What language is the closest to LATIN?

Question

Please just answer if you know FOR SURE

Answer 1

Okay, so here's the story. There are 5 MAJOR languages which came from vulgar Latin (not written Latin). Those are French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, and Portuguese. However, these are mostly "watered" down forms of Latin. French for that sake was influenced by Frankish, Gaulish, and some other Germanic languages, so it evolved differently, thusly making it not the purest from Latin. Spanish and Portuguese, have influences from Arabic, Ladino (kind of Latin and Hebrew combined), Berber, and other languages that were there before the Romans came. Romanian was influenced from the Slavic speaking peoples. You can tell by the word for "yes" which is not like the other languages which have the vowel of (oui, si, si, si). Romanian has the closest grammar to Latin, in noun declension, and such, but is still pretty "watered down."
That leaves us with Italian, which one might have thought to be the closest, but it itself was influenced by Lombardish, and was split into many different dialects for different cities. The large amount of trade in Italy allowed for most Italian dialects to have many outside influences, and to have the grammar be simplified out.

Now, the closest is Sardinian, which is spoken on an Italian island. It could have been maintained by Latin writers, just as Icelandic was maintained grammatically by the scholars, amongst other things.

Answer 2

there is an merely approximately extinct language in Switzerland talked approximately as Romansch it particularly is declared to be the closest to Latin, yet no person learn that different than linguists. I had the forged fortune as quickly as to fulfill an old lady who spoke it. Leaving that and different very uncommon languages aside, i might say Italian and Spanish are the closest to Latin. i'm tremendously sturdy in any respect 3, and that i think of the closeness as to Italian and Spanish is a few toss-up.

Answer 3

Romanian is the closest relation grammatically to Latin, but we have a lot of words and phrases that were borrowed from our Slavic friends and neighbors. In terms of words, i cannot vouch for Romansch, but Italian carries on a significant chunk of words that are directly derived from Latin. But let me say this. I have never learned Latin, but using my knowledge of Romanian, I can figure out sayings of seals, state flags and the like, so there is a very strong relation that French and Spanish cannot claim.

Answer 4

I've found this list on the Italian Wikipedia with the percentage of evolution from the original Latin.
The higher is the number the bigger are the differences :

Lingua sarda (an Italian dialect): 8%;
Lingua italiana (Italian): 12%;
Lingua spagnola (Spanish): 20%;
Lingua română (Romanian): 23,5%;
Lingua occitana (or provenzale- French dialect): 25%;
Lingua portoghese (Portuguese): 31%;
Lingua francese (French) : 44%


I guess this is a pretty reliable source to state that Italian is the closest to the ancient Latin.

Answer 5

Latin is the basic for lots of languages in modern use. If you wish to find the closest, I suppose it is Italian. Otherwise you would have to look at archaic languages. Latin is found in most modern languages. If you look up most modern languages you will find a lot of words whose root is latin.

Answer 6

I'm referring to the Martox45's good answer.

Usually Sardinian language is labeled as the closet language to Latin. And the survey mentioned by Mardox corroborates this assumptions. But this take account of phonetics (sounds evolution) and words only.

As to grammar I have some doubt about Romanian: it retains many grammatical features that other Romance languages haven't anymore (eg noun cases).

Answer 7

Romansh, which is a direct descendant of vulgar Latin, is probably the closest among modern languages. Romanian is the closest in terms of grammar, and is the only living Romance language that preserves declensions (only 3 though, vs. Latin's seven).

Answer 8

The other language with LATIN in it: ITALiaN. or Romanian
Where is modern day Rome/Roma, from the Romans this name was given to the city [very recently. In ancient times it was called Latium?] The name Romania is a preservation of the history that it was formerly ruled by the Romans. Modern day Roma/Rome is in Italy. The Romans assimilated and became Italians?

Answer 9

Spanish and Italian are definitely the closest to Latin. And I mean Spanish from Spain, not Mexico.

Answer 10

Latin is the mother to several languages and the step mother to many others. I do not think that there is an equal. There are derivatives. Romanian, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portugese are direct branches of the language.