It is difficult to give an answar, but here are some facts:
Italian has a lot of germanic loan-words, but most of the Latin
vocabulary still exist in a recognizable form. The Italian vocabolary
consist mainly of 4 parts.
-Latin words having gone through a normal phonetic development. F.
ex: frigidus>freddo
-Greek words, mostly originated through latin.
-Latin words having been reborrowed back to Italian in their original
shape, but furnished with italian endings. This process has given a
lot words having two shapes with a slightly different meaning: f.ex.
freddo/frigido
- Germanic loan-words: Albergo (hotel)
Italian verbal flextion has preserved the 4 latin conjugations with
nearly all its subgroups, even though the latin 2. and 3. conjugation
are edited into Italian 2. cojugation in Italian grammars.
Italian also have preserved a rest of the Latin Neutrum - even though
it is not called so in Italian grammars. ovum - ova egg-eggs, uovo -
uova.
I do not know anything about Sardinian comapared to latin.
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Che" <almogaver69@...> wrote:
> Which is, in your opinion, the closest language to Latin? I know
there's more than one single answer depending on the focus, but may
we say that Sardinian fits best with Latin both in grammar and
lexicon?
>
> I heard Sardinian is actually the closest one to "Classical" Latin,
so may we guess there's another language closest to "Vulgar" Latin?
>
> Is really Italian so "Latin"? I mean isn't it actually full of
germanisms?
>
> Well, I thank your answers in advance.