Re: [tied] Latin break up Re: Why did Proto-Germanic break up?

23-10-03 07:08, siglo_20th_century wrote:

> I say that it wasn't to Rome's success that the Romance languages owe
> their origins, on the contrary, it was rather to the fall of the
> Empire and subsequent political breakup that facilitated the
> dispersion of latin and eventual birth of the Romance family.

Without Rome's initial success there would have been no Empire to fall,
no Latinisation of much of Europe, and Latin would have remained the
local dialect of Latium, Italy. The fact the Romance languages now
spoken from Moldavia to Portugal derive from a common ancestor is due to
the _rise_ of the Roman Empire.

Piotr