No, Vulgar Latin isn't Latin filled with profanities or simply a slangy version of Classical Latin. Vulgar Latin is the father of the Romance languages, while the Latin taught at schools,
Classical Latin, is the grandfather. Vulgar Latin, was spoken differently in different countries, where over time, it became such familiar modern languages as Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese. There are more.
The Spread of Latin
When the Roman Empire spread, the language and customs of the Romans spread to peoples who already had their own languages and cultures. The spreading Empire required soldiers be positioned at all the outposts. These soldiers came from all over the Empire and spoke Latin diluted by their native tongues. In Rome itself, the common people did not speak the stilted Latin that we know of as Classical Latin, the literary language of the first century B.C. Not even the aristocrats, like
Cicero, actually spoke the literary language, although they wrote it. We can say this because in some of Cicero's personal correspondence, his Latin was less than the polished form we think of as typically Ciceronian. Classical Latin was, therefore, not the
lingua franca of the Roman Empire, even if Latin, in one form or another was.
Difference Between Vulgar Latin and Classical Latin
Throughout the Empire, Latin was spoken in many forms, but it was basically the version of Latin called Vulgar Latin, the fast-changing Latin of the common people (the word
vulgar comes from the Latin word for them). This Latin was a simpler form of the literary Latin, with terminal letters dropped, syllables dropped or metathesized, and decreasing use of inflections, as prepositions (ad (> à) and de) came to serve in place of
case endings on nouns. Colorful or slang (what we think of as 'vulgar') terms replaced traditional ones --
testa meaning 'jar' replaced
caput for 'head'. You may see some of what had happened to Latin by the third of fourth century A.D. when a list of 227 fascinating "corrections" [basically, Vulgar Latin, wrong; Classical Latin, right] was compiled by
Probus.
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. For professional and religious matters, Latin based on the literary Classical model, continued, but only the well-educated could speak or write it. The everyday person spoke the everyday language, which, with the passing years, diverged more and more from even Vulgar Latin, so that by the end of the sixth century, people from different sections of the Empire could no longer understand people in others: Latin had been replaced by the Romance languages.
Living Latin
Although both Vulgar and Classical Latin have largely been replaced by the Romance languages, there are still people who speak Latin. In the Roman Catholic Church, ecclesiastical Latin never entirely died out and has seen an increase in recent years. Some organizations deliberately use Latin so people can live or work in a living Latin environment. There has been a
radio news broadcast from Finland that is delivered all in Latin. There are also children's books that have been translated into Latin. There are also people who turn to Latin for new names for new objects, but this only requires an understanding of individual words and is not a "living" use of the Latin language.
