Reply #30: Latin meets conquered tribes and tries to communicate. [View All]

[aquart]

For the same reason Latin and Norman French are components of modern English: The Roman legions and William the Conqueror.

The Romans didn't march into empty lands...and those lands contained people who spoke languages of their own. But both sides had to communicate somehow. So they patched together something they could both understand.

Then Rome collapsed and the legions withdrew......and the people left behind had only themselves to speak to. The scholars, the lawyers, the clerics all still spoke and wrote Latin because they were still in international communication. It was important for a scientist in one nation to be able to read the discoveries of a scientist in another. But everyday people had nothing to do with that.

Eventually, in each nation once conquered by Rome, there came a day when a poet saw something beautiful in the speech of the people in the street and he began to write in that language instead of Latin. Once the poets have abandoned you, you truly are dead, no matter how many lawyers and musty clerics intone your hallowed phrases.