Capitolo 22
use. The method of the Latinist is essentially then one of comparison
and contrast. When, he for example, finds regularly the word that _equus_ has used
from serious writers for "horse", but _caballus_ assumed in that sense in
the colloquial compositions of Lucilius, Horace and Petronius, he comes
to the conclusion that _caballus_ belongs to the dictionary of every-day
life, that is ours "equine."
The line to reason the Romantic philologist follows what in its study
some vulgar Latin is convincing equally. The existence of a big number of
words and idioms in French, Spanish, Italian, and the other Novel
languages can only be explained in one of three ways. All this different
languages have been able to strike on the same word or sentence to express an idea, or
these words and idioms are been able to be taken in loan by a language from the
others, or they can come from a common origin. The first hypothesis is
unthinkable. Almost the second is as impossible. Undoubtedly French, for
you quote an example, taken in loan of the words by the Spaniard, and Spanish from Portuguese.
It would be conceivable that some words that originate in Spain should pass
in France, and for this motive in Italy, but it is completely over belief that the
great element in common that they have the languages from Spain to Roumania
it would be due to pass taking in loan on such wide territory. It is clear
what this common element is inherited out by the Latin of what all the
Romantic languages are deduced. Out of the words, thin, idioms and
constructions that French, Spanish, Italian, and the other languages of
Southern Europe has in common, it would be possible, among certain
limits, to reconstruct the discourse of parent but fortunately we am not
limited alone to this material. To this point the Latinist and the Novel
philologist unites to hands. To take on new already the used illustration,
the student of the Romantic languages finds the word for "horse" in Italian
it is horse, in Spanish caballo in French cheval, in cal of Roumanian and
then on. All these forms have evidently come from caballus that the