There Were These People In Togas.....
Ahhh, the Romance languages! The
languages of love and affection. Of sentiment and rapture. Just the
thought of a little French drove Gomez Addams into a wild-eyed
frenzy (“Tish! That's French!)
Everybody knows how fiery Latin lovers can melt a woman's heart with
just a few words in Spanish or Italian. These are the languages of
the heart, of the soul, languages spoken by hot-blooded, fervent
people of intense passion and ardor. Right?
Meh.
I know it's
February and there are hearts and flowers and depictions of Cupid
everywhere you look, but I'm gonna rain on your love parade just a
little bit when it comes to the origins of romance. Or at least of
romantic Romance languages.
Once upon a time,
there was this bunch of people who ran around in togas. I'm not
talking about John Belushi in “Animal House.” No, these were the
folks who sort of thought they ruled the world …..because, for a
while, they pretty much did. That would be the Romans. From their
home in Rome they roamed o'er land and foam until they established an
empire that encompassed much of what was then the known world. And in
doing so, they impressed their native language upon the natives of
that far-flung empire. That language, of course, was Latin. More
specifically, Vulgar Latin.
Now that doesn't
mean that the people who spoke Latin were crude and
unrefined......although I'm sure some of them were. The word “vulgar”
in this case means “common.” Classical or “high status”
Latin, the “dead” language you struggled with in high school, was
the official, formal language of the empire. Upper crust, educated
Romans used it in decrees and formal speeches and such. Vulgar Latin
was the common language of the common folk. Certain socioeconomic
classes spoke both forms, but it was the “common speech,” the
“sermo vulgaris” or “Vulgar Latin” that eventually evolved
into the Romance languages.
I'm not going to go
into all the arcana of “dialect leveling” and other complicated
and, frankly, boring aspects of linguistic evolution. Let's keep it
real and relatable. Compare a map of the ancient Roman Empire with
one of the modern world. Go ahead, I'll wait. See there? The bulk of
the western Roman Empire consisted of Italia, Gaul, and Hispania on
the Iberian peninsula. These roughly line up with modern day Italy,
France, Spain, and Portugal. And, of course, although there are
dozens of subsets, the main Western Romance languages are Italian,
French, Spanish, and Portuguese.
So
where does all the romance come in? Quite simple, really. “Romance”
as we use it today is a fairly modern concept. The origins of
“romance,” however, have nothing at all to do with hearts and
flowers and Cupid and love: it is merely a reference to something
related to Rome, something Roman. The word “romance” itself is a
derivative adverb of the early Latin “Romanicus,” meaning
“of the Roman style.” “Romanicus” became “romanice” in
later Latin, and evolved into “romanz” in Old French, and from
there, ultimately, to “romance” in English. So when you use the
term “Romance language,” you are simply referring back to Vulgar
Latin, which was the “Roman style” of speaking. Disappointing,
right? Kinda takes all the romance out of it.
As to how “romance” became
connected to the lovey-dovey stuff, well that's pretty mundane, too.
Back in the early Middle Ages, the French people particularly began
telling – and later writing – heroic tales for their own
amusement and entertainment. These stories usually involved knights
and maidens and fantastic, chivalric deeds and, because they were
told or written in the vernacular French language, they became known
as “romanz” stories, sometimes expressed as “romancier,”
meaning “to narrate in French.” By the 17th and 18th
centuries, such “romance” adventures were being commonly thought
of as love stories and the word “romance” itself soon became
associated with love and all its attendant attitudes, trappings and
symbols.
There you have it. That mushy hearts
and flowers and Cupid and lovey-dovey stuff all traces back to common
people in togas. Well, sort of; only citizens were actually allowed
to wear togas, but that's another story. Anyway, maybe now you don't
feel quite as romantic as you did before, but at least you're a bit
smarter.
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