Why did Latin lose its cases?

1. Sounds erode. Languages with stress on the beginnings of words tend to have the least stress on the ends of words, and that’s where the Indo-European case endings were. In general, unstressed sounds tend to be less pronounced and eventually not pronounced, so they went away.

How did Vulgar Latin differ from Classical Latin?

Vulgar Latin was the spoken language of the common people in the Roman Empire, while Classical Latin was the written language of the educated people, governance and clergy.

How was Vulgar Latin created?

The modern usage of the term Vulgar Latin dates to the Renaissance, when Italian thinkers began to theorize that their own language originated in a sort of “corrupted” Latin that they assumed formed an entity distinct from the literary Classical variety, though opinions differed greatly on the nature of this “vulgar” …

What are the characteristics of Vulgar Latin?

Vulgar Latin was a simpler form of literary Latin. It dropped terminal letters and syllables (or they metathesized). It decreased the use of inflections since prepositions (ad (> à) and de) came to serve in place of case endings on nouns.

When did Vulgar Latin diverge from Classical Latin?

Vulgar Latin dialects began to significantly diverge from Classical Latin by the third century during the classical period of the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, throughout the sixth century, the most widely spoken dialects were still similar to and mostly mutually intelligible with Classical Latin.

What are the most important Latin words that have disappeared?

Classical Latin particles fared especially poorly, with all of the following vanishing from popular speech: an, at, autem, donec, enim, etiam, haud, igitur, ita, nam, postquam, quidem, quin, quoad, quoque, sed, sive, utrum, and vel. Many surviving words experienced a shift in meaning.

What happened to Latin as a language?

Latin Dies a Lingering Death. Between the changes in the language wrought by the native speakers of Latin, the changes made by the soldiers, and the interaction between Latin and the local languages, Latin was doomed—at least in common speech.