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by allanbz on January 21st, 2005

allanbz

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Latin has no definite articles, as Greek does. The Romance languages I know, all have definite articles. How did it come about that Latin does not?

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  • by Anon on April 29th, 2005

    Anon

    Latin didn't have them because they aren't really necessary and there hadn't been any compelling reasons for the Romans to create them. The real question is why the Romance languages developed definite articles when their parent (Latin) did not have them. In his book, "A History of the Spanish Language", Ralph Penny suggests that the intial development of the Romance articles might have been motivated by the fact that many people in Rome and the east were bilingual in Latin and Greek. In other words, it was influenced by the Greek use of articles.

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    • good possibility...the other one is that many of the Latin speakers spoke Germanic and Celtic languages as a first language, both of which use articles.

      singwell-is off researching a lot

      by singwell-is off researching a lot on March 28th, 2007

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