It is interesting to note the great variety of significations in which the
word Latin has been used. Sometimes it means Italian, sometimes Spanish,
sometimes the Romance language. Again, it has been used as synonymous with
language, learning, discourse; or to express that a matter is plain and
intelligible. {424}
Muratori, in describing the "Cangiamento dell' Lingua Latina nella volgare
Italiana," observes,--
"Così a poco a poco il volgo di questa bella Provincia [Italia], oltre
adottare moltissimi vocaboli forestieri, andò ancora alterando i
proprj, cioè i Latini, cambiando le terminazioni delle parole,
accorciandole, allungandole, e corrompendole. In somma se ne formò un
nuovo Linguaggio, che _Volgare_ si appellava, perchè usato dal _Volgo
d'Italia._"--Muratori, _Della Perfetta Poesia Italiana_, tomo i. p. 6.,
ed. Venez., 1730.
So Boccaccio, giving an account of the intention of his poem, the
"Teseide," writes,--
"Ma tu, o libro, primo al lor cantare
Di Marte fai gli affanni sostenuti,
Nel _vulgar latino_ mai non veduti,"
where, as in the letter to La Fiammetta, prefixed to this poem, _vulgar
latino_ is evidently Italian ("Trovata una antichissima storia ... in
_latino volgare_ ... ho ridotta"), and not the Provençal tongue, as Mr.
Craik suggests in his _Literature and Learning in England_, vol. ii. p.
48., where he supposes Boccaccio to have translated _from_, and not, as is
clear, _into_, _latino volgare_.
Dante repeatedly uses Latino for Italiano, as in _Purgatorio_, xi. 58.:
"Io fui Latino, e nato d'un gran Tosco."
And in _Inf._ xxii. 65.:
"Conosci tu alcun, che sia Latino."
In _Paradiso_, iii. 63.,
"Sì che il raffigurar m' è più _latino_,"
_latino_ evidently means easy, clear, plain. "Forse contrario di barbaro,
strano," says Volpi, "noi Lombardi in questo significato diciamo _ladin_."
The "discreto latino" of Thomas Aquinas, elsewhere in _Paradiso_ (xii.
144.), must mean "sage discourse." Chaucer, when he invokes the muse, in
the proeme to the second book of "Troilus and Creseide," only asks her for
rhyme, because, saith he,--
"Of no sentement I this endite,
But out of _Latine_ in my tongue it write."
Where "Latine," of course, means Boccaccio's _Filostrato_, from which
Chaucer's poem is taken.
In the "Poema del Cid," _latinado_ seems to mean person conversant with the
Spanish or Romance language of the period:
"Quando esta falsedad dicien los de Carrion,
Un Moro _Latinado_ bien gelo entendio."--v. 2675.
Mr. Ticknor remarks, that when the Christian conquests were pushed on
towards the south of Spain, the Moors, who remained inclosed in the
Christian population, and spoke or assumed its language, were originally
called _Moros Latinados_; and refers to the _Cronica General_, where,
respecting Alfaraxi, a Moor, afterwards converted, and a counsellor of the
Cid, it is said he was "de tan buen entendimento, e era tan _ladino_ que
semejava Christiano."--Ticknor, _Hist. Span. Lit._, iii. 347.
Cervantes (_Don Q._ Parte I. cap. xli.) uses _ladino_ to mean Spanish:
"Servianos de interprete a las mas destas palabras y razones el padre
de Zoraida como mas _ladino_."
Latin, in fact, was so much _the_ language as to become almost synonymous
with _a_ language. So a _Latiner_ was an interpreter, as it is very well
expressed in Selden's _Table Talk_, art. "Language":
"Latimer is the corruption of _Latiner_: it signifies he that
interprets Latin; and though he interpreted French, Spanish, or
Italian, he was the king's Latiner, that is, the king's interpreter."
This use of the word is well illustrated in the following extracts:
"A Knight ther language lerid in youth;
Breg hight that Knight, born Bretoun,
That lerid the language of Sessoun.
This Breg was the _Latimer_,
What scho said told Vortager."--Robert de Brunne's _Metrical Chronicle._
"Par soen demein _latinier_
. . . .
Icil Morice iert _latinier_
Al rei Dermot, ke mult l'out cher."--_Norman-French Chronicle of Conquest
of Ireland_, edited by F. Michel (as quoted in Wright's _Essays_,
vol. ii. p. 215.).
I here conclude, as I must not seek to monopolise space required for more
valuable contributions.