XPost: alt.usage.english
From: naddy@mips.inka.de

On 2024-09-04, Sergio Gatti 
wrote:

>> > Deletion of final consonants and vowels in a High German dialect
>>
>> Standard German is notably conservative.
>
> As a native Italian, I have to point out that this statement is utterly
> ridiculous.

You ripped that out of its context, which I restored above.  So:
... compared to German dialects.

> Italians attending grammar schools read Dante in the last three years
> before university (he died 1321, so he must have written the Divine
> Comedy before that) and could understand most of it.

Excellent.  With so much widespread exposure to early 14th century
Italian, maybe somebody can tell me which of these conspicuous
features of the Italian verbal system--not inherited from Latin and
notably absent from Spanish--were already in Dante's language and
which are subsequent innovations:

* replacement of the 1PL present indicative by the subjunctive form
* leveling of the same 1PL (-iamo) and 2PL (-iate) present subjunctive
  endings across all three conjugations
* leveling of one ending across all persons in the singular of the
  present subjunctive
* replacement of 1SG imperfect -ava/-eva/-iva by -avo/-evo/-ivo
  (Wait, I think I read that this one happened only in the last 200
  years.)

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy@mips.inka.de

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