Quote Originally Posted by INoKnowNames View Post
I still don't see why we didn't just stay with Latin, rather than even bothering with the derivatives knock-offs. If it forms so much of the backbone of so many languages and is thought to be so awesome by everyone... I really should be paying more attention in class.. then again, we're on ancient china and india right now...
Oh, that.

Essentially, the reason is "language doesn't work that way". I have somewhat less expertise here than on the other subject, but... have you ever read Shakespeare, and had trouble figuring out what was being said? Did you know Shakespeare wrote only about four hundred years ago, and used what is considered to be the same form of English that we use (i.e., not Old English)? Now realize that Latin had its heyday more like two thousand years ago, and you'll get some sense of how different it would've become - did become, in fact, in different areas of the Empire. Italy speaks it one way, France another, Spain another, and so on.

Geography also played a role. The Romans did have some presence in the British Isles, but I don't think it was anything like as much as they had on most of the Continent. The distance, combined with a couple of later invasions by the... Angles? Jutes? I don't remember who's who off the top of my head except for the Normans, and I know they were later. Anyway, Germanic peoples invaded after the Romans stopped being a world superpower, and brought their own language, overriding whatever foothold Latin had managed to get.

And that's how Pinkie got her cutie mark.