Capitolo 24
proverb has him." To the ancient grammarians the "errors" and vulgarisms
of popular discourse was detestable, and they has fortunately marked lists
of words and expressions that won't be used by cultivated people.
The evidence that can be had by the Romantic languages, completed from
Latin, it not only contributes to our knowledge of the dictionary of vernacular
Latin, but it also shows us many common idioms and constructions that
that form of discourse had. This way, "I will sing" in Italian it is I will sing
(=I cantar[e]-have), in Spanish, to sing (= cantar-him), in French, chanterai
(=chorister-ai), and similar forms happen in some of the other Novel
languages. These forms are evidently made on the Latin infinitive
to sing, depending on habeo ("I have to sing"). But the future in literary
Latin was cantabo, format adding an end as us we know, and with that
the Romantic future cannot have connection. However, as a writer in the
_Archiv_ has sharpened out,[18] so analytical forms of alone oral time as you/he/she is used
of to-day of languages Romantic you/he/she will be found in the popular Latin
sermons of St. Jerome. From these idioms, common to Italian, French, and
Spanish, then we can reconstruct a current Latin formation among the
common people. Finally a knowledge of the tendencies and practices of
spoken English helps us to identify similar uses when we come on them
in our reading of the Latin. When, for example, the slave in a play of
It says Plautus: "He/she takes on" (the tenes?), "I will touch the old man for a
loan" (tangam senem, etc.), or "I put him/it on him" (sublevi of os of ei) us
recognizes champions of Latin slang, because all the metaphors involved
it is in the to-day of current use. When one of the freedmen in comments of Petronius:
"You should not make a good turn to anybody" (neminem nihil boni facere
oportet) we see the same use of the negative double to which we am
accustomed in illiterate English. The rapid examination that we have done as soon as
of the evidence that is born on the subject establishes without possibiltà of doubt the