Vulgar Latin

Vulgar Latin

any of the dialects of Latin spoken in the Roman Empire other than classical Latin. The Romance languages developed from them

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Vulgar Latin

 

popular Latin (Latin sermo vulgaris, colloquial speech), traditional term used to designate the living language of the masses of the people in the Roman Empire (beginning in the third to second century B.C.). Cicero, Quintillian, and others made the distinction between Vulgar Latin and literary Latin (sermo latina and lingua latino). During the fall of the Roman Empire in the.fourth and fifth centuries the single Latin language gradually underwent a process of differentiation. As a result of political and social changes the living Latin speech began to penetrate all areas of life. Because of the absence of political and cultural contact, the so-called popular Latin developed in different ways in various parts of the former Roman Empire, thus leading to the formation of the independent Romance languages in the ninth century.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.