Quote:
Originally Posted by olis
Modern Italian is closer to "volgare fiorentino" (the language in which Dante wrote the Divina Commedia) than to classic Latin. A modern Italian speaker can understand most of what is written in the Divina Commedia but he can understand very little of, for example, Cicero's works.
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I have found this to be true for myself. I'm embarrassed to admit that I speak very little Italian (embarrassed because I'm an Italian citizen; I should know how to speak the language). Back on topic -- I speak a little Italian but no Latin; a friend of mine speaks Latin but no Italian. They are very different languages indeed.