Buenos Dias!

I finished the semantics comparisons! Well sort of anyway, I gathered a total of 527 words in Latin, translated them into each language, compared each word and tallied up the points. I still have to put this information into a chi square analysis. I'm not completely sure how I am going to do that, but I will figure it out and publish the results.

For now however, without doing the analysis and just looking at the overall raw scores, I can tell you that Italian received the most points. Spanish came in second place, Portuguese in third, and French in fourth. These scores don't mean much as they are right now though. I only looked at 527 of the words in the entire Latin language. It might have just been the words that I compared that made Italian win; there could be more words in Spanish or French that are more similar to Latin than they are in Italian. So hopefully after I figure out the chi square analysis I will be able to see clearer results.

I also finished collecting tests to take in each of the languages and got some student volunteers to also take them. The tests all go over grammar and vocab and are all level one, except for Spanish which is level three because I already know a little Spanish. Those results should be in by next week, and so should the syntax comparisons. Sorry to keep you in suspense!

Semantics

Ciao!
This week I continued to gather words for my semantics comparisons. I looked at 195 more words, and out of a possible 390 points, Italian received 216, Spanish received 182, Portuguese received 169, and French received 147. So all together I have looked at 380 words, and Italian is in the lead with a total of 393 points out of a possible 760 points. I am going to try to compare at least 500 words total to make sure I have enough data to be as accurate as possible. Then I can move on to comparing the syntax of each language.
Also this week, I started looking into getting the level one tests for each of the languages that I have been working with. It turned out to be a little more difficult than I had anticipated. I emailed some professors at different universities and they were all very helpful, but the problem is that it's hard to find a test in each language that is similar enough for me to compare my scores. Some are more difficult or more specific than others and that's a problem. So I am going to keep searching and hopefully get some tests that I can use.
I also need some of my fellow AP Latin students to take the tests with me. That way I can tell if it is the Latin that is being helpful, and not anything that I have picked up over the last couple of weeks while I was doing my comparisons. So if any of you would like to volunteer, please let me know!
Arrivederci!

¡Hola!
This week I began comparing the semantics of each of the languages. I didn't get very far, but I did get through 182 words. And out of a possible 364 points, Italian received 177, Spanish received 166, Portuguese received 144, and finally French received 130. The more words I compare, the more accurate my analysis will be, so I intend to gather more data over the next week or so to get a more accurate result. I think that the trend will remain the same, with Italian in first place and French in last. But who knows? Maybe French will have a comeback!
¡Adios mis amigos!