Latin inscription in the Colosseum
|Native to||Roman Republic, Roman Empire|
|Era||developed into Romance languages 6th to 9th centuries|
Vulgar Latin is one of the two types of Latin. Latin is an old language that was spoken by the Romans. It is not spoken much today, but the Romance languages (such as Italian, Spanish, and Romanian) come from it.
Who spoke it? [change]
Vulgar Latin was spoken by the regular people: farmers, workers, and people without a great deal of education. Because of this it is also called Common Latin.
How did it start? [change]
Classical Latin is the type of Latin that was first spoken by the Romans. As time went by, fewer and fewer people spoke Classical Latin, and in the end the language changed to become Vulgar Latin. After a while, only scholars spoke Classical Latin. Books were still written in it. Nowadays nobody speaks Latin anymore, except for people who study it and the Roman Catholic Church's officials.
The Grammar of Vulgar Latin is similar to classical Latin, except in pronunciation and some vocabulary use. Latin has 5 basic noun cases.
Other websites [change]