what is the language the ancient carthaginians used and an example of their writtten language?
94312
The Carthaginians were Phoenicians;  they spoke a descendent of Phoenician, a Semitic language,  called Punic (which is a latin word derived from Phoenician, which is derived from the Greek word for purple.  The Carthaginians, and the Phoenicians, didn't call themselves that.) Punic exists today only in scattered inscriptions, a few mentions in texts in other languages, and in words borrowed by other cultures.  Of course, the phoenician alphabet survives, in altered form, in the modern alphabets used by most western cultures today: The Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic and Cyrillic alphabets all trace their roots to the Phoenician.
1035193
The reason why there is Spanish:\n\nIn 133 B.C., consul Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus defeated the capital city of Numantia in what would be considered modern day Spain.  From this day forward, Numantia (Hispana) was considered a Province or Provincia, which is Latin for "for that Land conquored".  Roman soldiers were stationed in this area, but what is more, army veterans from Rome (a very crowded ancient city) were given farm land out in Spain.\n\nThis part of Europe was run continuously as Roman for hundreds of years and they spoke the same language as they did in Italy (Latinam).  The emperor Trajan came from Spain and ruled at Rome around the year 98.  Starting in the 4th century and developing into the 5th century, the Roman Empire began to weaken through poor rulers, a share in power between the Catholic Church and the imperial family, continuous barbarian invasions from the Germanic lands, and the occasional general who wanted to start a rebellion and become emperor himself.  The empire started to break up into smaller kingdoms such as the Franks (later to become France), the Ostrogoths (Germans who invaded and sacked Italy), The visgoths (more Frank and German people who settle all over the place), The Byzantines (The Eastern Roman Empire, which tried to take back as much land from the barbarians as they could), and many other smaller tribes.  (check out the article on the Suevi just to see how diverse the tribes of Spain were at this time).  This fragmentation and division according to new ethnic lines decreased communication between the former Roman provinces during a time known as the Antique Ages more commonly known as The Dark Ages.  While Roman Catholic priests continued to give mass and speak in Latin for centuries later, it was during this time when the language began to evolve.  By the Middle ages (10th century) it was found that most of the former Roman provinces were speaking a vernacular language that had some similarities to Latin, but had changed significantly.\n\nMany of the Latin words are unchanged such as casa, which is Spanish and Italian for house and Latin for "a house without a basement".  The Romans used Domus (where we get domicile) for an apartment made of stone with a basement.  Because most soldiers and settlers of Spain were typically not very wealthy, they were accustomed to living in single story shanties, hence the preference of the word casa rather than doma in Spanish.\n\nOther words are common between Vernaculars such as "si" (Spanish and Italian for "yes") and "sic", Latin for "thus" or "it is so".  Where the language differs could be explained by introduction of foreign words from Germans or Saracens, evolving seperately from the other Romance languages, or the original language pre-Roman times.\n\nCab drivers in Italy could understand me enough when I gave directions to them in Latin.\n\nThe term "Latin America" comes from the Spanish word Latino, which is what the people of Spain have called themselves for the last 2 thousand years.  First they were Latin, but the language evolved the word to Latino.\n\nI would recommend studying Latin in great detail.  After extensive study, you can pick up fluency in French, Italian and Spanish in as little as 6 months.
907698
Latin is the ancestor of all those languages you mentioned, as well as Portuguese.  Publius Vergilius Maro, or Vergil (original Latin spelling) was a poet - he was born in 70 BC, and died in 19 BC before he finished the Aeneid.  The name probably did not originate with him, but he certainly made it famous.
461679
Too right. It's classified as a Latin language which means that for the most part it evolved from the Latin spoken in that particular area of the Roman Empire by the Romans. So unfortunately we can't come up with one particular person who invented it as such - normally languages just evolve, nobody invents them. If it has to be a person it's a mixture of the Romans and the pre-Roman peoples of what is now France.
1140616
Many of the Saracen(Arab) conquered lands did not use Arabic as their working language. Iran(Persia) never adopted Arabic, Egypt only adopted Arabic a few hundred years ago, and Morrocco still has speakers of the native Berber language.\n\nThe truth is that the Arabs rarely controlled the entire Iberian peninsula. The extreme part of the peninsula, called Greneda was reliably in Arab hands, but Galicia in NW spain, the Basque country, Catalina near France, and parts of Castille changed hands often.\n\nAnother analogy which might do well might be to look at England which was under French Norman rule for centuries. The people spoke English not French.\n\nIn much the same that English absorbed many French words, so Spanish absorbed many words from Arabic.
58904
They are two completely different languages. They are like english is to german. They use a script called cyrillic which has letters like Ч (ch), Я (ya), Ш (sh), and Ж (zh). Their letters transliterate into our script like the english letter J translate into their script as "дж"
853715
I think you are speaking of Walloon or in French Wallon.   Or maybe you are speaking of Vlaams (Flemish).\n\nBoth are no ancient language but are variants of French (Wallon) or Dutch (Vlaams).   In fact these are also subdivided in variants just as you can recognise a Scotsman speaking English or a Cockney with its dialect, the English of the Rednecks, Canadians, Aussies, ...\n\nThey are still spoken but with foreigner the local people speak "clean" French or Dutch (let us say like Oxford English).
164809
Romance languages are rooted in Latin. so are law and medicine. a functional knowledge of Latin helps to decipher what looks like an alphabet salad. it's nice to know what doctors and lawyers are talking about.
644511
This may not be too reliable - as Wikipedia is sometimes a little off beam to say the least.  However, it's the best I could find online.\n\nThere is a wonderful book 'A Compendium of the World's Languages' - (Sorry, forgotten the Author's name) - which you might find in a local library.  (Three volumes and very expensive, I seem to remember).
1062036
Linguists do not know. The oldest recorded WRITTEN language is Sumerian. Before that no languages were written (as far as we know) and therefore, by definition, left traces only in the spoken languages which they evolved into.\nIt is now pretty much agreed that Homo Sapiens evolved in Africa and spread from there. Anthropologically speaking, the 'oldest' races of humans are - quite possibly - the Khoi-San peoples of Southern Africa. Their languages have features that linguists speculate make them likely to be extremely old:\n1. They are extremely complex\n2. They have (phonetic) systems that are significantly more complex than any other languages. (Among these features are the wide varety of speech sounds - up to 147 as opposed to 44 of Standard English. These include many 'click' sounds.)\nThe Khoi-San peoples were displaced by later herdsmen migrations and invasions over the last thousands of years and survive in small pockets in Botswana and elsewhere).
166083
Pig Latin is a language game primarily used in English. The rules of Pig Latin can be modified to apply to almost any language. An alternative British name for Pig Latin is backslang. Pig Latin is usually used by children, who will often use it to converse in (perceived) privacy from adults, or simply for amusement, although sometimes adults will use it around very young children to discuss topics they don't want the child to hear. The impact of Pig Latin on the English language proper is minimal, although certain Pig Latin translations, most notably ixnay and amscray, have been incorporated into English slang. Pig Latin is also used by tourists in foreign countries where its inhabitants have an appreciation for the English language and one wishes that the general public are not privy to the conversation.\n\nThe rules are roughly:\n\nFor words that begin with consonant sounds, move all the first consonant sounds to the end of the word and add "ay." Thus, ball becomes "all-bay"; button becomes "utton-bay"; star becomes "ar-stay"; three becomes "ee-thray"; question becomes "estion-quay"; cheese bacon becomes "eeschay aconbay". The word backslang itself becomes "ack-bay ang-slay". \nFor words that begin with vowel sounds, simply add a syllable ending in "ay" to the end of the word. Variation of this rule make for many of the "dialects" of Pig Latin. The various syllables that are added after vowel-initial words are "way", "yay", "hay", and just plain "ay". Thus, a becomes "a-way", "a-yay", "a-hay", or "a-ay", depending on the dialect. Similarly, honest becomes "honest-way" etc. because even though it begins with the consonant letter h, the word begins with a vowel sound. \nA Pig Latin example text follows:\n\nIsthay isway anway exampleway ofway Igpay Atinlay. Asway ouyay ancay eesay, itway isway illysay, utbay otslay ofway unfay orfay ildrenchay. \nThe formula above, although it reflects a popular consensus of the varying definitions of Pig Latin used by different speakers, has been called "a common misconception", with the claim that the "correct" rule is to rearrange ONLY the first letter, no matter what the word, and add the -ay suffix. In some words this rule causes the word to sound wrong and/or be difficult to say, which is said to be one reason why the "misconception" came about in the first place. The other dialects were supposedly made to counter the difficulty of saying words rearranging the first letter only, and are now acceptable in common use; but "originally" Pig Latin consisted only of rearranging the first letter to the end, not syllable. No documented origin of Pig Latin accompanies the claim, nor is there much likelihood of a single "original" form ever having existed at all given that the game is a folk phenomenon likely to have been invented independently in multiple times and places. The lack of an authoritative body for defining Pig Latin in the manner of the Académie française makes any claim of what is or is not "correct" Pig Latin ultimately subjective. Thus, the historical basis and authority described for the single-letter variant may be best understood as part of the myth and mystique of the game.\n\nPig Latin appeared in an episode of The Three Stooges where there were three professors and their names were Professor Ixnay, Professor Onay, and Professor Amscray.\n\nIt is also "normal" in such a versatile language, that the hyphen is not used, e.g. "Isthay isway away ommoncay exampleway ofway yphenlesshay Igpay Atinlay." The capitalization rules also vary, so Michael Schumacher can be translated to any of these entries: Ichael-may Umacher-schay, Ichaelmay Umacherschay, ichael-May umacher-Schay, ichaelMay umacherSchay, Ichael-may Ch
555398
poco monstruo (from http://www.google.co.uk/language_tools?hl=en)
1071369
in greek, english, irish, roman,etc. mithology.\nNo ones proven their not here no ones proven their not.
1045402
It's hard to say whether there was originally just one language or many languages, although linguistic evidence points to there having been many languages that developed simultaneously originally. One of them was Proto-Indo-European. This language was spoken by many peoples, and as these people became separated from each other by geographic and cultural borders across Asia and Europe, the language of each group evolved in a different direction. Hence, the people in one area, say India, who were somewhat removed from the people of another, slowly changed the meanings and pronunciation of words, while other people, for example those in northern Europe, did the same thing.\n\nIn other words, the language evolved into various accents and dialects due to geographical separation. This is the same way different populations of animals or plants evolve into different species when they are geographically separated for a long enough time.\n\nEventually, these separate dialects became separate languages related to a common ancestral language. And eventually, some of the people who spoke some of these languages realized it would be useful if they could keep a visual record of some of the words they spoke - to keep track of goods purchased and sold, for example. So they invented various systems of writing. People in one area may have invented a syllabary - a kind of writing using a single written symbol to represent a syllable. Others used pictorial representations of entire words. Still others invented an alphabet - where a single written symbol represents a single sound. The symbols they chose to represent that sound, syllable, or word were completely arbitrary: someone literally decided to make all the symbols straight up and down or angled with sharp angles (as in the Phoenecian alphabet) or curvy with curls and tails (as in the Arabic alphabet). As languages and dialects changed, the written language also evolved right along with them. This is why there are spelling differences as well as grammatical differences between British English and American English, for example.\n\nAnd it's all thanks linguistic evolution; the more people change, the more their language does.
833115
Here's a website on word origins that has a few suggestions:\n\nhttp://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/5/messages/97.html
171802
Spanish is, as there was written here before a romance language, that means it comes from the culture of Ancient Rome (Romance), and it evolves from the roman language, that is Latin.\n\nLatin was also influenced by previous greek, and so, many of the roots of the words are greek.\n\nIn the times of the empire, europe was fully conquered by Rome, and Latin was the "lingua franca" that means the world recognized and useful language of transaction an culture, today that is english, and in the 19 century was french.\n\nWhen the Roman empire collapsed, three "barbaric" people known as the "Godos" which were the Vicigodos, Ostrogodos and Francos respectively occupyied Spain, Italy and France, then influenced the Latin Dialects that were spoken there.\n\nThere there were formed early versions of the romance languages, such as "d`oc" and "d`oil" in france, the italian early dialects in italy and three langages in spain.\n\nThere is actually no spanish language, but three... those are Castilian (From Castilla), Catalá (From Cataluña) and Galician (From Galicia). The one that we commonly know as spanish is Castilian, that was the kingdom that subdued the others along spain.\n\nSpain itself was somehow aluvional, and was greatly influenced by arabic people in the south, celtic people in the north and jews around all spain until the inquisition (Circa 1500). Those people also influenced the castilian language, you can see old spanish with all those previous influences in the poem of the "Cid Campeador".\n\nAfter the conquest of the americas, spanish took different directions, dialects and accents that you can, if you pay attention, differentiate.\n\nI.E. : I dont speak the same spanish a spaniard does, or mexican, or veneluelan or chilean... i am from uruguay, and althou it is similar to argentinian spanish we can recognize and identify differences.\n\nIn spain it also evolved by its own way.\n\nSo, basically spanish has a Latin language Base, with vicigod`s language, and influences of Arabic, Hebrew and Greek.
919434
not so very long ago huge numbers of people in southern and central europe spoke latin.\n\nbut as the people in spain began to get more interested in talking to each other than in talking to italians, their language slowly evolved from latin to spanish.\n\nthe same thing happened in france, italy, romania.\n\nit is impossible to preserve a language against the wish of its speakers: people use a language to communicate with the people they want to talk to.\n\nit is just as impossible to stop new languages from evolving. a thousand years ago there was no recognisable english language, but as the need for one developed it appeared.\n\nthere are already dialects of english which are nearly unintelligible to speakers of the standard dialect (jamaicans and nigerians have forms of english which are on the verge of becoming separate languages).\n\nyou cannot tell a language what to do:- it tells you.