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Question: What happened to Latin after the Roman Empire fell!?
I am a Latin student, but do not remember learning about why Latin was discontinued!. Did it just fall off the face of the Earth when the Empire fell!? How did Italian begin!?

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Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
The Latin language survived the fall of the Roman empire!. For more than a thousand years, it was still used in Europe as the language of the educated, politics and science!. After the Middle Ages, new national languages had begun to emerge as distinct tongues themselves, Italian included!. By the 17th century, French had largely replaced Latin in diplomacy and social interaction of the upper classes!. Only the Roman Catholic Church retained use of the language!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

The Roman Empire didn't just disappear - elites merged with other power groups and by 400 AD Roman culture would have spread throughout Europe!. Don't forget also that by the time the Roman empire fell it had become Christian, and Latin did become the language of the church!. As such it became a lingua franca - i!.e!. a common language - for official church and government business throughout Europe!. Regional languages were not standardised - there was no such thing as one English language, for example - so to have a lingua franca with common rules of usage was important!.
Most written records from the Medieval era are therefore in Latin - it was the language of public life!. Sermons were conducted in Latin until the Protestant Revolution, despite the fact that the congregations, and usually the priests, didn't understand the language - they simply learnt it by rote!. It is not until the late medieval/ early modern period that we really start to see official documents in English!. The change can be largely out down to the Reformation message that the Bible should be in national languages (rather than Latin) so that believers could read it for themselves - i!.e!. religious culture became more accessible Www@QuestionHome@Com

It evolved into different languages, when it mixed with the languages of the local tribes

In the Iberian peninsula it gave origin to Spanish, Portuguese, and Gallego!. In France it gave origin to French!. Italy to Italian!. in Romania to the Romanian , etc!.

Latin remained as the language of science, especially during the Renaissance and centuries afterWww@QuestionHome@Com

Latin continued to be the language of learning throughout the Middle Ages!. It was gradually replaced by local languages (which, incidentally, many were corruptions of Latin) as the language of choice!.

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