Hello,
I recently looked into learning Latin and I researched a little history about it. From what I saw Spanish, Portugese, Italian, French, and Romanian all came from Latin and Vulgur Latin.
I was just wondering if I should learn romance languages first or Latin.
There is no right or wrong language to learn. Latin is useful when learning learning Romance languages, but not required by any means. Romance languages are also easier by most standards than Latin. In the end, you should learn whichever you want to most.
I think I should rephrase the question. (I typed that so fast that I’m surprised I spelled anything correctly. 
)
I’m going to learn the Romance languages either way, I’m just wondering which order I should learn them.
Well, even with a little knowledge of Latin, your ability to understand all Romance languages will probably be remarkably improved. It can go the other way too though; sometimes when I learn Romance languages I realize something about Latin. I would recommend learning Latin first since it would be downhill from there and you would have a solid grammar foundation , unless you have a particular passion for a different language. You should follow your interest if you have a drive to learn some particular language, it fuels motivation.
Ah! here I can be of help, having gone through much of the process. My recommendation would be to learn Italian first — a working knowledge; a semester or two would be enough before the next step. Then proceed to Latin, and understand all the origins and divergences between Latin and Italian. After a semester’s worth or two of Latin, you’ll be ready for French. French is grammatically in many ways the same language as Italian, but orthographically is very different from Italian. However, already knowing the Latin vocabulary inherent in English, combined with real Latin knowledge, and also a working comprehension of Italian grammar, you will pick up French with terrible ease. I had a good amount of Italian first, then took a semester of Latin and continued studying on my own, and then, already armed with English which gets so much of its vocabulary directly from French, I didn’t even need the first semester of French; I jumped right into the second one, and had no problem.
The Iberian languages, that is, Spanish and Portuguese, are noticeably different from Italian and French, which share a great deal in common as I mentioned. In some ways they seem more heavily influenced by the native Germanic and Celtic tongues that existed prior to Roman expansion, and in some ways not as much as, say, French. But still, after you have decent conversational skills in Italian and French and can read some Latin, Spanish will be a piece of cake, just another delightful varient among the colorful Romantic tapestry. Last summer I resolved to learn Spanish grammar, so I downloaded dozens of lessons and learned it all in three days; it was ridiculously easy to understand after having such a broad base; though I don’t practice it much and I haven’t learned much vocabulary, and I’m not as fond of the language in general so I don’t get around to using it that much (I’m very chauvanistic with my pro-Italianicity, as many here will attest 
). And after Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian thereafter will fall into place nicely as an accademic afterthought.
There are many important reasons why starting with Italian and then Latin is imperative. For one, these languages (with the possible exception of Romanian) are among the least used in the modern world and the hardest to find classes for (My university, for instance, just last Fall killed the Italian program, which has left me horribly irate and disillusioned with the college). So if you know of an open Italian class, I suggest you take it at once! The reward, in my opinion, of the most beautiful language on earth and all its divine literature will be well worth it on its own.
It is also very important not to start learning the Romance languages with Spanish, if at all possible. There is a certain rigidity to Spanish grammar which makes the comprehension of the other Romance languages based on Spanish very difficult, it seems. My girlfriend has taken many years of Spanish and knows it very well, and recently I have begun teaching her Italian (we are both Italian in origin) yet the flexibility of Italian grammar is baffling to her after so many years of learning “no other way” Spanish grammar rules, where Italian usually has it “both ways,” if you will. Also, Italian is much easier to learn than Spanish, in my opinion, both on account of its flexibility and its ease of pronunciation and expression. If you put in just a little decent effort, the flower that is the Italian language will grow for you like a Florentine lily in the warm light of the Tuscan sun.
I also recommend against learning Latin first. Latin is naturally the fundament of all these wondrous tongues, but Latin lacks a few critical elements in the manner of its teaching that all the other Romance languages do have. It is not taught as a “spoken” language (which is absurd considering that it’s a national language, but that’s a rant for another thread), so teachers do not tend to pronounce it well or correctly, and students pick up all the same bad habits; students reproduce the language no more than by translating simple phrases, and are never trained to use their skills with any common sense, so ingraining the language is rendered for a beginner immediately impossible. Also, the ancient Rome which we Latinists covet so much no longer exists, and we cannot simply journey to such a land where all the natives speak Latin; in short, a full emersion experience is almost impossible (excepting those privileged few among the students who come to learn at the Vatican — again a rant for another thread). And the worst reason to start with Latin first is that it is very, very hard compared to the simplified grammar of modern languages. In truth, Latin is not per se difficult, if taught correctly (such as by a very well-spoken Latin teacher using the book Lingua Latina), but it never is. The difficulties and “strangness” of Latin may turn you off to Romance, without having had the proper and very effective conditioning that the learning of a modern Romance language first will offer. Therefore I strongly recommend going through Italian first; and after your grasp therewith is quite firm, you will be able to understand, and pronounce, Latin with a terrific ease. You will have an incredible advantage over your fellow Latin students with the implicit knowledge imbued in you by la lingua italiana.
Now, depending on your mode of study, you might separate the starting of a new language by months, weeks, or even years; but the order and the time you put into it all is the critical part of the effort.
I wish you the best of luck, and please don’t hesitate to ask us, any of us (we all clamor to help new folk) for assistance, in any of these areas.
Ouch. Bad news. 
I started with Spanish, and I did not have any particular difficulty with learning Latin that others in my class lacked. No offense, but maybe your girlfriend is just inflexible in that respect, or the method by which she learned is more rigid than the Spanish language has to be. I haven’t noticed a lot of Celtic or Germanic influence on Spanish (I would be fascinated by some examples though), but there is the Arabic influence. There are in fact people who believe Spanish is the Romance language most true to Latin orthographically and/or pronunciation-wise, though I am sure they are outnumbered by those who claim Italian is.
Hehe, I’m sure a Venezuelan like yourself won’t experience the same kind of difficulty; having a Romance language as one’s native tongue can do nothing but make it easier to grasp other Romance languages. But starting from English is a different story.
I started with Spanish, and I did not have any particular difficulty with learning Latin that others in my class lacked. No offense, but maybe your girlfriend is just inflexible in that respect, or the method by which she learned is more rigid than the Spanish language has to be.
Ah, perhaps I wasn’t very specific with what I meant; I believe that going from Spanish to Italian, or even to French, is much harder than going from Italian to Spanish or Italian to French. Having Spanish before starting Latin, though, would probably be reasonably helpful with Latin vocabulary. Latin, however, is extremely alien from its daughter tongues; Italian, French, and Spanish all share more in common with each other than any of them do with Latin. Therefore having any Romance experience before Latin is definitely helpful at least somewhat in apprehending classical vocabulary, but since the nature of Latin is so far removed from that of any of the other Romance tongues, climbing the towering mountain that is the Roman language is an extremely different endeavor compared with the brisk walks among the rolling hills of Spanish, French, and Italian.
I haven’t noticed a lot of Celtic or Germanic influence on Spanish (I would be fascinated by some examples though), but there is the Arabic influence.
Ah yes, definitely plenty of Arabic influence on vocabulary — though any other uniquely Spanish words that cannot be traced to vulgar Latin or Arabic are most likely from the native languages that existed in situ beforehand. The structure of certain grammatical rigidities in Spanish, though, such as the Spanish perfect tense, come to mind as appearing distinctly Germanic to me; for instance, the past participle of the Spanish perfect tense does not change, under any circumstances, nor can there be any word between the past participle and the main verb. In French and Italian, however, these past participles in the perfect tense decline all the time with respect to the gender and number of the direct object, and plenty of words can get stuck in between. And this trend in French and Italian is a vestige from the flexibility of Latin, and therefore I would avocate Italian (over Spanish) as the best Romance language to start with before diving into Latin.
There are in fact people who believe Spanish is the Romance language most true to Latin orthographically and/or pronunciation-wise, though I am sure they are outnumbered by those who claim Italian is.
Well, as for orthography, the only real strike against Italian is the multitude of double consonants in place of Latin’s consonant combinations (such as L. fructus versus It. frutto). Otherwise Italian is much closer to Latin, not only in that it has retained the vowel lengths of Latin, whereas Spanish has no long vowels, but also since the double consonants of Latin largely are not present in Spanish. Cf. L. intellegens with It. intellegente vs. Sp. inteligente. Another important example is that Italian actually retains many, indeed, most of Latin’s infinitives in their original form.
Lucus, I think I’m going to start learn Italian, what do you think? I just don’t know what book to use. Do you think Spanish and Italian are related enough that I will only be needing a little bit of grammar and a lot of vocabulary, or should a go for a thorough course?
I think that’s fabulous. 
I just don’t know what book to use. Do you think Spanish and Italian are related enough that I will only be needing a little bit of grammar and a lot of vocabulary, or should a go for a thorough course?
Hm, well, the main caveats with Italian coming from a Spanish background are not the differences, but the similarities. Italian and Spanish are deceptively similar. Therefore a tendency to fall back on your native tongue will happen a lot if you don’t catch yourself. I witnessed this among my Spanish friends in Florence; whereas they had had as much Italian experience as myself and roommate, when we spoke with them, little Spanishisms would creep up in their speech, while he and I didn’t have that problem, since the Romance languages are relatively alien to our native English.
That aside, it depends on what kind of a student you are, and how you learn. I definitely recommend a class; a classroom setting is the next best thing to actual immersion in the culture. But if you don’t have the time or the access, you might tackle Italian in a manner similar to how you might learn Latin: memorizing the back of an Italian textbook, all the paradigms of verbs. But that probably won’t be necessary; if you have a textbook of any kind, all you probably need to do is follow its instructions in the chapters and do the exercises — if it comes with an audio CD, that is optimum, for you should hear how the language is pronounced. Again, this is where Italian is deceptively similar to Spanish, for Spanish “sounds” like Italian in a few ways, which may deceive you into incorrect pronunciations. Pay careful attention.
As for concentrating more on grammar than on vocabulary … it’s hard to say. Both Italian grammar and vocabulary seem about equal in distance from their respective Spanish counterparts. Ultimately, you should go for a thorough course, but you could probably skip a year or so (depending where you’re taking the course) by simply studying on your own for a few months. Then, go to Italy. I know of an incredible program, that I took just last winter at Florence University. Let me know if you ever want details.
Don’t make me laugh. Portuguese is the closest of the modern
Romance languages to Latin and Spainish comes in as the second one. Your pathetic nationalism is beyond belief in this day and age
and just gives a bad name to Italians.
Italy was constantly invaded over the centuries (Visigoths, Huns, Vandals, Ostrogoths, Lombards, Franks, Byzantines, Moslems, etc. etc.) and was therefore subject to numerous changes and influences on their language.
Portugal was relatively isolated until the 20th century (the only large influence being that of the Arabians) and was able to keep its language relatively closer to the original Latin … as any unbiased linguist will be able to tell you.
I wonder how long it will take for people to stop being nationalistic
(the mistaken belief that one country is somehow superior to another)
and start thinking of themselves as equal members of the planet earth…
I am honestly ashamed to admit that I have Italian descent when people like yourself make Italians look like bigoted nationalists…
Ah! our trolling friend with poor quoting ability has returned! Gaudeamus igitur! 
Your pathetic nationalism is beyond belief in this day and age
and just gives a bad name to Italians.
“nationalism”? Last I checked, I was an American citizen, not Italian. And had you read anything I actually wrote, you clearly would have seen my advocation and esteem were for the Italian language, and mentioned nary a word of the people or nation.
Italy was constantly invaded over the centuries (Visigoths, Huns, Vandals, Ostrogoths, Lombards, Franks, Byzantines, Moslems, etc. etc.) and was therefore subject to numerous changes and influences on their language.
"it’s language" you mean to say, “it’s”; the singular noun “Italy” takes the singular construction.
Portugal was relatively isolated until the 20th century (the only large influence being that of the Arabians) and was able to keep its language relatively closer to the original Latin … as any unbiased linguist will be able to tell you.
Ah! and you would be such an unbiased linguist?
I wonder how long it will take for people to stop being nationalistic
(the mistaken belief that one country is somehow superior to another)
and start thinking of themselves as equal members of the planet earth…
Me too … it’s so sad, really … sometimes, I go and sit in pretty fields where the green grasses grow and butterflies still fly, and sit under a nice big tree, and I wonder how long it will take for people to stop being nationalistic, too. Why can’t the world be a better place?! I ask myself in desperate vain as I ponder the day when we all join hands in world peace, and then I pick a daisy, and I cry, softly, as I pluck off each of its little white petals, and remember all the tragic lost in the Great War … sometimes I even sing to myself …
Oh how do you do, young Willie McBride … do you mind if I sit here right by your brave side …
Notice how he didn’t address the issue
He just resorted to Ad Hominem attacks
Interesting
Maybe it is because he knows what I said was true?
LOL
It makes me laugh how ignorant people resort to personal attacks
when they have nothing of substance to offer!
Here is a lesson for Lucus on how he can present information
to back up his statement that Italian is closer to Latin.
Let try some random words and see what happens:
"Cheese"in Latin = Caseus, Casei
Portuguese-queijo
Spanish-queso
Romanian=Cas
French-fromage
Italian-formaggio
"Wheat"in Latin = Triticum, Tritici
Portuguese-trigo
Spanish-trigo
Romanian=grâu
French-blé, froment
Italian-frumento, grano
"God"in Latin = Deus, Dei
Portuguese-deus
Spanish-dios
Romanian=Dumnezeu
French-dieu
Italian-dio
"Tree"in Latin = Arbor, Arboris
Portuguese-árvore
Spanish-árbol
Romanian=arbore
French-arbrelor
Italian-àlbero
"Flower"in Latin = Flos, Floris
Portuguese-flor
Spanish-flor
Romanian=floare
French-fleur
Italian-fiore, fioritura
"Grandmother"in Latin = Avia, Aviae
Portuguese-avó
Spanish-abuela
Romanian=bunică
French-grand-mère
Italian-nonna
"Day"in Latin = Dies, Diei
Portuguese-dia
Spanish-dia
Romanian=zi
French-journée, jour
Italian-giorno
Hmm which ones look closer to Latin to you Lucus?
Looks like Spanish and Portuguese win.
Do you have examples of where Italian is closer to
Latin than Portuguese is? If so please post them..
and stop playing your Ad Hominem games.
Well, I have no idea if which language is closest to Latin but taking some random words just proves nothing. And also you choosed the words arbitrarly, since in Italian do exist for example:
Cacio = cheese
tritico and triticale (a sort of cereal) = wheat
arbore = tree
avo = avus (in both the Latin meaning, grandfather and ancestor)
But what about Latin dea = goddess that in Spanish is diosa and in Italian dea?
About invasions: most Europe has been conquered and dominated by someone else. The Vandals founded a kingdom in Iberia and the geografic name Andalusia means just Vandalusia. Usually most romance languages have a lot of “germanisms” (e.g.Italian guerra, French guerre, Spanish guerra = war) and it gives some evidence about what I said.
By the way in discussions about which language is the closest to Latin, nobody usually cites Sardinian that is very very conservative (domu for house, mannu for big), it doens’t have any germanism AFAIK and it has got some interesting features like having devoloped the article “sa” from ipse instead of ille like the other sister languages. Before being accused of nationalism, please note a) I am not Sardinian b) I love Portuguese (and all the other romance languages) c) I believe that Latin (and Greek) is the background of all the Western countries and there is no room for nationalism in this matter (but it seems that only Jotapianus has found out “nationalism” in the Lucus Eques’ speech).
Lucus, I see you’re guilty for italianophilia, but I forgive your sin, since I am guilty as well of anglophilia, germanophilia, francophilia, lusitanophilia and many other -philias. All together at the same time, I think I have a disorded personality
Regards
Misopogon
Ah, e che dolce la pazzia! and how sweet the madness, that drives us to love so many languages and cultures! Let us rejoice in our disordered personalities, pour a few libations to the gods as we celebrate our amicable philia!
tritico and triticale is used for a hybird grain that is made from wheat and rye. This is not wheat.
formaggio and àlbero are more commonly used than the other
alternatives you give (as you very well know).
"Cheese"in Latin = Caseus, Casei
Portuguese-queijo
Spanish-queso
Romanian=Cas
French-fromage
Italian-formaggio, Casio
"Tree"in Latin = Arbor, Arboris
Portuguese-árvore
Spanish-árbol
Romanian=arbore
French-arbrelor
Italian-àlbero, arbore
I gave the word Grandmother which in Italian is Avola (not Avo):
"Grandmother"in Latin = Avia, Aviae
Portuguese-avó
Spanish-abuela
Romanian=bunică
French-grand-mère
Italian-nonna, avola
Grandfather:
"Grandfather"in Latin = Avus
Portuguese-avô
Spanish-abuelo
Romanian=bunic
French-aïeul, grand-père
Italian-avo, avolo, nonno
This is Goddess:
“Goddess” in Latin: Dea, Deae
Portuguese-deusa, deidade, diva
Spanish-diva, deidad, diosa
Romanian=zeiţă
French-deessee
Italian-dea
While the Italians have been conquered and divided into
different kingdoms at various times
the Spanish and Portuguese managed to remain independent
in the mountains of the north and were thus able to preserve
the purity of their language while the Italians were not.
Portuguese retains many grammatical forms no longer found in other members of the Romance language group. The future subjunctive and future perfect subjunctive, for example, remain in use. As in old forms of Spanish, the endings of the future and the conditional in modern Portuguese may be detached from the stem to permit the interpolation of the object pronoun. Portuguese is the only Romance language with a personal or inflected infinitive. For example, partir (“to depart”) may be conjugated partir eu, “for me to depart” or “that I may depart.” In addition to the compound pluperfect, Portuguese has also a simple one developed from the Latin plusquamperfect; thus the pluperfect of amara means “I had loved” in addition to the conventional “I would love”.
A great number of nouns have the distinctive endings of a for the feminine form and o for the masculine form, corresponding to Latin nouns of the first and second declensions, respectively. The sign of the plural in Portuguese is regularly s.
Portuguese, both in morphology and syntax, represents an organic transformation of Latin without the direct intervention of any foreign language. The sounds, grammatical forms, and syntactical types, with a few exceptions, are derived from Latin. And almost 90% of the vocabulary is still derived from the language of Rome. Some of the changes began during the Empire, others took place later. In Late Middle Ages, Portuguese was eroding as much as French, but a conservative policy re-approached it to Latin.
Very few traces of the native or pre-Roman settlers like the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Iberians, or Celts lexicon persist in the language, but there are some exceptions, such as Abóbora (pumpkin) and Bezerro (year-old calf) from Iberian languages or Cerveja (beer) and Saco (bag) from Celtic and Phoenician, respectively.
Post-Roman influences, before the Discovery age, were also small. The Germanic influence in Portuguese was restricted to warfare and related topics, such has Barão (baron) from Germanic baro or Guerra (war) from Gothic *wirro. Projections indicate 1000 Arabic loan words, including: Aldeia (village) from aldaya, Alface (lettuce) from alkhass, Armazém (warehouse) from almahazan, Azeite (olive oil) from azzait and most words starting with “al”.
With the Portuguese discoveries linguistic contact was made, and the Portuguese language became influenced by other languages other than European or Arabic. These influences are also small even in the local variations of Portuguese in Brazil and Africa.
It is true that the Sardinian language is much closer to Latin than Italian.
But this language is considered endangered because the number of its speakers is declining all the time. Sardinian, however, preserves many forms that were peculiar to Latin before the Classical period. Roman citizens arrived on the island in the 4th century BC and the Sardinian language developed in isolation from Europe. This is why the language has preserved a number of features very archaic and dissimilar to most other Romance languages. However, the verbal analytic constructions prevail dramatically over the ancient synthetic ones. This can have occurred due to the non-Indo-European substratum influence. The participles do not use the category of tense.
Compare the Pater Noster in Latin with the translation
into Portuguese and Sardinian
Latin:
Pater Noster, qui es in caelis,
sanctificétur nomen Tuum,
adveniat Regnum Tuum,
fiat volúntas tua,
sicut in caelo et in terra.
Panem nostrum cotidiánum da nobis hódie,
et dimitte nobis débita nostra,
sicut et nos dimittímus debitóribus nostris;
et ne nos indúcas in tentationem,
sed libera nos a malo.
Portuguese:
Pai nosso, que estás nos céus:
santificado seja o teu nome.
Venha o teu reino.
Seja feita a tua vontade,
assim na terra, como no céu.
O pão nosso de cada dia nos dá hoje.
E perdoa-nos as nossas dívidas,
assim como nós perdoamos aos nossos devedores.
E não nos induzas à tentação,
mas livra-nos do mal.
Sardinian:
Babbu nostru, chi stas in sos celos,
santificadu siat su numene tuu;
benjat a nois su rennu tuu;
siat fatta sa voluntade tua comente in su celu In sa terra.
Dae-nos oe su pane nostru cotidianu,
perdona-nos sos peccados nostros
comente nois los perdonamus;
libera da onji tentathione,
libera-nos a male.
Here is the Italian version:
Padre nostro che sei nei cieli,
sia santificato il tuo nome;
venga il tuo regno,
sia fatta la tua volontà,
come in cielo così in terra.
Dacci oggi il nostro pane quotidiano,
rimetti a noi i nostri debiti,
come noi li rimettiamo ai nostri debitori
e non ci indurre in tentazione,
ma liberaci dal male.
Well, I have no idea if which language is closest to Latin but taking some random words just proves nothing. And also you choosed the words arbitrarly, since in Italian do exist for example:
Cacio = cheese
tritico and triticale (a sort of cereal) = wheat
arbore = tree
avo = avus (in both the Latin meaning, grandfather and ancestor)But what about Latin dea = goddess that in Spanish is diosa and in Italian dea?
About invasions: most Europe has been conquered and dominated by someone else. The Vandals founded a kingdom in Iberia and the geografic name Andalusia means just Vandalusia. Usually most romance languages have a lot of “germanisms” (e.g.Italian guerra, French guerre, Spanish guerra = war) and it gives some evidence about what I said.
By the way in discussions about which language is the closest to Latin, nobody usually cites Sardinian that is very very conservative (domu for house, mannu for big), it doens’t have any germanism AFAIK and it has got some interesting features like having devoloped the article “sa” from > ipse > instead of > ille > like the other sister languages. Before being accused of nationalism, please note a) I am not Sardinian b) I love Portuguese (and all the other romance languages) c) I believe that Latin (and Greek) is the background of all the Western countries and there is no room for nationalism in this matter (but it seems that only Jotapianus has found out “nationalism” in the Lucus Eques’ speech).
Lucus, I see you’re guilty for italianophilia, but I forgive your sin, since I am guilty as well of anglophilia, germanophilia, francophilia, lusitanophilia and many other -philias. All together at the same time, I think I have a disorded personality >
Regards
Misopogon
Jotapianus,
I am not a linguist and, alas, I cannot speak Portuguese (yet), so I cannot comment all your arguments. From a phonetic point of view, after reading the Pater Noster you posted, I wouldn’t say portuguese is closer than Italian or Spanish. E.g the participium “facta” becomes “feita” in Pt., fatta in It., hecha in Es.,
It is true for triticale but according to De Mauro’s dictionary (but you can choose another one) tritico is “frumento (lett.)” . It is true it is not a common term for wheat but it is not a foreign word in Italian.
Casio doesn’t exist in Italian, caseo and cacio do. Cacio is very frequent in some part of Italy, esp. in Tuscany, and it is not rare. Arbore is arcaic and a bit poetic, true. But as for tritico is still Italian.
I never said avo means grandmother! The same dictionary:
AVO = nonno (basso uso = not much used) = grandfather
AVOLO = nonno (obsoleto = obsolet) = grandfather
Anyway I believe that avulus existed in late Latin. Unfortunately I haven’t a Late Latin dictionary for checking it, please correct me if I am wrong.
Diva is also common in Italian.
Purity of language? Has there ever been such a thing? Was the Latin spoken in Gallia, Iberia or Germania “pure”? Or was it already mixted with the local languages, like Celtic, Iberian or in Italy, Celtic, Veneticum, Sanniticum and so on?
Italian is based on Tuscan language that was very conservative; some scholars argue that it was so because it has devoloped over a not indoeuropean language (i.e. Etrurian)
Very interesting. However is it possible that other romance languages has retained other features which have been lost in Portuguese?
We need to compare the whole structure, not just some aspects (and it is true also for vocabulary): For example the plural of uovo ( ovum,egg) in Italian is uova keeping the plural neutral ending in -a. And so?
I am too ignorant to answer, we need a romance language polyglott, where is Filius Lunae?
The same in Italian and in Spanish. Italian devoloped the plurals (1st and 2nd declination) from nominative e.g. Latin rana, pl. ranae becomes in It. rana pl. rane
As already wrote, I cannot comment due to my ignorance here. Only a precisation: saco is common in most romance language and more: Fr. sac (e.g cul de sac), It. sacco, En. sack. It is logical because in Latin there is saccum (used already by Cicero accordin to my dictionary). Was it punicum ?
Interesting. Anybody knows the frequency of Germanic/Arab words in Italian, Spanish etc? It would be the right way for comparing the languages (leaving aside later borrowings of course)
To be precise: Sardinia was conquered in 238 B.C. (first punic war), earlier it was ruled by Carthage (at least the coasts). And Sardinian is not endagered: it is widely spoken in the island and has legislative protection. Some radios and TV’s broadcast regurarly in Sardinian. Of course the influence of Italian is very strong nowadays.
As I told you I don’t know which language is closest to Latin and I don’t advocate it is Italian or anything else. Prima facie it seems to me that Italian, Spanish (and why not Sardinian) could be better candidates. I might be wrong of course. Anyway it’s not a fundamental question, it’s just a divertissement for Latin lovers and wannabe linguists like myself. Unless you think that the candidate language should be considered more noble than the sisters
Regards
Misopogon
You guys are confusing me. 
I don’t know who to believe… 
They’re just reenacting an old peeing contest.
The best advice is nearly always to start by studying the languages you want/need/are required to know first.
So I’d suggest you start with the Romance languages you intend to learn. You can come back to Latin later to enrich your understanding of how the languages developed. There’s no need to start with Latin if that isn’t your focus.