>>10
Fail for not mentioning French or Romansch and the other romantic languages.
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Anonymous2007-01-08 20:36
Romantic languages, uh. I guess the French are fairly reputable in that area. But you probably meant "Romance" anyway (and there are to many to mention, including Romanian, which is probably much closer to Latin than French is; but there is little question that Italian retains the strongest similarity with Classical Latin).
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Anonymous2007-01-08 22:55
>>13 Romansh or Romansch (I've forgotten how to spell it correctly) is a romantic language in Switzerland, spoken by a minority of people.
Grammatically speaking, I guess, Spanish is closest to latin of the widely spoken Romantic languages, but as you said, Romanian is closest of all. Italian uses to have and to be for the past tense as auxillary verbs, which latin does not. French does so as well, I guess because of the Germanic influence. Etymologically speaking, yes, Italian probably is the closest to latin.
>>14
I know well enough what Romansch is. I was just pointing out that it is a Romance language (and not the most romantic one you could think of).
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Anonymous2007-01-10 4:22
>>14 Italian uses to have and to be for the past tense as auxillary verbs,
That's only true when using one of the past compound tenses (the most common is the passato prossimo). There are also two past tenses that don't use compound verbs: the imperfetto and the passato remoto.
Also described as 'historic past' or 'past perfect', northerners use it only when writing about historic events, or when speaking academically (a lecture, etc).
For some reason southerners use it more often in everyday conversation.
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Anonymous2007-01-11 6:22
i wish i could THINK in latin. how friggen high does your IQ have to be to do that. God damn
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Anonymous2007-01-11 11:00
I used to know how to read it. Until i finished high school now i try to keep my greek on level, but i don't have time for latin, due to college.
You call that perfectum, and plusquam pefectum you noob!
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Anonymous2007-01-12 20:23
>>8
I never said he couldn't speak it. But speaking it fluently is a waste, as it's only spoken in Vatican City.
It'd be better to learn other romance languages if you wanted to speak to large numbers of people, as most latin is just written/transalated and not spoken by a nation.
Thanks for the tip. Did you recently emigrate from the Vatican? Your may be fluent in Latin for all I know, but your spelling and punctuation need work. What exactly is a 'pefectum'?