African Romance: searching for traces of a lost Latin language

The lost brother of our Romance family :( Press F to pay tributos.

Let's end the year with some epic lost linguistic history.

I'm actually from Carthage! I used to walk by the ruins everyday on my way to school, it's a nice vibe

I used to live in the city of Gafsa (the last city we have records of African Romance being spoken, specifically by Idrissi in the 13th century) and I reember the locals having a distinct word for "Pub" no other Tunisians used, it was "Tabarna", very simillar to the Latin "Taberna". Also in the Tunisian dialect in large we have many words of possible Latin origin like "Qatus or "Gatus" for Cat (from "Cattus"), "Kayyas" for Road (from "Callis"), "Koujina" for "Kitchen" (from "Cochina"), "Kalsita" for Sock (from the vulgar latin "Calcita") and "Karrusa" for Carriage (from "Carrus")

I never thought about African Latin but now I'm obsessed with this idea

“The city of Hippo grows hungrier by the day.”

Everyone: Latin is dead, Roman Empire is no more Romance languages: No one's ever really gone

One of my favorite language facts: the last speaker of the Dalmatian language died in 1898 as an old man, only one year after a linguist learned of his existence and made a book based on the man's hazy memories of speaking the language with his long-deceased grandma. And had that not happened, our understanding of Dalmatian would have been based entirely on some old Dalmatian writings, none any less than 500 years old.

I have literally waited for years to hear someone talk about this.

Welp, if this doesn't launch a half dozen conlangs, I don't know what will.

These videos are always SO well done. I love it. The education enthusiast in me, the language nerd in me, the animation fan in me all love getting these notifications

Well, I can only speak for tunisian vernacular arabic, but I can say this: the latin ending "us" is still very common. It features in words such as "Qattus" (meaning cat cat), "fallous" (chick as in chicken offspring) "barkus" (male sheep), etc. It's also used consistently an an ending in the regular deminutive case. Actuall, the tunisian word for cat is possibly the most fascinating, because (at least to me), it always sounded as a compromise between latin (cattus) and arabic (Qitt), resulting into Qattus.

As a vulgar Bulgarian I am a big supporter of the idea that romans wouldn't be able to differentiate between B and V

Never realized "Carthage" was so similar to the Hebrew words "Karet Hadash" (meaning the exact same thing - "New city", though "Karet" is quite archaic)

There are lots of Latin words still being used in modern day Tunisian Arabic, some of these words are even used frequently : -Qattus قطوس for “cat” from the Latin word cattus -Kayyas كياس for “roadway” from the Latin word Callis -Fallus فلوس for “chick” from the Latin word pullus -Sbitar صبيطار for “hospital” from the Latin word hospitor -Karrusa كروسة for “carrige” from the Latin word carrus Tunisia was the most romanized of the three Maghrebi countries (Morocco and Algeria) and it was also where the roman Carthage was located. That explains the many Latin words still being used in Tunisian Arabic also known as “Tunsi” by Tunisians.

I thought this channel stopped posting, seeing them work again made me so so so sooooo happy.

You should look at Maltese, Europe’s only official Semitic language.

Just realized the map at the beginning has 3 blacked out areas. We might get 2 more videos folks

Your ability to explain these crazy interesting concepts is not only a demonstration of how well researched they are but also how much fun YOU have in exploring them. I was so glad I had found your channel however many months ago, the content has only gotten better since.

Your videos are Amazi(n)gh.