How Latin became Italian 🇮🇹

How did Latin become Italian? What are the differences in pronunciation and morphology between Classical Latin and Modern Italian? And what is "Vulgar Latin" exactly? Is it the same as informal Latin or conversational Latin? Is Italian a natural language, or is it artificial? Did Latin have a vowel system of 9 qualities, as W. Sydney Allen (Vox Latina) professes, or is the Calabrese System a better pronunciation model? These questions and more will be answered!

Sources: see below.

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Intro and outro music: Overture of Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) by Mozart

SOURCES

Vox Latina, by W. Sidney Allen

The Regional Diversification of Latin 200 BC - AD 600, by JN Adams

An Anthology of Informal Latin, 200 BC–AD 900: Fifty Texts with Translations and Linguistic Commentary, by JN Adams

Social Variation and the Latin Language, by JN Adams

Early and Late Latin: Continuity or Change?, by JN Adams

Late Latin and Early Romance in Spain and Carolingian France (Arca Classical and Medieval Texts, Papers and Monographs, by Roger Wright

Breve grammatica storica dell’italiano, by Paolo D’Achille

#latin #italian #linguistics

00:00 Latin to Italian
00:20 What this video will cover
01:32 Sources
03:01 Ancient Language Institute: Now with OLD ENGLISH!
04:25 Starting Point: Latin
06:01 "Vulgar" Latin
12:40 Why Italian does NOT come from "Vulgar" Latin
19:05 When Latin separated from Romance
20:08 Italian...what is it?
21:09 Vowel changes from Latin to Italian
33:37 Vowel Breaking
37:09 Why au doesn't become uo
39:40 Rizotonic vowel breaking
42:42: i to e to i again
43:23 Semivowels
46:09 Consonants
50:58 Intervocalic p t c s
58:09 Short i before vowels
1:01:17 Loss of final s
1:02:16 Raddoppiamento fonosintattico
1:05:02 Morphology & syntax
1:08:12 Accusative for singulars, nominative for plurals?
1:10:07 Loss of neuter gender
1:11:11 Origin of the Italian future tense
1:13:45 Conjunction "that" che
1:14:37 Just the beginning...
1:16:00 Gentle Ben

[polyMATHY_Luke]

Following up on my assertions in this video, I have just published a video on the secondary channel where I discuss the evidence against lax vowels in Classical Latin, namely that [ɪ] and [ʊ] are wrong for ĭ and ŭ:

Thanks for subscribing to both channels!

🦂 Support my work on Patreon:

📚 Luke Ranieri Audiobooks:

🤠 Take my course LATIN UNCOVERED on StoryLearning, including my original Latin adventure novella "Vir Petasātus"

🦂 Sign up for my Latin Pronunciation & Conversation series on Patreon:

[Raphe]

I've long been looking for a comprehensive video on Latin's evolution into the Romance languages. This surely does not disappoint.

[ForgottenHeroes]

Hello Luke, this is a bit off topic with the video, but I have to tell you a story that you will like to read, I think.

I'm half Greek and half Spanish, I was born and raised in Spain, so my Greek is good, but I don't have a native level.

The thing is that when I can, I go to Greece in the summer to see my family and friends. Well, this summer I went to the island of Thassos where a friend was waiting for me. To go to Thassos I had to take a ferry from the city of Kavala, in the region of Macedonia.

When I got to the port I didn't know which ferry to take, so I asked a young Greek guy he was walking in front of me. He was also going to Thassos and he didn't know which ferry was ours either, so we went together to ask someone from the staff.

Once this was resolved and already on the ferry, we started talking. He noticed a weird accent in my Greek and asked me where I'm from, to which I replied him I'm from Spain. The boy told me that he is studying Spanish on his own and we began to have a basic conversation in Spanish (the truth is that he spoke it very well). From there, he told me that languages are his passion, and that he was learning classical Greek and Latin at the same time, and I told him that he also had an interest in these languages. And almost simultaneously, we said each other:

"Do you know the YouTube channel polýMATHY?"

We both laughed and were amazed. There you had two strangers who had just met, on a boat in the middle of the Aegean Sea, and both followers of your channel. :)


Since that day we have maintained a good friendship and we talk regularly on instagram.

How capricious life is.

[antistiolabeo]

Not only this guy displays an incredible knowledge in all things regarding ancient Latin and Romance languages, but he also has a very distinctive taste in videography and music that can't go unnoticed. It really helps his communication as a whole giving it a deeper and more effective meaning.

[Pandadude-egli]

Neat! Seeing Latin become Italian is something I've waited for so long to be documented.

Can't wait for Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian! (Nativlang already did French).

[danielrodelli]

As an Italian that studied Latin at school, thank you for this!

[IntoMattyy]

As an Italian i can say that this video is absolutely perfect!

[nigelwiseman]

Phenomenal. I speak Spanish and French (and learned some Latin), not Italian, but this explains so much for me. I always wondered about the change in the future tense (which is the same in French and Spanish). He should get an honorary doctorate for this video. I am in absolute awe of this guy.

[SoulcatcherLucario]

gosh, hearing the italian and latin terms right next to each other are so beautiful

[SoulEternalPeaceWarrior]

You've outdone yourself Luke, such an AMAZING, well-produced video! Having grown up in a Spanish speaking household & later visiting Italy, it was super intriguing to hear so many identical expressions & words being used. I've come to realize that (even today) Latin is the well-worn bridge many of us use to travel & become acquainted with each other across the Romantic World!

[DanielLagunaIHS]

Very good video. In Portuguese, we can see the phenomenon of the ''new future tense'' using the verb ''to have/habere'' with the ''mesóclise'': ''I will love him = amá-lo-ei (originally ''amar-lo-hei'')''. ''Mesóclise'' sounds arcaic in Brazil nowadays and it's interesting how it proves that the future tense of modern Romance languages come from the infinitive + habere.

[jnmg]

As a graduate in modern languages, your channel is just pure gold!

[Joejoejoe]

Please do this for Spanish and Portuguese! I would like to understand the shift to Argentine Spanish as well with Sicilian immigration and in Brazil as well

[Elvs_TCB]

Pelicula pulcherrima. That was incredibly interesting. I've enjoyed it and I think that's one of the most complete videos I've ever seen on Youtube about evolution of Latin.

[potman]

I've been waiting for a video like this, and I'm delighted to see you made it. Can't think of a better person to learn this from. Thanks, Luke. Can't wait to sink my teeth into this.

[georgesfeydeaufeydeau]

Thank you. This was a thing of beauty. I enjoyed your focus on Italian (a language I love) but have also learned much about my own language (Spanish), as you anticipated in the introduction.

[ItalianByLatin]

Thank you for this excellent video, which I absolutely have to recommend to my students who want to delve deeper into the relationship between the two languages.

[DenspanskeVikingo]

I feel like your presentation is useful for learning stress relief :) the soothing music, combined with your calm and patient voice, really facilitates learning, and calming of the mind. :-) 🤝👏

[NovaSeven]

I really enjoyed the footage accompanying this interesting essay 👏🏼

[pestolingo]

Amazing as always. All of the exceptions are intimidating, but I’m glad to know that they’re mostly well-described! Definitely going to be referring to this later