Morphology

1.Nominal Morphology

2. Verbal Morphology

6 Phrases and Sentences

1.Noun Phrases

2. The Simple Sentence

3. Compound Sentences

7 Vo cabulary

1. Invariant Words

Universitaires de France

English translation based upon revised edition published by Editorial Ariel, S. A.

Printed in the United States of America

Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press,

University Park, PA 16802-1003

It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-ree paper for

the first printing of all clothbound books. Publications on uncoated stock satisy the

minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences

Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48--1992.

Contents

2. Inflected Words

a) Lexical Substitutions

b) Semantic Changes

c) Afixation and Compounding

d) Foreign Words

8 More General Problems

1. The End of the History of Latin

2. The Geographical Diversification of Latin

3. The Main Lines of Vu lgar Development

102

104

105

109

115

120

Prologue by the Author to the English Edition

Selective Bibliography

125

The small book here being published in amplified and revised fo rm first

came out more than thirty years ago in French (Paris, 1967); it was

reprinted unchanged later that same year, and then again in 1975. At

the time, it was very well received, despite the modesty of its aims and

the brevity required of books in the Que sais-je? collection, which sug

gests that it filled a widespread need in university courses. There were,

of course, longer and more detailed handbooks on the topic, and this

book had no intention of replacing those; but there was a place for a

study that made it easier for all, specialists or not, to approach the

unique phenomenon of the later history of Latin in the general perspec

tive of language change.

When a Spanish edition came to be prepared for publication in

1997, however, it could not be merely a version of the French original.

This was not because, or not only because, the text had a few technical

laws and was in need, here and there, of some rewording, but mainly

because a translation of the original would not have taken account of

the advances that had been made during the intervening decades in, for

example, the field of historical sociolinguistics, or the general renewal

of interest in Latin linguistics and grammar and in what has become an

extremely active area, the field of Late and Vu lgar Latin. On the other

hand, I could not envisage writing a completely new book. I had nei

ther the time nor, probably, the energy for that. Instead, I have made

alterations in a number of details of greater or lesser significance, but

have also left whole pages unchanged. The changes and additions have

viii

Prologue by the Author to the English Edition

been made mostly in the chapter on the sources of Vulgar Latin, the

chapter on morphology and syntax, and the final summary.

In this way I eventually prepared a French text that was, in efect, a

new edition of the original, not just corrected and updated, but also

completely revised and considerably enlarged. This text was then pub

lished in a Spanish translation (Barcelona: Ariel, 1997), thanks to the

excellent work of Professor Carmen Arias Abellan, who also revised

and expanded the Bibliography.

It was understandable, then, even inevitable, that the English trans

lation should also be based on the revised and expanded version, which

had already served as the basis fo r the Spanish edition. I should here

like to express my gratitude to my colleague Roger Wright, who first

took the initiative of arranging fo r its publication and then himself

undertook the translation into English. He has done this with his usual

skill. Not only has he managed to fo llow and preserve my train of

thought, he has also carried out an admirable tour de force: the original

French text, in its traditional fo rmulas and syntactic complexity, fol

lowed an ancient Sorbonne tradition, from which I imagine I shall

never be free, but under his pen it has been tuned into clear English

prose, easy to read, "user-friendly," which is always desirable in a work

on linguistics. He also took the decision to work most of the original

footnotes into the text and to adapt the Bibliography to suit the needs

of Anglo-Saxon readers. I hope that the public newly reached by this

book as a result of the English translation will receive it sympathetically

and find it of interest.

Foreword by the English Translator

Professor J6zsef Herman was recently heard to express a worry that he

might have been misleading us into believing in the existence of some

thing that in fact never existed; readers of this book will have to bear in

mind continually that Vulgar Latin was never a language separate rom

Latin, but an integral part of that single complex system. "Vulgar Latin"

has become a traditional term and has been defined in several diferent

ways, not all of them compatible, so many scholars have preferred to

avoid the phrase altogether. Professor Herman's deinition of "Vulgar

Latin" is certainly the best; it is just a collective label, available for use

to refer to all those fe atures of the Latin language that are known to

have existed, from textual attestations and incontrovertible reconstruc

tions, but that were not recommended by the grammarians. For that

reason Professor Herman's comprehensive but succinct survey will be

an invaluable research aid for all those with an interest in written Latin

texts, and the speech of their authors, of the thousand-year period rom

Plautus to the late eighth-century reformers-that is, linguists, philolo

gists, historians, literary critics, and many more. For this is not a m � nor

ity interest: "Classical" Latin was spoken by almost nobody and wntten

by only a fe w, whereas "Vulgar" Latin was spoken by millions of people

over a period of a thousand years.

Professor Herman was for many years the Director of the Linguistic

Research Institute at the Hungarian Academy and Professor of Romance

linguistics at the University of Budapest; more recently he has been

Professor in the Department of "Antichita e Tr adizione Classica" at the

J. Herman

Venice, March 1999

Foreword by the Translator

University ofVe nice. He has become the master ofthis field. This is not

just because he published the standard book on the topic in 1967 (of

which the present volume is a revised and expanded version), and subse

quently several other books and a long series of studies on these topics;

not just because he founded and successfully encouraged the growth of

the remarkably successul triennial intenational conferences on Late

and Vulgar Latin; not just because he has been an inspiring riend and

colleague to many who are attempting to understand this fascinating but

complex topic; but mainly because, in a field beset by controversy, he

remains a consistent beacon of tranquillity, perceptiveness, and common

sense. Hitherto, however, he has only had published a few short articles

in English. So it has been a real privilege to work on this translation,

which we hope will make his merits entirely familiar also to the English

reading scholarly public.

I would also like to thank Christy McHale for preparing the excel

lent map.

A Note on the Symbols Used

In this book, phonetic transcnpttons are usually presented in the

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA ), within square brackets. Forms

in italics are the ordinary spellings of words. Thus [lewis] represents the

pronunciation of the word spelled levis. Phonemes, speech sounds con

sidered as functional units, often corresponding to the sound's mental

image, are presented in their usual slash brackets, such as /0/. Some

further symbols are traditional within the study of Vulgar Latin, and,

where necessary, the following symbols have been used:

1. A small hook placed beneath a letter representing a mid vowel

indicates that it is an open vowel, as in Vulgar Latin � and Q. A dot

placed beneath these letters indicates that it is a closed vowel, as in

Vulgar Latin � and 9. Long vowels, however, are indicated with ":" in a

phonetic transcription (e.g., [mi:sit]), rather than with the traditional

macron, as in Latin misit; this has been done in order to avoid any pos

sible confusion between written and spoken forms. An acute accent

placed over a letter representing a vowel indicates that the vowel was

stressed in speech, as in venio. Semivowels are also transcribed as in the

IPA; that is, the [w] symbol indicates the velar semivowel, as in English

win ([wm] ), and [j] indicates the palatal semivowel, as in English yes

(lies] ).

2. The > sign indicates a direct etymological relationship; the open

end of the > points to the Latin word, and the sharp end points to the

Romance word or words that are the direct continuation of that Latin

word. The words flanking the > are usually presented in their written

form rather than in phonetic script, as in "Latin gua > French gueule."

R. Wright

Liverpool, April 1999

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