My recent question about a sound change that occurred between Latin and Italian got closed as off-topic. Why is it off-topic? What is the tag romance-languages for then?
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2I think it's because you didn't make the connection to Latin explicit. You didn't e.g. ask about if that sound change happened in vulgar Latin or if it was localized to Italian. I suspect that would have kept it from moving into off-topic territory.– cmw ModCommented Jun 28, 2023 at 3:48
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2 Answers
Questions about how Latin evolved into the Romance languages are on-topic, but they should still be focused on Latin. I think that particular question is fine (hence my answering it), but other community members seem to disagree. Making it clear how this is about Latin—"was this a change that happened within Latin, or a general part of Romance evolution, or a one-off oddity in Italian?"—might help.
To me that seemed to be a question about Italian, not about Latin. As you noted, the Latin word has a single M, so the duplication must have happened after classical Latin and probably within Italian.
I did think the question was off topic, but not strongly enough to cast a moderator's vote — which would immediately close the question regardless of other votes. But I think it is only slightly off our scope, and there is room for opinions in that gray area.
If you take a look at questions tagged "romance languages", you'll notice that they do ask questions about Latin. It is often a matter of how Latin evolved (still within Latin itself!) or whether a Romance phenomenon has a Latin predecessor or how vulgar Latin differs from classical Latin.
answered Jun 26, 2023 at 21:50
