At 7:39 AM -0400 10/23/05, dhbailey wrote:
But at least it keeps the conversation going, when your fellow guests complain about the language-nazis and how language is evolving and shouldn't be rigidly locked into any one state of existence like Latin is.
Actually it was the church, which had to reinvent the 3rd century Latin of the Vulgate because it had disappeared, that locked it into its present form. The actual Latin language evolved rather remarkably, as most active languages do, and today is French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Romance. English, unfortunately, grew up as an underground, poor peoples' language at a time when the ruling class spoke Norman French and the church and educational establishments spoke that resurrected Latin. But Middle English is really a joy to sing, and uses logical spellings that modern English does not. "Wimen" is pronounced exactly as it looks, unlike "women."
John -- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
