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Anton: >> Romance is descended from the Latin of the soldiers and other >> commoners. Latin in its role as inter-language of the literate >> did not diverge much - that function depended on its fixity. Raven Silverwings wrote: > So this is why languages seem to become simpler in grammar? Huh?There may be a tendency for inflexions to be replaced by particles and word-order, but it works the other way too: particles can fuse to roots to become new inflexions.
> They aren't exact descendants, but they are related in word stock, > then that's why they are 'daughter' descendants and not 'sister' > descendants... I think... Other way around, but you're getting there.Note that closely related languages generally share grammatical features even if they don't use them the same way. The Romance forms that replace Latin _portaverunt_ `they carried' can be traced directly to Latin *_habent portatum_.
If two languages on previously unexplored islands are found to share most of their vocabulary but no grammatical forms, linguists generally assume that one was "relexified" from the other by an event such as the Norman conquest of England. Only if they share grammatical patterns are they considered truly related.
-- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/