North African Romance

[Larry G]

Okay, not the right continent <g>, but definitely related to the common
history of Europe. Are there any records of the Latin spoken in Africa
existing today. The only page I could find on North African Latin was a
fantasy page about a conlang called Tolossan, supposedly based on North
African Latin.

Does anyone know if any texts or inscriptions exist? Did it differ
significantly from Roman (as in city of Rome) classical Latin? Does anyone
know if any parts of it survive today in the colloquial speech of the
colonial languages there today such as French, Italian, and Spanish?

Do the Berbers still speak this language, or use any known words from it?

Larry

[Brion L. VIBBER]

De gudkente Larry G skribte:

> Okay, not the right continent <g>, but definitely related to the common
> history of Europe. Are there any records of the Latin spoken in Africa
> existing today.

Ah, and I thought this was going to be a transcontinental love story!

[fun conlang snipped]

> Does anyone know if any texts or inscriptions exist?

Apparently, yes. For example:
http://rubens.anu.edu.au/htdocs/laserdisk/IRT/db/

There's also this guy:
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/apuleius/

> Did it differ
> significantly from Roman (as in city of Rome) classical Latin? Does
> anyone know if any parts of it survive today in the colloquial speech of
> the colonial languages there today such as French, Italian, and Spanish?
>
> Do the Berbers still speak this language, or use any known words from it?

I get the impression from my cursory google search (you can tell I'm an
expert on this) that Latin didn't take root quite as thoroughly in Africa
as in Europe, and was displaced as the urban/government/high culture
language by Arabic when the next set of invaders came.

Just to what degree Berber, Punic, Latin, and Arabic were prevalent at any
given time, though, I couldn't say.

You might also try asking this in sci.lang.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com) -- [en, eo, ia, fr, (es, la)]

[Larry G]

"Brion L. VIBBER" <br...@pobox.com> wrote in message ...

> Ah, and I thought this was going to be a transcontinental love story!

Hehe

>
> [fun conlang snipped]
> > Does anyone know if any texts or inscriptions exist?
>
> Apparently, yes. For example:
> http://rubens.anu.edu.au/htdocs/laserdisk/IRT/db/
>
> There's also this guy:
> http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/apuleius/

[...]

Thanks Brion. :)

Larry

[Gianni]

"Larry G" <larr...@excite.com> wrote in message
news:a166sq$ogb0c$1...@ID-37509.news.dfncis.de...

> Okay, not the right continent <g>, but definitely related to the common
> history of Europe. Are there any records of the Latin spoken in Africa

No. There was a thread on sci.lang a few months ago, nobody managed to find
anything. I found a reference in a French book about Romance languages, in
which the authro claimed NAf Romance must have been close to Sardinian, without
giving any evidence supporting his claim.

> Does anyone know if any texts or inscriptions exist? Did it differ
> significantly from Roman (as in city of Rome) classical Latin?

Probably as much as the other proto-Romance languages did.

> Does anyone
> know if any parts of it survive today in the colloquial speech of the
> colonial languages there today such as French, Italian, and Spanish?

I don't think so. Even Lingua Franca (the Romance pidgin langauge spoken in the
Western Mediterranean throughout the Renaissance) was mostly based on Spanish,
Occitan [Provençal] and Italian.

> Do the Berbers still speak this language, or use any known words from it?

There might be some remnants of Latin in Berber. I guess no language ever
leaves no trace when it disappears.

--
Gianni [fr,it,en,oc,hu,de,ca(,es,ru,ro)]
nassuu a Milan (IT-MI)
crescut a Tolosa (FR-31)
habitant le Vexin (FR-95)
_______________________________________________________________________

Uccisi a Hebron due pericolosi terroristi
Burhan Himouni aveva tre anni, Shady Arafa ne aveva quattordici.
(10 dic. 2001)

--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

[anton...@gmail.com]

Hi guys! I'm from Morocco. We have traces of Latin and Greek both in Amazigh (aka Berber) and in Moroccan Darija (aka Moroccan Arabic). I can give two quick everyday examples (from Moroccan Darija):

-- fellus = chicken, or chick (chicken offspring), depending on the region <= pullus = chicken in Latin

-- bellarej = stork, from pelargos πελαργός

These are the example that I know for sure. Due to the influence of Spanish, Portuguese and French over the last few hundred years, it's sometimes hard to distinguish early influence of Latin (or remnants of African Romance) from later influence of its European daughters.

I am quite interested in this subject and actively researching it. So feel free to share any resources you know.