Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 August 30

= August 30 =

Þa wealas ne cwǽdon on Lǽdene sprǽce [Why do the Welsh traditionally speak a Celtic language?]
Why do the Welsh traditionally speak a Celtic language? Most other dominant peoples in late Western Roman times spoke a degenerate Latin that survived the collapse of imperial power and influence, even to the point that the local Germanic invaders took over the Latin dialect in places like Lombardy or Gallia. No wonder that the English kept their language and didn't adopt a form of Latin if the local native peoples weren't speaking Latin (or at least weren't to the point that they kept it up when they were pushed out of what's now England), but if the Britons spoke a Latin dialect until they were exiled to what's now Wales, why did they return to their Celtic roots then, or if they stopped speaking it at an earlier time, why did they stop then? Nyttend (talk) 02:36, 30 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Significant parts of Wales were somewhat of a backwater during the Roman period: not extensively settled with Roman villas or as fully incorporated into the Roman economic system as the southeast was, and not as extensively militarized as areas near the walls (though there was a Roman legion fort at Caerleon). AnonMoos (talk) 05:14, 30 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Maybe I'm misunderstanding, then, but weren't the Britons from elsewhere on the island driven into Wales at the coming of the English? Nyttend (talk) 11:18, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Perhaps, but those Britons spoke Welsh, or a language closely related to Welsh. The Brittonic languages dominated basically all of modern England, with the Pictish language in east Scotland and the Goidelic languages in west Scotland and Ireland.  Those people who would have been driven into Wales from eastern parts of Britain would have spoken a recognizable language and had a recognizable culture to people already in Wales, so they would have assimilated rather easily, and would not have caused a profound change in local culture or linguistics.  Which is not also to say that the Welsh language did not have significant influence from other peoples in Britain; as would be expected the Welsh language has significant loan words from Latin, Anglo-Saxon, and Norman French sources.  -- Jayron 32 11:48, 30 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Nyttend -- there's a lot we don't know in detail about events in 5th and 6th century Britain, and some of the assumptions and terminology (such as "degenerate"[sic]) in your original question don't seem useful to me, but one thing that's pretty clear is that those areas of Roman Britain where the largest percentage of the population was likely to be Latin-speaking were the same areas that were most heavily smashed up in the Anglo-Saxon invasions, while areas that were least likely to have a high percentage of Latin speakers (i.e. Wales outside of its southeastern corner and Cornwall) were least disturbed by the Anglo-Saxon invasions -- so from that point of view it's not surprising at all that the surviving pre-Anglo-Saxon languages of Britain are Celtic, not Romance... AnonMoos (talk) 13:26, 30 August 2017 (UTC)


 * See British Latin. 92.8.219.206 (talk) 14:44, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
 * And Common Brittonic. Note that Cornish and Breton have some mutual ineligibility with Welsh; Brittany was colonised by British refugees at the end of the 4th century, see History of Brittany. Alansplodge (talk) 17:15, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Also why the place names of Brittany are redundant with Southwest England, c.f. Cornouaille and Cornwall, Domnonée and Dumnonia (Devon), etc. -- Jayron 32 19:32, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The OP presents several misconceptions about the linguistic situation in Roman Britain from the start, hence his question goes a wrong way. As it was said above, we know little about the linguistic situation of that era, but Romanization must have been limited in Britain. Consider that Britain was conquered relatively late, that it was one of the farthest provinces, that its climate and nature was a little too hostile for colonists from Italy (although they were known to grow grapevines there in Britain), that most colonists were most likely soldiers limited to castles. Considering all that, we must not rush into a conclusion that Latin supplanted Celtic speech as easy and in its entirety as it was in Gaul. The Welsh didn't "return" from Latin to Celtic, they have been speaking a Celtic language continuously.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 19:53, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Nyttend, one clue to the vernacular languages used during the occupation are curse tablets. This article from the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents, Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies at Oxford University says: "The Latin of the tablets is of course very particular and peculiar... A distinctive dialect of British Latin has not yet been recognised in the tablets... Many Roman Britons continued to speak the Celtic language(s) they had spoken before the conquest (the ancestor(s) of Welsh, Cornish and Breton) for everyday purposes".
 * Wikipedia also has an article British Latin, which perhaps we should have found at the start of this conversation. "Historians often refer to Roman Britain as comprising a "highland zone" to the north and west of the country and a "lowland zone" in the south and east, with the latter being more thoroughly Romanized and having a Romano-British culture. Particularly in the lowland zone, Latin became the language of most of the townspeople, of administration and the ruling class, the army and, following the introduction of Christianity, the church. Brittonic remained the language of the peasantry, which was the bulk of the population; the rural elite were probably bilingual. In the highland zone, there were only limited attempts at Romanization, and Brittonic always remained the dominant language". Alansplodge (talk) 09:45, 4 September 2017 (UTC)


 * 92.8.219.206 did link to "British Latin" five days ago... AnonMoos (talk) 15:30, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I hate it when that happens... Alansplodge (talk) 12:13, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Bergensk?
Is she speaking Bergensk? Count Iblis (talk) 04:33, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, to me, this sounds like your typical Bergensk dialect. Regards,  (talk) 13:39, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Sasuke Uchiha
In expanding Sasuke Uchiha article's real world information, there have been addition of free images like his Kusanagi sword. However, I can't find a single source that references Kusanagi's origins even thought it is quite popular in Japanese mythology. There is a book I found in google books called Ficitonal Swords but I can't get a single view and appears the book uses Wikipedia as a reference. Regards.Tintor2 (talk) 23:08, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I haven't read it, but this article might be of interest:
 * 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:DD4C:BCA6:CE45:3A6F (talk) 18:12, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
 * 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:DD4C:BCA6:CE45:3A6F (talk) 18:12, 31 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks, but there is no mention of Kusanagi in popular culture as far as I read.Tintor2 (talk) 18:22, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
 * That article has online references that could be helpful. 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:DD4C:BCA6:CE45:3A6F (talk) 18:31, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
 * P.s.: click on the "Read the article on one page" link.


 * Thanks, it's not too specific, but one of the articles makes a mention of Kusanagi appearing Naruto.Tintor2 (talk) 19:42, 31 August 2017 (UTC)