Macaronic-ness the other way round

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Anthony Appleyard
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Joined: Mon May 23, 2011 12:43 pm

Macaronic-ness the other way round

Post by Anthony Appleyard »

A complaint about some Latin written or spoken by the inexpert is that it is "macaronic", i.e. it includes words from the speaker's or writer's vernacular. An example is the word "workmannus", which is found sometimes in old manorial records written in Latin in England.

When I was at school in the late 1950's, my Latin master admitted perpetrating examples of macaronicness the other way would :: he knew Latin well; but when had to speak Italian (likely when visiting Roman sites in Italy), Latin words got into his Italian.

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