Luthic: Difference between revisions
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==Luthic== | ==Luthic== | ||
Luthic (/ˈluːθ.ɪk/ LOOTH-ik, less often /ˈlʌθ.ɪk/ LUTH-ik; also Luthish; endonym: Lúthica [ˈluː.ti.kɐ] or Rasda Lúthica [ˈraz.dɐ ˈluː.ti.kɐ]) is an Italic language spoken by the Luths, with significant East Germanic influence. Unlike other Romance languages, such as Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Occitan, and French, Luthic preserves a substantial inherited vocabulary from East Germanic, instead of only proper names that survived in historical accounts, and loanwords. About 250,000 people speak Luthic worldwide. | |||
The emergence of Luthic was shaped by prolonged contact between Latin speakers and East Germanic groups, particularly during the Gothic raids towards the Roman Empire and the emanation of Romano-Germanic culture following the Visigothic control over the Italian Peninsula. Later, sustained interactions with West Germanic merchants and the influence of Germanic dynasties ruling over former Roman territories and the Papal States further contributed to its development. This continuous linguistic exchange led to the formation of an interethnic koiné—a common tongue facilitating communication between Romance and Germanic speakers—which eventually evolved into what is now recognised as Luthic. Despite its clear Latin heritage, Luthic remains the subject of linguistic controversy. Some philologists classify it as essentially Romance with heavy Germanic adstrate influence, while others argue for its status as a mixed Italo-Germanic language. Within the Romance family, it is often placed in the Italo-Dalmatian group, under a proposed Gotho-Romance branch, reflecting its distinctive development. | |||
The earliest waves of Goths who entered Italy and took part in the sack of Rome, later remembered as the Luths, created a brief context of bilingualism, the Vulgar Latin ethnolect (named Proto-Luthic by Lúcia Yamane) spoken by the early Luths bridged communication gaps and proved instrumental during the Gothic advance. Favoured by their military contribution, they briefly formed an elite under the first Ostrogothic reign, which granted their speech a status uncommon among non-Roman groups. This early prestige, combined with its flexibility in interethnic contexts, allowed Luthic to persist for centuries as a regional koiné in Ravenna. It was only with Þiuþaricu Biagchi’s Luthicæ (1657) that the language acquired a fully standardised form, securing its survival thereafter as a marker of Ravennate tradition, culture, and identity. | |||
Structurally, Luthic shares core features with Italo-Dalmatian, Western Romance, and Sardinian, but diverges markedly from its relatives in phonology, morphology, and lexicon due to its Germanic inheritance. Its status as the regional language of Ravenna, reinforced by a language academy, has strengthened its autonomy vis-à-vis Standard Italian, its traditional Dachsprache. While sharing some typological traits with central and northern Italian dialects, Luthic maintains a distinct character shaped by centuries of sustained Germanic contact. | |||
Luthic is an inflected fusional language, with four/five cases for nouns, pronouns (comitative forms), and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative); three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter); and three numbers (singular, dual in personal pronouns, and plural). | |||
Luthic is an | |||
==Classification== | ==Classification== | ||