Editing Romance languages (section)

=== Early Romance ===
{{See also|Lexical changes from Classical Latin to Proto-Romance}}

Over the course of the fourth to eighth centuries, local changes in phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon accumulated to the point that the speech of any locale was noticeably different from that of another. In principle, differences between any two [[Variety (linguistics)|lects]] increased the more they were separated geographically, reducing easy mutual intelligibility between speakers of distant communities.<ref name="price">{{Cite book |last=Price |first=Glanville |title=The French language: past and present |publisher=Grant and Cutler Ltd |year=1984 |location=London}}</ref> Clear evidence of some levels of change is found in the ''[[Reichenau Glosses]]'', an eighth-century compilation of about 1,200 words from the fourth-century [[Vulgate]] of [[Jerome]] that had changed in phonological form or were no longer normally used, along with their eighth-century equivalents in proto-[[Franco-Provençal language|Franco-Provençal]].<ref>{{Citation |title=Introduction |date=2010 |work=Romance Languages: A Historical Introduction |pages=1–4 |editor-last=Rosen |editor-first=Carol |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/romance-languages/introduction/C369AC07A0CCC0DDBF0ECE7769950C47 |access-date=2024-03-28 |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/cbo9780511845192.001 |isbn=978-0-521-88915-5 |editor2-last=Alkire |editor2-first=Ti}}</ref> The following are some examples with reflexes in several modern Romance languages for comparison:{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}}
{{Clear}}
{|class="wikitable"
! English !! Classical / 4th cent. <br />(''Vulgate'') !! 8th cent. <br />(''Reichenau'') !! Franco-Provençal !! French !! [[Romansh language|Romansh]] !! Italian !! Spanish !! Portuguese !! Romanian !! Catalan !! Sardinian !! Occitan !! [[Ladin language|Ladin]] !! Neapolitan
|-
| once || ''semel'' || ''una vice'' || ''una vês'' / ''una fês'' || ''une fois'' || {{nowrap|(ina giada)}} || (una volta) || ''una vez'' || ''uma vez'' || (o dată) || {{nowrap|''una vegada''}}<br />{{nowrap|(un cop, <br />una volta)}} || (una borta) || {{nowrap|''una fes''}}<br />{{nowrap|(un còp)}}|| ''n iede'' || ''na vota''
|-
|children/infants || ''liberi / infantes'' || ''infantes'' || ''enfants'' || ''enfants'' || ''unfants'' || {{nowrap|(bambini) /}}<br />''infanti''|| (niños) /<br />''infantes'' || infantes (crianças) || (copii) / ''infanți'' || {{nowrap|(nens, etc.) /}}<br /> ''infants'' || (pipius) / (pitzinnos) || {{nowrap|(mainatge, dròlles) /}}''enfants'' || ''mutons'' || ''criature''
|-
| to blow || ''flare / sofflare'' || ''suflare'' || ''sofllar'' || ''souffler'' || ''suflar'' || ''soffiare'' || ''soplar'' || ''soprar'' || (a) sufla || (bufar) || ''sulai'' / ''sulare'' || ''bufar'' || ''suflé'' || ''sciuscià''
|-
| to sing || ''canere'' || ''cantare'' || ''chantar'' || ''chanter'' || ''chantar'' || ''cantare'' || ''cantar'' || ''cantar'' || (a) cânta || ''cantar'' || ''cantai'' / ''cantare'' || ''cantar'' || ''cianté'' || ''cantà''
|-
| the best (plur.) || ''optimi / meliores'' || ''meliores'' || los ''mèlyors'' || les ''meilleurs'' || {{nowrap|ils ''megliers''}} || i ''migliori'' || {{nowrap|los ''mejores''}} || {{nowrap|os ''melhores''}} || (optimi, <br />{{nowrap|cei mai buni)}} || els ''millors'' || ''is mellus'' / ''sos menzus'' || ''Los/lei melhors'' || ''i miëures'' || ''<nowiki/>'e meglie''
|-
| beautiful || ''pulchra / bella'' || ''bella'' || ''bèla'' || ''belle'' || ''bella'' || ''bella'' || {{nowrap|(hermosa, bonita, linda) /}}<br />''bella'' || ''bela'' /<br /> (formosa, bonita, linda) || frumoasă || (bonica, polida) /<br />''bella'' || ''bella'' || {{nowrap|(polida) /}}''bèla'' || ''bela'' || ''bella''
|-
| in the mouth || in ''ore'' || in ''bucca'' || {{nowrap|en la ''boche''}} || {{nowrap|dans la ''bouche''}} || {{nowrap|in la ''bucca''}} || {{nowrap|nella ''bocca''}} || en la ''boca'' || na ''boca<ref>"Na" is a [[contraction (grammar)|contraction]] of "em" (in) + "a" (the), the form "em a" is never used, it is always replaced by "na". The same happens with other prepositions: "de" (of) + o/a/os/as (singular and plural forms for "the" in masculine and feminine) = do, da, dos, das; etc.</ref>'' || (în gură) / în ''bucă''<ref>A more accurate translation for "in the mouth" would be "în gura / în buca", while "în gură / în bucă" would be "in mouth", it depends on the context / formulation. The word "bucă" is somewhat archaic, considered slightly vulgar, mostly used as a slang version of the word "mouth". The term "kitchen" translates as "bucătărie".</ref> (a îmbuca)<ref>Verb; literally means "to put in mouth"</ref> || a la ''boca'' || ''in sa buca'' || ''dins la boca'' || ''te la bocia'' || ''<nowiki/>'n bocca'' (/ˈmmokkə/)
|-
| winter || ''hiems'' || ''hibernus'' || ''hivèrn'' || ''hiver'' || ''inviern'' || ''inverno'' || ''invierno'' || ''inverno'' || ''iarnă'' || ''hivern'' || ''ierru'' / ''iberru'' || ''ivèrn'' || ''inviern'' || ''vierno''
|}

In all of the above examples, the words appearing in the fourth century Vulgate are the same words as would have been used in [[Classical Latin]] of c. 50 BC. It is likely that some of these words had already disappeared from casual speech by the time of the ''Glosses''; but if so, they may well have been still widely understood, as there is no recorded evidence that the common people of the time had difficulty understanding the language. By the 8th century, the situation was very different. During the late 8th century, [[Charlemagne]], holding that "Latin of his age was by classical standards intolerably corrupt",<ref name="price" />{{rp|6}} successfully imposed [[Classical Latin]] as an artificial written vernacular for [[Western Europe]]. Unfortunately, this meant that parishioners could no longer understand the sermons of their priests, forcing the [[Council of Tours 813|Council of Tours in 813]] to issue an edict that priests needed to translate their speeches into the {{lang|la|rustica romana lingua}}, an explicit acknowledgement of the reality of the Romance languages as separate languages from Latin.<ref name="price" />{{rp|6}}

By this time, and possibly as early as the 6th century according to Price (1984),<ref name="price" />{{rp|6}} the Romance [[variety (linguistics)|lects]] had split apart enough to be able to speak of separate [[Gallo-Romance languages|Gallo-Romance]], [[Iberian Romance languages|Ibero-Romance]], [[Italo-Dalmatian languages|Italo-Romance]] and [[Eastern Romance languages]]. Some researchers{{who|date=June 2017}} have postulated that the major divergences in the spoken dialects began or accelerated considerably in the 5th century, as the formerly widespread and efficient communication networks of the [[Western Roman Empire]] rapidly broke down, leading to the total disappearance of the Western Roman Empire by the end of the century. During the period between the 5th–10th centuries AD Romance vernaculars documentation is scarce as the normal writing language used was [[Medieval Latin]], with vernacular writing only beginning in earnest in the 11th or 12th century. The earliest such texts are the [[Indovinello veronese|Indovinello Veronese]] from the eight century and the [[Oaths of Strasbourg]] from the second half of the ninth century.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Frank-Job |first1=Barbara |last2=Selig |first2=Maria |date=2016 |editor-last=Ledgeway |editor-first=Adam |editor2-last=Maiden |editor2-first=Martin |title=The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199677108.001.0001 |access-date=28 March 2024 |website=Oxford Academic |page=24|doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199677108.001.0001 |isbn=978-0-19-967710-8 }}</ref>