Talk:Moselle Romance

Does Moselle Romance exist?

Not as a language name recognized by linguists, it doesn't. But perhaps as a description of one of many tiny pockets of Roman speakers surviving for a little while in the Frankish kingdom after the fall of the Roman Empire. See #Any such thing as Austrian Romance?. Mathglot (talk) 08:56, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

@Mathglot: One of the sources mentions Moselromanisch and I do get a few hits in GBooks for that, although mostly in German. --HyperGaruda (talk) 12:28, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

@HyperGaruda: That source seems really thin; it's a six-page monograph by "Johannes Kramer" which is all about a single line on a gravestone written in 6th century vulgar Latin, supposedly slangy, and trying to make that out to be some kind of proto-Moselle Romance that showed up or survived five centuries later? Who knows, what someone thinks is a pocket of a unique, surviving Romance language, may just be someone who doesn't know how to spell, or their chisel slipped. Throwing around a lot of erudite speculation about changes in Vulgar Latin with little evidence hardly makes for evidence of a unique Romance language in the area. Look for example at his explanation of "conlux" at the bottom of page 283 where his very first thought was, "One is tempted to think it's a simple slip of the chisel...". Yep. And this is one of only two footnotes in the article. The other was a citation to an Italian encyclopedia about where the line between Germanic and Romance language speakers lay in the 13th century, so that one's irrelevant for determining the existence of a separate language called Moselle Romance.

de wiktionary defines it as "a language which developed out of Vulgar Latin after the fall of the Roman Empire in the area of the Moselle and Saar rivers in the former Roman province of Belgica," names "Moselle Romance language" as a synonym, and links to two journal articles.

Does every river community having some left over speakers of evolving Vulgar Latin get its own language name, and an article on Wikipedia if some publish-or-perish panicked assistant professor gets an article into a journal somewhere? This just all seems like rank speculation to me. At best, it seems like a descriptive term, it's the brand of evolving Vulgar Latin spoken in community X, Y, or Z before it died out. Show me a linguistic text or reference that includes it in some family tree of languages. Doesn't exist. Mathglot (talk) 08:38, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

References

@Mathglot: I agree that evidence for its mere existence is rather scant. If there is really nothing more than a passing mention, you could consider bringing it to WP:AfD as failing WP:GNG. --HyperGaruda (talk) 09:03, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

@everyone

Wolfgang Jungandreas, whose work is cited in the bibliography, provides a thorough account of what we know of the language. If you know German, feel free to buy the cited book and read it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Excelsius (talk • contribs) 22:50, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

@Excelsius: As you might have expected, it's long out of print and unavailable for purchase, but I've requested it via ILL at my library, and I'll have a look at it.

By the way, when you want to alert someone to your reply, you can use {{reply}} or {{ping}} to do so. Mathglot (talk) 06:49, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

@Mathglot: There is a long history of research about Moselromanisch, and Post (2004) is a good review for the topic. Most scholars consider it an early eastern French dialect, since the latest stratum that is attested in place names displays a sound shift of Vulgar Latin [e] to o (Kasnode < *cassannētu, cites in Post (2004)). Research is confined to Germany, so that's maybe why "Moselle Romance" may sound novel or even non-notable. I'd argue it is notable, even without an ISO-code or a Glottolog-ID. But I agree about the "sample text". It is non-specific Vulgar Latin and does not serve well to illustrate the actual topic of the article. I'll check some more sources and rewrite the article with better examples. –Austronesier (talk) 16:13, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier: Appreciate the ping and your comments. It's been quite some time since I've thought about this, but I can have another look. If you are aware of other sources, I can read German so by all means do point to them, if they are out there. I don't see any refs in the German article that aren't already listed here, but maybe there are some more out there. Looking back at my previous comments, I *was* able to get the Jungandreas book, and all I can recall is not being surprised by anything I read there, but I don't recall the specifics, at this point. Once again, thanks; and keep me in the loop on whatever you find. Mathglot (talk) 19:16, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Short update: I have found a couple of sources that present collective evidence of Romance relic areas in the left-bank area of the Rhineland, and also in southwestern Germany, so next to Moselromanisch, there are also Hochwaldromanisch and Schwarzwaldromanisch. But in order to continue I will have to check the next library for Kramer/Kowallik (1992), Das Französische in Deutschland: eine Einführung. Clearly, "Moselle Romance" does not deserve a standalone, but can be covered in a larger context of all these lects, which most likely belonged to a never fully broken dialect contiuum of eastern Langue d'oïl lects. On the other hand, it's somehow a pity not to have a page for each of these varieties: after all, when will ever we get the chance to create a page title as camp as Black Forest Romance... tbc. –Austronesier (talk) 19:38, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier:, I don't know; but I think you could have a bakery/patisserie featuring a cake called that, and it might be a real winner... Your idea of an article to cover all of them sounds reasonable; possibly a WP:BCA perhaps? Finding a title might be tricky; we'd probably have to stick to a WP:NDESC title, if there isn't already a name given to them collectively in the literature. Mathglot (talk) 20:16, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Usually they are covered as part of the Romania submersa. This term has gained some currency in German publications, not quite sure about its wider impact. This term is very broad, and also inlcudes British Latin, which is already represented here by a C-Class page. So one possibility is to a create an article Romania submersa (or alternatively with an English WP:NDESC-title), and collect material which has no coverage in an individual WP article, add hatnotes to standalones for well-covered subtopics like British Latin, and merge more obscure subtopics like Moselle Romance to the BCA. And then yeah, create a redirect Black Forest Romance.

Or a BCA only for the Romance relic dialects in early Medieval Germany (or whatever its apt title). In this case, the current page simply can be expanded and renamed. –Austronesier (talk) 08:47, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke: Since you have mentioned the Romania submersa in Talk:Romance languages: what should we do with this article? I think it could be extended into a wider article about medieval Romance relic areas in the German-speaking territory. Just ignore my obsession with the Bastei-worthy title Black Forest Romance. –Austronesier (talk) 10:23, 8 March 2021 (UTC)