Latin Surviving as Major Language

You could say that Italian IS modern Latin.

Is modern demotika Greek any closer to classical Greek than Italian is to Latin? (I really don't know.) If classical Greek had given rise to half a dozen major modern languages, we might well call modern Greek 'Romaic,' or some such and regard it as just one of several Hellenic languages.
Italian is actually one of the more distant Romance languages of Latin, if I recall correctly. Its really descended from the dialect they spoke in Florence in the 14th century.
 
And just how much of Europe did the Holy Roman Empire rule?

I don't know where the rest of this topic went, but I just wanted to point out that this is misunderstanding the role the Empire and the Emperor played in Catholic, pre-Reformation Europe. While individual sovereigns may not have had to listen to him, right up through the Renaissance the Emperor was still considered a step above regular kinds. He had 'seniority', if not outright authority.
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
Italian is actually one of the more distant Romance languages of Latin, if I recall correctly.
Compared to the other Romance languages, it's actually fairly conservative across the board, although other Romance languages do occasionally preserve a more archaic feature that was not retained in Italian.
 
Compared to the other Romance languages, it's actually fairly conservative across the board, although other Romance languages do occasionally preserve a more archaic feature that was not retained in Italian.
Scratch what I said, he is the linguist.
 
Top