2 Latin and Romance
After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Latin evolved into the various Romance languages. These were for many centuries only spoken languages, Latin being still used for writing. (E.g. Latin was the official language of Portugal until 1296 when it was replaced by Portuguese.)
Actually the Romance languages are not derived from Classical Latin but rather from the spoken Vulgar Latin. Latin and Romance differ (for example) in that Romance had distinctive stress, whereas Latin had distinctive length of vowels. In Italian and Sardo logudorese, there is distinctive length of consonants and stress, in Spanish only distinctive stress, and in French even stress is no longer distinctive.
Another major distinction between Romance and Latin is that Romance languages, excluding Romanian, have lost their case endings in most words except for some pronouns. Romanian still has five cases (though the ablative case is no longer represented).
3 Latin and English
English grammar is not a direct derivative of Latin grammar. Attempts to make English grammar fit Latin rules — such as the contrived prohibition against the split infinitive — have not worked successfully in regular usage. However, as many as half the words in English were derived from Latin, including many words of Greek origin first adopted by the Romans, not to mention the thousands of French, Spanish, and Italian words of Latin origin that have also enriched English.
During the 16th and on through the 18th century English writers created huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek roots. These words, dubbed "inkpot" words (as if they had spilled from a pot of ink), were rich in flavor and meaning. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, but some remain. Imbibe, extrapolate, and inebriation are all inkpot terms carved from Latin and Greek words.
Latin, at one time, was commonly taught in most English schools. However, since the introduction of the Modern Language GCSE, Latin has gradually been phased out. Now, however, it, along with other Classic languages are being taught by more schools.
4 See also
4.1 About the Latin language
4.2 About the Latin literary heritage
4.3 Other related topics
