Latin

Mr. "Damian"^[1] writes, very upset, that we were wrong to get on his case about the origin of the word "milk"^[2] Our disagreement stemmed from his statement that Latin is a volatile language because of the "Ottomans, Turks, and Moors." We objected to this, saying that Latin is a much older language than the Ottomans, Turks, or Moors. We are not linguists; he is. I had no doubt Wednesday that he had a reason for his statement, and it turns out he did and does. He makes a split between "Classic Latin" which he calls "Latin" and "Vulgar Latin" which it appears is what I would think of as "Latin."

So what we then boil down to, is a failure to use terms consistently across the participants in a conversation. Not being a linguist, it is both unfair and unjust to expect me to know that the Latin that was used throughout that period differs so significantly from the Latin used three and four hundred years earlier as to be considered a separate language.

Further, I object to calling the Ottomans a "Mediterranean" people, because even if they were Mediterranean linguistically (a statement I cannot speak to), the thrust of their military conquest stems from them being but one of several waves of mongols.^[3]

While I had no intent to insult Mr. Damian, and continue to have no such intent, I must reserve the right to insist that in a discussion with people who have mixed technical backgrounds words may have a meaning that is not that used or accepted in the field of expertise of any one one participant. I apologize if in objecting to understand why Latin was classified as "volatile" because of Islam, I insulted. It should, however, be clear that my confusion was natural.