Which modern romantic (it doesn’t mean “sexy” ;)) language is closest to old latin?
Peace,
mangeorge
My guess would be Italian.
There isn’t any general agreement that one of them is any closer than the others. All languages change. Each of the Romance languages has kept certain parts of Latin and changed others. And, of course, the term is “Romance,” not “Romantic.”
I know. I meant “romanic”. My ex used to read a lot of romance novels, and they often referred to the language as “romantic”, I guess for obvious reasons. Not to say I’d ever read one. 
I got mixed up.
I would think that the closest would be Italian. My friend says that there are two similar but distinct versions spoken in Italy, north and south.
Maybe in Roma, near Vatican City? I’ll ask him on Monday.
My college Spanish professor – a general linguistic scholar in addition to teaching Spanish – said that Spanish was probably the most direct descendant of Latin.
There are at least thirteen varieties of language spoken just within Italy which are descendants of Latin (and that’s not counting Latin itself):
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=90057
Each of them could conceivably called a variety of Italian then, and each of them could conceivably be called a separate language. There’s no clear dividing line between something being a different dialect and it being a different language. So even if you want to say that Italian is the closest descendant of Latin, the question is which variety of Italian.
Corsican
I had 2 years of high school Latin & have studied a bunch of Spanish; I’d agree with your professor. When I made my first run at Spanish verbs, amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant* came back to me & a light went off in my head.
During JPII’s visit to Cuba, he made a joke about a phrase in one of his sermons. He was speaking Spanish, but that particular phrase (don’t remember it) was exactly the same in Latin.
- Haven’t checked the spelling…
The OP needs to define his terms.
By “Old Latin,” do you mean Old Latin, or do you mean Classical Latin?
By “closest,” do you mean chronologically? In that case, the answer is “all of them, equally.” Do you mean phonetically? That would probably be a dialect spoken in Italy or Spain, and you could probably come up with a relatively objective answer by comparing phonetic inventories. Do you mean lexically? That’s harder, but I think you could probably still come up with a definitive answer by finding that X% of language Y is unchanged (though you still have to deal with sounds: many Italian feminine nouns are identical to the Latin ones in spelling, but pronounced differently).
Perhaps you meant “which dialect preserves the most grammatical features,” in which case the few remaining dialects with a functioning case system get to rise to the fore, but you’d probably want to check on other things: deponent verbs? Relatively free word order?
Or perhaps “which speaker would have the easiest time communicating with the time-travelling Roman from MSPIMS,” in which case I’d probably guess one of the northern South Italian dialects: Neapolitan, perhaps. It’s an interesting question.
My Latin teacher related trying to communicate when she was in Italy. It didn’t get her far.
Romanian.
The Italian conjugations are very similar too. If I remember correctly, they’re amo, ami, ama, amiamo, amate, amano. It’s likely I’m getting one or two of them mixed up with Spanish though as, like I said, they’re very similar. I bet Portuguese is very similar too. French isn’t so similar. It’s kind of the outcast of the family.
And I would say Italian is the most similar of the major romance languages. It’s the only one I often can’t distinguish from Latin given a sentence or two. Given enough, I can find words I know, but I can’t tell just by the appearance of the language. That’s just my subjective perspective though.
I’ve heard claim that Sardinian is only like 10% different from Latin, whatever that means.
I knew someone from Switzerland say Romansch (or however you spell it) was in reality a form of Latin, but I don’t know.
I’ve also read that Romanian, which still uses declensions is closest IF you were to remove out the Slavic influenced words. Which I don’t understand. That’s like saying English is really German if you remove the French Norman words, which makes it not English 
Just for some data, how about the first couple of lines of the Lord’s Prayer. There’s some problems in equivalency (second person informal vs. formal, mild vocabulary adjustments), but it gives you a sense anyway. None of them are terribly close. Even where they look the same, they’re not: “in terra” in Latin has a longer vowel than it does in Italian.
Latin: Pater noster, qui es in caelis,
sanctificetur nomen tuum.
Adveniat regnum tuum.
Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra.
Romanian: Tatăl nostru care eşti în ceruri,
sfinţească-se numele tău,
vie împărăţia ta,
facă-se voia ta, precum în cer aşa şi pe pământ.
Italian: Padre nostro, che sei nei cieli,
Sia santificato il tuo nome.
Venga il tuo regno.
Sia fatta la tua volontà
Come in cielo così in terra.
Sicilian: Patri nostru, ca siti ntrô celu,
Santificatu fussi lu Vostru nomu.
Viatu vinissi lu Vostru regnu.
Fatta fussi la Vostra Vuluntati
Comu ntrô celu accussì ntra terra.
Spanish: Padre nuestro que estás en el cielo,
santificado sea tu nombre.
Venga a nosotros tu reino, hágase tu voluntad,
en la tierra como en el cielo.
French:Notre Père, qui êtes aux cieux
Que votre nom soit sanctifié.
Que votre règne arrive.
Que votre volonté soit faite sur la terre comme au ciel.
Portuguese: Pai nosso, que estás nos céus,
santificado seja o vosso nome;
venha a nós o vosso reino, seja feita a vossa vontade,
assim na terra, como no céu.
I’m not going to try to find Corsican, Catalan, Romansch, or Sardinian, but you’re all welcome to contribute your favorite dialect.
Corsican: Pater nostru chì stai in i celi,
ch’ellu sia santificatu u to nome;
ch’ellu venghi u to regnu; ch’ella sia fatta a to vuluntà,
in celu cum’è in terra.
Sardinian: Babbu nostu ki ses in is Celus,
santificau siat su nòmini tuu,
bengat a nosu su reinu tuu, siat fatta sa voluntadi
tua comenti in su celu aici in sa terra.
Romansch: Bap nos, clii est nels tscbels,
fat sanct vegna teis nom.
Teis reginam vegna nan pro ; tia voglia dvainta,
sco in tscbel, usche eir in terra.
Catalan: Pare nostre que estau en lo eel,
sia santificatlo vostre nom.
Viuga lo vostre regne : fassas la vostra volimtat,
axi en la terra com en lo eel.
Hmmm. I see the problem.
How about liturgical latin? Is it still widely used (and spoken) in the catholic church? And why was it adopted in the first place? Also, is there anywhere liturgical latin is spoken outside the RCC?
BTW, looking back over my 64 years I can see how swiftly a language can change.
Ecclasiastical Latin is a dialect of Latin, not a seperate language. It was adopted in the first place because a lot of people in the western part of the Roman Empire didn’t understand Greek, and church leaders wanted the bible to be written and masses to be said in an understandable language. One of the big influences in Ecclasiastical Latin was Jerome, who translated the bible from Greek and classical Latin into a more modern, understandable form.
No way Jo-sey. Spanish has influences from Arabic, Basque and several Germanic languages which didn’t even get close to Italian except via Napoli. Every time I run across an Italian word whose cognate exists in Spanish but is an uncommon word, the cognate comes from Latin, the common word doesn’t.
Italian has several versions, not just two; there’s a problem (similar to that one suffered by Catalan) in that there’s so much political weight behind deciding whether something is an Italian dialect, a local pronunciation, or a different language, that it’s actually difficult to get anything close to a definite number. The dialect that’s become prevalent thanks to mass media is neither from the North nor from the South: it’s Roman.
Captain Amazing, that’s a strange Pare Nostre…
Pare Nostre q’estéu en el Cel,
sigui santificat el Vostre Nom.
Vingui a nosaltres el Vostre Regne,
faci’s la Vostra volumtat
així a la Terra com es fà en el Cel.
(I may have typoed tildes, that and the double-s vs single-s are the two things that trip me in Catalan).
Okay, how about this: if you were to send back in time to the time of Caesar one native speaker from each modern Romance language, with none of them having studied Latin before, and all of them being of equal language learning ability, which one could learn Latin the fastest?
My hunch would be that it would definitely be a speaker of one of the Italian dialects, followed by the Catalan-speaker and the Spanish speaker.
I think you’re probably right. I also think the Latin-speakers would have a lot easier time understanding their descendants than vice versa.