https://www.quora.com/Was-Latin-the...mpire-or-did-each-state-have-its-own-language
Let’s immediately dispel a myth: ancient Romans did not speak Latin, or at least not the Latin that we know and study today. That Latin was the language of the cultured people, of literature, liturgy and the government. All Romans, and people living in the territories governed by Rome, spoke other languages. Some of these were forms of “vulgar” Latin, that is, dialects and languages strictly related to Latin, but others were completely different languages: even in the Italian peninsula, many people spoke Etruscan languages, now extinct, and in Roman dominions such as Sardinia or Iberia, people spoke local languages, totally unrelated to Latin.
Cultured Romans also spoke one or more “vulgar” dialects, or other languages, in addition to Latin. They simply switched from one to the other according to need, such as when speaking in public or with friends, addressing the gods or their children. Vulgar Latin was not only different from place to place, but it also varied between cultural and social classes: for example there was a Latin of the plebs, used locally and varying from place to place; that of the military, used to communicate in an army formed of people from different regions; and that of the Patricians.
The imposition of Latin as a language of communication in the territories ruled by the Romans led to the extinction of most unrelated languages that were previously spoken: Etruscan, Sardinian, Ligurian, Gallic, etc. All were replaced by numerous versions of Vulgar Latin, influenced to varying degrees by the language they had replaced. It must be noted, however, that in ancient Rome, very few people could read* and even among them, there were, very likely, important differences in the way the written words were pronounced: the same written text could be spoken very differently by persons of different culture, social class and geographical origin.
It is quite certain that, as Latin became more widespread, both geographically and socially, it started to incorporate features of the various vulgar languages and dialects, even in cultured speech” and started to change. With the fall of the Roman empire, the disappearance of a common government, and the settling of people from middle and eastern Europe in Italy, Vulgar Latin, or rather, what were now the Romance languages, incorporated many words and characteristics of the languages spoken by these populations.
One of the features of late Latin speech was the gradual simplification of pronunciation and grammar. The former made Latin more “resilient” to different local pronunciations, that is, a speech in “formal” Latin had to be equally intelligible if it was spoken by a German Army officer and by a Sicilian trader. The second led to the general loss of declensions and the appearance of articles. Having lost the declension, the position of the nouns with respect to the verb became fundamental for the understanding of speech, so vulgar Latin lost the plasticity and variability of “formal” Latin.
This being the case, the condition of Latin language in classical times and during the middle ages was far more complex than it merely being a National language spoken by everyone.
Until very recently, in fact, national languages were more the exception than the rule and it was the norm to be multi-lingual, often speaking several “dialects” and one or more languages that bore no relationship to the language one was brought up with. Italian became a national language by law with the Unity of Italy, in 1861, but it was far from being the language spoken by the majority of the population. Most people in fact, could not speak Italian at all and it was not until after the 1st World War that compulsory basic schooling and the radio cemented Italian’s status as the national language of Italy.
During the 1920s and 30s, the Mussolini government started a very aggressive campaign of “Italianizing” the Italian people. In fact, Mussolini and the fascists, were convinced that Italians took greater pride in belonging to their regions of origin than in being Italians, and lacked a sense of “Nationality” and of national pride. The use of local languages (which were referred to in a derogatory way as “dialects”) was banned in offices, schools and all State institutions. Regional army battalions were dispersed and a true national army was implemented for the first time, with a compulsory military service during which young men could be sent to the opposite part of the Nation. The radio broadcasted only in Italian and a standard way of speaking Italian was formed.
When I went to primary school, between 1964 and 1969, in my school there were several children who could not speak Italian at all. They were grouped in “differential” classes where they received basic classes in Italian. They were admitted to the “normal” classes only after they had gained fluency in Italian. In all other classes, including mine, most children were bilingual (but not me, unfortunately), but they were banned from speaking their “dialect” (actually: language).
When vulgar languages began to be used in the Italian peninsula as “official” languages, Latin was still widely used, but it was far from being the common language of the states and regions that made up Italy as it was in Roman times, when there was political unity in Italy. Nevertheless, vulgar was used to write laws (the “Carta de Logu”, a collection of laws of the Giudicate of Arborea in Sardinia was written in Sardinian vulgar in the XIV Century
Carta de Logu - Wikipedia), to write literature but especially short poetry, ballads and sonnets that were very popular among inhabitants of the entire peninsula and were carried around on handwritten sheets by travelling storytellers and singers, to be sold to the people who listened to their performances.
These songs, ballads and sonnets are considered of great importance in the making of Italian language. Since travelling storytellers moved well beyond the boundaries of a region where a certain version of vulgar was spoken, they had to find a language that was intelligible to most people. The choice fell on Tuscan vulgar, but with a strong influence of Sicilian, since during the Renaissance, many of the most popular songs originated in Sicily, and were translated into “Italian”, maintaining many of the original words for the benefit of rhyme and rhythm.
Sicilian School - Wikipedia
This choice of language was not discussed and agreed among the members of a (non-existent) organization, but rather was a spontaneous process. As the singers and storytellers travelled from the south to the north of the peninsula, they found Tuscan to be the best approximation of a commonly intelligible “common language” to sing their songs and tell their tales in every town they decided to stop at.
Of course, Tuscan was not the only language used by storytellers: there is a vast and ancient tradition of songs and poetry in Roman and Neapolitan dialects, as well as in any local dialect or language spoken in Italy that you can think of. But as soon as the storytellers got out of the region where that language was understood, they would not have been able to entertain anyone with their songs had they not switched to a “lingua franca”.
This common language, an early version of what was to become Italian, soon became widely employed all over Italy for this artistic scope, with the relevant exception of large cities, such as Rome and Naples, where storytellers could make a living without travelling too far; Sicily, which had its own very developed tradition of songs and poetry; and the most unreachable regions, such as Sardinia and the Alpine and Apennine mountain regions, which were too difficult to reach.
Thus it can be said that the evolution of Italian did not take place directly from Latin, but rather arose from the need for a new “common language” understandable by all the inhabitants of the Italian peninsula, that replaced the disappearing Latin over a background of thousands of different languages and dialects that were the evolution of the vulgar versions of Latin spoken since Roman times. And it can be said that literature and poetry were the greatest drivers behind the making of the Italian language, which is probably part of the reason for its musicality.
Differently from other Romance languages, Italian was not the language of the rulers of the new Nation, imposed over other languages, but in fact it predated National unity and was already widespread, although not widely spoken, when the Piedmontese unified Italy. Were it not so, we would all be speaking Piedmontese now, God forbid.
