# Why/how Italian rose to replace Latin? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 9, 2005, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532 "2005-04-09T05:34:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532/21 "2005-04-11T18:55:57Z")
> [@Ezstrete](#): > > So much opinion based on so little knowledge! > > The mind boggeleth! > > EZ Are you describing your own post or the efforts of scholars? _You_ may not know how classical Latin was pronounced, but it doesn’t follow that no one does. There are various tools to figure such things out (though, not being much into historical linguistics, I couldn’t really tell you much about them.) ---
**Author:** ![Ezstrete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ea924/32.png) [@Ezstrete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ezstrete)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532/22 "2005-04-11T21:24:43Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > Are you describing your own post or the efforts of scholars? _You_ may not know how classical Latin was pronounced, but it doesn’t follow that no one does. There are various tools to figure such things out (though, not being much into historical linguistics, I couldn’t really tell you much about them.) Scholars have informed us,through the years, that Man would NEVER go to the moon,-----that eggs MUST be removed from our diets,----that cyclamate was a DEADLY ingestion,-------that the atom would NEVER be split---- etc.,etc., etc. and,lastly, that every illness known to man,including my lady’s PMS, can be traced back to the evils of the VILE weed we call tobacco. Were those delarations made by scholars---------pseudo scholars -------or by scholars in their third year within the Ivied halls? All scholars study--------but all studies are not scholarly! Or so it seems to me to be--------------! But I’ll do a study on it! EZ ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532/23 "2005-04-11T22:10:22Z")
> [@Ezstrete](#): > > Scholars have informed us,through the years, that Man would NEVER go to the moon, Cite? > [@Ezstrete](#): > > -----that eggs MUST be removed from our diets, Cite? > [@Ezstrete](#): > > -------that the atom would NEVER be split Cite? (Seriously, are you under the impression that this is somehow true? Who do you think came up with the idea of nuclear physics? Some down-on-her-luck London flower-seller?) > [@Ezstrete](#): > > ---- etc.,etc., etc. and,lastly, that every illness known to man,including my lady’s PMS, can be traced back to the evils of the VILE weed we call tobacco. Cite? > [@Ezstrete](#): > > Were those delarations made by scholars---------pseudo scholars -------or by scholars in their third year within the Ivied halls? Aside from the claim about cyclamates (which you must admit you’re exaggerating), none of them were made at all. Not by scholars, anyway. > [@Ezstrete](#): > > All scholars study--------but all studies are not scholarly! > > Or so it seems to me to be--------------! > > But I’ll do a study on it! > > EZ Hey, I support a healthy skepticism. But you’re not exactly making a case here - historical linguistics is wrong because biologists overstated their case on cyclamates? Is the point that you don’t believe anything scientists say? What _do_ you believe? After all, the scientists aren’t always right, but they seem to have a better track record than most others. We don’t have the whole truth, but science is a rational, demonstrated way to come closer to it. Better than anything else you’ve got, anyway. Or is the point that, rather than engaging in actual skepticism, you wish to have the freedom to dismiss the opinions of those far more educated and intelligent than you or I when those opinions are inconvenient to you? That’s the sort of attitude that ensures that the truth will forever remain out of our grasp. Whether or not Julius Caesar had a speech impediment, I don’t know. But we can be quite certain that idle speculation by someone who doesn’t know anything about a field is considerably less likely to be accurate than the best theories of experts. P.S. You seem to be slightly confused as to the use of the hyphen in writing. ---
**Author:** ![Ezstrete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ea924/32.png) [@Ezstrete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ezstrete)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532/24 "2005-04-11T22:48:18Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > Cite? > > Cite? > > Cite? (Seriously, are you under the impression that this is somehow true? Who do you think came up with the idea of nuclear physics? Some down-on-her-luck London flower-seller?) > > Cite? > Aside from the claim about cyclamates (which you must admit you’re exaggerating), none of them were made at all. Not by scholars, anyway. > > Hey, I support a healthy skepticism. But you’re not exactly making a case here - historical linguistics is wrong because biologists overstated their case on cyclamates? Is the point that you don’t believe anything scientists say? What _do_ you believe? After all, the scientists aren’t always right, but they seem to have a better track record than most others. We don’t have the whole truth, but science is a rational, demonstrated way to come closer to it. Better than anything else you’ve got, anyway. Or is the point that, rather than engaging in actual skepticism, you wish to have the freedom to dismiss the opinions of those far more educated and intelligent than you or I when those opinions are inconvenient to you? That’s the sort of attitude that ensures that the truth will forever remain out of our grasp. > > Whether or not Julius Caesar had a speech impediment, I don’t know. But we can be quite certain that idle speculation by someone who doesn’t know anything about a field is considerably less likely to be accurate than the best theories of experts. > P.S. You seem to be slightly confused as to the use of the hyphen in writing. Do you really expect one to recall the bell, book and candle of things that were taught in EVERY school back in the period 1925-1937? Is that you’re scholarly system of evaluation?–based,perhaps, on the clue of a misplaced hyphen. If “scholariness”-is based on opinion,and disputation, you have established your qualifications. BUT–as in all things. either of our opinions,accompanied with about 2 1//2 bucks will get one a cup of cofee! Please-------let me chuckle my way out of this. YUK-yuk-yuk—and ADIOS y’all EZ ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532/25 "2005-04-11T23:15:03Z")
> [@Ezstrete](#): > > Do you really expect one to recall the bell, book and candle of things that were taught in EVERY school back in the period 1925-1937? No, I just expect you not to make stuff up. You made up all of the above items (except the cyclamates one; you just stretched that so far beyond reason that it’s hardly recognizable. You didn’t get that one in school between 1925 and 1937, either, since they weren’t banned until much later.) I’m sorry - obviously I’ve embarrassed you. It wasn’t my intent. I just wanted to point out that there’s a lot of things that laymen don’t know or understand that nevertheless are well-understood by experts in the field. It’s one of my pet peeves when people assume that, since they don’t know something, it must also be the case that no one else does. Again, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to make you look bad. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532/26 "2005-04-12T00:20:17Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > Cite? (Seriously, are you under the impression that this is somehow true? Who do you think came up with the idea of nuclear physics? Some down-on-her-luck London flower-seller?) “The fallout in Spain stays mainly on the plain.” ?? :smack: In all seriousness, we have some clear concept of what sounds the various letters in Greek stood for, individually or in combination, through the obvious sound shifts which occurred to words derived from Greek in various languages. Among the languages which borrowed from Greek was Latin, and we know what Latin speakers represented borrowed Greek words as in the Latin alphabet. Further, we know something of the pronunciation of Latin through the same borrowings-and-sound-changes process as I just described for Greek. Naturally, this describes precise formal speech, not the vulgar Latin of the marketplace. But it indicates what the sounds probably were. “Caesar” was almost certainly “Kigh’-sahr” through its having given rise to Kaiser, Czar, and other such words. “Princeps” was almost certainly “prihn-kehps” by its derivation from primus and caput, “first head.” “Preen-cheps” is owing to the exaggeratedly Tuscan pronunciation given Latin during the Ultramontanist days of the late 19th Century. That C before E and I may have migrated to an S sound in vulgar Latin seems likely from Romance language words derived from Latin, in this case the various terms for “Prince.” But a reconstruction of classical Latin can and has long since been done by intelligent scholarly phonological and philological means, and “school Latin” as opposed to “church Latin” represents that probabilistic reconstruction quite well. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532/27 "2005-04-12T00:22:49Z")
> [@chrisk](#): > > A lot of regional dialects, referred to as ‘accents’, have significant vocabulary and grammatical differences. I don’t think the term can be confined to dialects that have only slight differences in methods of pronunciation anymore. > > Of course, the languages under discussion have diverged to the point where even referring to them as ‘dialects’ is misleading… but I think Cadfael’s point is that the difference is only one of time and degree, not qualitatively different from, say, the situation with Arkansas american english and los angeles american english. (I think we could find some vocabulary and grammatical differences between those two ‘accents’.) No, there is a significant difference in how Spanish and Romainain, for example, became different languages. Had Rome remained a unified political authority it is quite possible that the areas under it’s rule would continue to speak a mutually intelligible language. It might be different from classical Latin, but the same language, with regional accents, might very well be spoken in Spain and Romania today. The breakdown of a central authority, in combination with external invasions lead to the development of separate languages. If the US remains a single political unit for 2,000 years, it would be strange indeed if Arkansas English and Calfiornians English became different languages. Amiercans in 4,000 AD might all speak a form of Enlish that a 21st century person wouldn’t understand, but they’d certainly be speaking the same language across the country. ---
**Author:** ![Ezstrete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ea924/32.png) [@Ezstrete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ezstrete)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532/28 "2005-04-12T00:51:58Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > No, I just expect you not to make stuff up. You made up all of the above items (except the cyclamates one; you just stretched that so far beyond reason that it’s hardly recognizable. You didn’t get that one in school between 1925 and 1937, either, since they weren’t banned until much later.) > > I’m sorry - obviously I’ve embarrassed you. It wasn’t my intent. I just wanted to point out that there’s a lot of things that laymen don’t know or understand that nevertheless are well-understood by experts in the field. It’s one of my pet peeves when people assume that, since they don’t know something, it must also be the case that no one else does. Again, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to make you look bad. If your ego would simply sit down with your elders,preferably your grand parents, and listen to what they were taught about space travel and returns and not accuse those who came along long before you saw the light of day as fabricators you might be,indeed, the scholar you purport to be. As for embarrasing me--------Surely you jest! Or presume to be more than you are. I leave you to your ignorance ---------and again I find myself saying,as Macarthur did in Tokyo Bay,“These proceedings are over.” EZ—laughing all the way! ---
**Author:** ![Suraya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@Suraya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suraya)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532/29 "2005-04-12T03:26:24Z")
> [@WeRSauron](#): > > Why and how did Italian arise when the land now known as Italy already had Latin? > > I asked a friend, and he said it’s because Latin’s so difficult, but I find Russian to be far more difficult than Latin. I mean, compared to Italian, Latin is difficult; but compared to Russian, Latin is easy, so the “Latin was so complex an easier language had to replace it” seems not to be true, otherwise an easier language would have replaced Russian. > > WRS Italian replaced Latin because Latin is completely based around grammar. Russian is difficult to learn because it’s hard to pronounce, but to learn how to _speak_ Latin, you need many years of just grammar. My best friend has taken it for four years, and she doesn’t know how to say “thank you”, but she can tell me exactly how to use the passive paraphrastic tense in a sentences. And what other language is there where 19 clause sentences are normal? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532/30 "2005-04-12T03:42:44Z")
> [@Suraya](#): > > Italian replaced Latin because Latin is completely based around grammar. Russian is difficult to learn because it’s hard to pronounce, but to learn how to _speak_ Latin, you need many years of just grammar. My best friend has taken it for four years, and she doesn’t know how to say “thank you”, but she can tell me exactly how to use the passive paraphrastic tense in a sentences. And what other language is there where 19 clause sentences are normal? Yeah. In fact, children in Roman times were unable to speak. They had to attend school for years before they could utter their first sentence in Latin. At least, that’s what my friend’s cousin heard in a train station last week while evesdropping on a converstation between two guys with glasses on. And since they were wearing glasses, they must be smart and all, so it must be right… ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532/31 "2005-04-12T04:00:23Z")
> [@Suraya](#): > > Italian replaced Latin because Latin is completely based around grammar. Russian is difficult to learn because it’s hard to pronounce, but to learn how to _speak_ Latin, you need many years of just grammar. My best friend has taken it for four years, and she doesn’t know how to say “thank you”, but she can tell me exactly how to use the passive paraphrastic tense in a sentences. And what other language is there where 19 clause sentences are normal? There’s a big difference between trying to learn a language as an adult in a classroom setting and being exposed the a language from birth. Ancient Romans wouldn’t have found it difficult to communicate in Latin. ---
**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532/32 "2005-04-12T04:05:36Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Yeah. In fact, children in Roman times were unable to speak. They had to attend school for years before they could utter their first sentence in Latin. At least, that’s what my friend’s cousin heard in a train station last week while evesdropping on a converstation between two guys with glasses on. And since they were wearing glasses, they must be smart and all, so it must be right… Thank you! I was waiting for someone to comment on the idea that a living language would be replaced because of its “difficulty.” To a native speaker, a language isn’t difficult to use (it may be hard to use “properly,” but that’s not really the point), and it definitely isn’t so hard that it’ll be replaced wholesale (somehow) by another langauge. As can be seen with English, the most “difficult” parts are bing pared out by the average speaker. For example, fewer and fewer people are making the distinction between “who” and “whom” or even “less” and “fewer.” No language is “too difficult” for its native speakers; if it is for some people–say, the uneducated–they will simplify it. They will not simply decide to start speaking a different language upon deciding that their current one is too hard. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532/33 "2005-04-12T04:40:17Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > No, there is a significant difference in how Spanish and Romainain, for example, became different languages. Had Rome remained a unified political authority it is quite possible that the areas under it’s rule would continue to speak a mutually intelligible language. It might be different from classical Latin, but the same language, with regional accents, might very well be spoken in Spain and Romania today. The breakdown of a central authority, in combination with external invasions lead to the development of separate languages. > > If the US remains a single political unit for 2,000 years, it would be strange indeed if Arkansas English and Calfiornians English became different languages. Amiercans in 4,000 AD might all speak a form of Enlish that a 21st century person wouldn’t understand, but they’d certainly be speaking the same language across the country. Well, I wonder. China has remained a unified empire, more or less, for thousands of years. But Chinese has differentiated into a number of different languages during that time. > [@Suraya](#): > > Italian replaced Latin because Latin is completely based around grammar. Russian is difficult to learn because it’s hard to pronounce, but to learn how to _speak_ Latin, you need many years of just grammar. My best friend has taken it for four years, and she doesn’t know how to say “thank you”, but she can tell me exactly how to use the passive paraphrastic tense in a sentences. And what other language is there where 19 clause sentences are normal? If you think Latin or Russian are complicated, you don’t know how bad languages can be. Read about some of the Native American languages sometime. Or think about Dyirbal, an Australian Aboriginal language. There’s a taboo on speaking in front of in-laws of the opposite sex, so an entire separate vocabulary developed that is used when a person is speaking within earshot of such an in-law. Russian and Latin are not complicated at all by world standards. It’s inviting to view language as inevitably shifting from complex to simple, but it’s not very accurate. Besides, a lot of what you’re talking about is based upon the (in my opinion, very poor) methods used to teach Latin nowadays. > [@Speaker for the Dead](#): > > For example, fewer and fewer people are making the distinction between “who” and “whom” or even “less” and “fewer.” The less/fewer distinction is a bad one to choose for this example, as this is a distinction that has arisen over time, not one based upon some older historical form of the language. There is evidence extending far back to suggest that even very highly educated speakers did not maintain this distinction until recently. There’s probably always a certain disconnect between the speakers of the educated form of a language and those speaking a common dialect, but it’s not correct to assume the prestigious form is necessarily older (much less “purer” or better) than the commonly-spoken form. ---
**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532/34 "2005-04-12T04:52:00Z")
You learn something new every day. I have the tendency to assume that the more complex a form is, the older it is, simply because (as I say) it seems that common dialects tend to simplify language over time. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532/35 "2005-04-12T05:31:58Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > Well, I wonder. China has remained a unified empire, more or less, for thousands of years. But Chinese has differentiated into a number of different languages during that time. China is an interesting case and has several unique features that make a comparison with Latin difficult. Latin was not native to areas outside Rome, so a local such as modern day Spain had the Latin language imposed on it. Once the Roman empire “fell”, the language was pretty much on its own to develop independentally from other areas. The various Chinese dialects (or languages) were not generally imposed from the outside, and have histories that predate the expansion of the Chinese empire during the Qin and Han dynasties. The chinese writing system also does not have the unifying efect on pronunciation that an alphabetic writing system does, and Chinese have always differentiated between written language and spoken language. This differentiation is common for most languages, but exagerated in Chinese due to its non-alphabetic writing system. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532/36 "2005-04-12T05:41:58Z")
> [@Ezstrete](#): > > If your ego would simply sit down with your elders,preferably your grand parents, and listen to what they were taught about space travel and returns and not accuse those who came along long before you saw the light of day as fabricators you might be,indeed, the scholar you purport to be. > > As for embarrasing me--------Surely you jest! Or presume to be more than you are. > > I leave you to your ignorance ---------and again I find myself saying,as Macarthur did in Tokyo Bay,“These proceedings are over.” > > EZ—laughing all the way! You are talking here about school teachers, not serious scientists. In this era space travel or splitting the atom were hardly thought of as inconceivable to scientists of the era. ---
**Author:** ![Doobieous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/da6949/32.png) [@Doobieous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doobieous)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532/37 "2005-04-12T12:27:07Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > A couple of oft-cited examples? The Spanish word for horse is “caballo,” which comes from the Latin word “caballus.” However, “caballus” was **not** the Latin word for horse. _Equus_ was the standard Latin word for Horse. “Caballus” was a Latin slang word meaning (essentially) a flea-bitten old nag. > > Similarly, “Tete,” the French word for head comes from Latin. But not from the formal Latin word for “head” (that would be “caput”). “Tete” comes from the Latin word “testa”- literally, “pot,” but sometimes used by the Romans as a slang word for the head (sort of like “noodle” or “bean” or “noggin”).\ However, Spanish has the word “yegua” which means “mare” and descends from “equa” which meant the same in Latin. Likewise with the word for “head”. Spanish uses “cabeza” which comes from the Latin “capitia”, which if what i’ve found is correct, reffered to something that covered the top of the head. But, the word “caput” from Latin became “cabo” in Spanish, which came to be used for the bit, end, stub, cape (as in land), and even the word for “corporal”, as well as a few other meanings. ---
**Author:** ![Roches](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bc8723/32.png) [@Roches](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roches)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532/38 "2005-04-12T13:27:23Z")
The sort of Latin that would have been learned by a child (especially in the provinces) in the late Republic or the Imperial period would have been very different than the Latin of the Golden Age authors or the Latin that is taught today. It would, of course, have been possible to go to school to learn ‘proper’ Latin, but most people would have spoken a more popular form. It’s not really true that the changes that occurred to Latin happened because the language was too difficult to learn, but many of the changes did make the language simpler and easier to learn. For example, people started using prepositions with the dative case (usually ending in -o) rather than simply using words in a certain case or using prepositions with the accusative or dative case (as required by the preposition being used). Expressing possession with _de_ plus a dative noun, for example, makes the genitive case unnecessary, and we see _de_ used to mark possession in the Romance languages. IIRC the loss of the neuter gender also has something to do with the use of the dative case to replace all the others. In some cases, the dative forms even replaced the nominative case, and became the only case; this is why masculine nouns in Italian so often end in _-o_. (French kept some of the cases longer than some of the other Romance languages did, but eventually lost them.) Third- and fourth-declension nouns, such as _caput_ and _equus_, were often replaced with first- or second-declension nouns, such as _testa_ and _caballus_. With a third-declension noun, you have to remember two forms (e.g. _caput_, the nominative singular form, and _capitis_, the genitive singular form). With _testa_, you know the plural is _testae_. This really does look like the older forms were ‘too difficult to remember’, but we know that the change took place. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532/39 "2005-04-12T14:19:55Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > Buying bread and olive oil at the time of Caesar or Cicero, one would not have used the formal language of their writings, but a vulgar Latin of which we have only samples (e.g., _caballus_ rather than _equus_ for "horse.) Ah, this is a point I am interested in. Is it possible that the language we are taught as “Classical Latin” might never have been a vernacular at all? I have the same suspicion about “Classical Sanskrit,” that is was purely a literary language that no ordinary person ever spoke out loud. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532/40 "2005-04-12T14:22:18Z")
> [@](#): > > and even the word for “corporal”, Corporal derives from the Latin _corpus_, “body.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-how-italian-rose-to-replace-latin/298532.md?page=3)