Tip: A day out in Lincolnshire (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Hatty]

[Ishmael]

I'm wondering about the distinction between Plebians and Patricians in Rome. Is it possible that the distinction was based on language? Were the Plebians Italian-speakers and the Patricians Latin-speakers? I mean, originally. Elite Plebians likely adopted Latin as a mother-tongue but might the Patricians represent and original ruling class speaking a "foreign" language -- whether natural or artificial?

[Mick Harper]

I have always assumed this distinction to be general but not strictly speaking the Plebs versus the Patricians (except, I agree, perhaps originally). It was more a question of Roman citizens versus the rest -- the Plebs were clearly a legally privileged class. The same pattern of a citizenry, and moreover a citizenry divided into twelve tribes, was used in both Greece and in Israel (where the citizens spoke Classical Greek and Hebrew respectively). In all three countries there is a vast underclass of helots, slaves, rustics, the unclean who hardly ever get a mention but presumably are the ones speaking Italian, Demotic Greek and Aramaic.

In fact the Big Advance the Romans made was to recognise that keeping the citizenry co-extensive with the artifical language-speakers was holding everything back and extended the whole deal to every language group, relying on Latin to be the binding force of a specially educated elite. A model subequently adopted by the Catholic Church when its turn came to holding down the European hoi polloi.

The Anglo-Saxons of course used the same basic model, dividing the population between freemen (Anglo-Saxon speakers) and slaves /villeins/ bondmen etc (English-speakers). The Normans inherited the system though switching from A/S to Norman. It is of obvious significance that the villeinage died out at the exact same time as the English language triumphed.

[DPCrisp]

I'm not even sure Latin must be Alphabetic Italian. Alphabetic Romanian, perhaps?

[Mick Harper]

That is surely perverse. Why reject a very close relative on the doorstep in favour of a distant one a thousand miles away?

However, I agree that Romanian -- a non-Slavic language in a sea of Slavs -- is worth a detour or two. We must not forget that European (and possibly wider) civilisation started in Romania...er...Bulgaria.

[DPCrisp]

Depends whether the Romans were home-grown or came from somewhere.

Pirates... Gypsies... Roma...

Some say Romanian is closer to Latin than the other big Romance languages, but I dunno whether that's because they come from Latin-speaking colonists on the Danube {Corsican and/or Sardinian is also said to be closest to Latin, where being Iceland-style colonies it seems more likely...}, or because Latin-speaking colonisers from the Danube founded Rome.

[Mick Harper]

[Hatty]

If, on the other hand, you judge a people by the way they treat their children and vulnerable members, the Roma and Romanians appear to be Poles apart. The pictures of Romanian orphanages post-Ceauceascu are amongst the most appalling images of brutality and indifference to suffering ever screened. (It is commonly remarked on that even the SS was taken aback by the violence of Romanian antisemitism -- but the Nazis didn't take to Slavs generally).

Israelis care for their families with Mediterranean-like, i.e. overprotective, affection, the whole nation is one big family; to be entrusted with their security, you have to be either Family or in the Mossad, outsiders can't be trusted. (OK, my uncle wasn't a proven gun-runner but he looked and spoke like a gangster and was matey with the Attorney General responsible for the Eichmann trial so best not to ask).

[Mick Harper]

Italian and Latin share virtually a hundred per cent of their vocabulary so either Italian came from Latin or Latin came from Italian. Romanian is so different from Latin that most (non-Romanian) linguists dispute that there is any connection beyond belonging to the same vague Western European family.

[Ishmael]

But why do the Roma share the same Latin name as one of history's most significant city-states, a city located in the middle of Italy?

[Mick Harper]

A good question. However I know of no connection between Roma and Romania (which is a modern term, I think.) Except that there are a hellofalot of Romanies in Romania which (on the model of Ashkenazi Jews coming from southern Russia and in accordance with THOBR principles) is presumably significant.

[Hatty]

Roma have been thoroughly integrated into Romanian society but not, it appears, to society's benefit; how on earth did they survive the Ceausescu years? Having discussed Roma/Romanian gangs operating in London with a freelance journalist friend who writes about criminal matters, the distinction is blurring steadily; in Romania itself the Roma population is sizeable, similar perhaps to Asian population figures in the UK.

On the matter of how children are viewed, Roma children are not just encouraged but forced to take part in thieving, they're evidently the most profit-making asset belonging to their families.