Talk:caelus

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RFV discussion: April 2019[edit]

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).

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caelus as Vulgar Latin form in caelum

I'm challenging the Vulgar Latin form as [1] sounds like the added form should be Vulgar Latin *caelus. --Waikaistai (talk) 04:10, 15 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It looks to me like this is just an alternative form of caelum, not an entirely separate word. —Rua (mew) 16:24, 15 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I really can't tell what's being challenged here. The entry is referenced, with several cites listed in Gaffiot. As the anon notes, this being the colloquial term explains the Old French well. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 18:03, 15 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I guess that the question is, is there evidence that Latin caelus survived into the period of Vulgar Latin? If not, and this is a reconstruction, it should be marked as such. I don’t understand the argument, though, why this is supposed to be Vulgar Latin in the first place. Old French ciel is thought to come from Latin caelum. What is with this Old French ciels? Is that another word than the plural of ciel? The authors cited in Gaffiot are all strictly classical – the latest is Servius, who wrote in Classical Latin – so I don’t understand why this [[caelum#Alternative forms|{{alter}}]] of caelum is labelled old either.  --Lambiam 19:27, 16 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Lambiam Old French still had two cases, but lost the neuter gender already. The nominative singular form ciels is a direct reflection of caelus. —Rua (mew) 20:16, 16 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
OK, thanks. So does this mean that in the section Etymology of Old French ciel From {{inh|fro|la|caelum}} should be changed to From {{inh|fro|la|caelus}}?  --Lambiam 21:13, 16 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Metaknowledge: Does Gaffiot give cites for a Vulgar Latin term? Enn[ius] is Old Latin and Lucr[etius], Vitr[uvius] and Cic[ero] aren't Vulgar Latin either.
Quoting Lambian: "the question is, is there evidence that Latin caelus survived into the period of Vulgar Latin? If not, and this is a reconstruction, it should be marked as such." Indeed. And even if it survived into Vulgar Latin times: Is it attested as Vulgar Latin, or only as Late Latin in which case the Vulgar Latin would still be a reconstruction or a mislabelling of Late Latin? --Waikaistai (talk) 21:49, 16 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I thought that Vulgar Latin was an umbrella term for Latin spoken by ordinary folk wherever Roman influence was strong and was contemporaneous with both Classical Latin and Late Latin, and may be considered to have lasted beyond, even to the end of the first millennium. DCDuring (talk) 02:22, 17 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
So Vulgar Latin survived Classical Latin and even Late Latin. But I still see no reasonable argument for labelling the alternative form caelus as specifically Vulgar Latin (or old, or anything).  --Lambiam 09:28, 17 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it's so easy to make a distinction, as they were just two different registers of the same language. Elements of vulgar Latin occasionally crept into written Latin from time to time, but I don't think there is a point in distinguishing VL as an entirely separate dialect or even language. It was just the informal-everyday spoken form of Latin, whereas the written standard was more formal and archaic. What can be said about caelus, if it is indeed attested, is that it fits the general trend in most of the Romance languages of eliminating the neuter gender in favour of the masculine. But that alone does not make caelus vulgar, necessarily, just that it has one particular trait associated with vulgar Latin. —Rua (mew) 16:26, 17 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It seems as if it could treated here as something like a reconstructed language, based on occasional intrusions into written Latins and backward inference from Christian Latin, Late Latin, and early forms of Romance languages. Some older sources support it. It's hard for me to see why we should extirpate it from Wiktionary. DCDuring (talk) 22:17, 17 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Absurd challenge. Added quotes from the early Empire. Fay Freak (talk) 21:04, 22 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Fay Freak – The way I interpret the request does not involve the lemma caelus, but only the section Alternative forms of etymology 1 for caelum, and specifically the dialect indicated there in the line “ caelus (old, Vulgar Latin)”.
Indeed, caelus itself wasn't challenged. caelus (Vulgar Latin) is and there still aren't any Vulgar Latin quotes, like old graffiti, or mentionings, as in the Appendix Probi. --Waikaistai (talk) 16:41, 28 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]