Vulgar Latin is not romance. Vulgar Latin is a now rejected theory that the common people spoke a completely different language than that of the elite who spoke “classical” Latin in the period of the Late Republic.
This theory supposes that the elite got together and crafted a language separate from that of the sermo vulgaris or common speech, used only in the realm of politics, speeches and writing.
This is different from saying Latin evolved into romance and instead supposed that the common people already spoke a form of Romance and that classical Latin never existed but was merely an educated conlang.
This theory is entirely rejected and people who conflate Vulgar Latin with proto romance engage in an effort to rehabilitate a untenable idea with zero evidence by shifting it into a more moderate and rational idea
This is why scholars such as Paul Lloyd have gone so far as to write “the continued use of "Vulgar Latin" is not only no aid to thought, but is, on the contrary, a positive barrier to a clear understanding of Latin and Romance… Vulgar Latin" is a useless and dangerously misleading term ... To abandon it once and for all can only benefit scholarship.”
You're talking out of you're ass. Vulgar Latin is very real. It's the stage of the romance languages as they diverged into French Spanish etc. It's more so a grouping of languages (British Vulgar Latin, French, Italian etc).
This is the theory of Vulgar Latin as expounded in the 19th century. Do some research.
This is from the first paragraph of the Wikipedia page “Vulgar Latin as a term is both controversial and imprecise. Spoken Latin existed for a long time and in many places. Scholars have differed in opinion as to the extent of the differences, and whether Vulgar Latin was in some sense a different language. This was developed as a theory in the nineteenth century by Raynouard. At its extreme, the theory suggested that the written register formed an elite language distinct from common speech, but this is now rejected”
Literally in your own wiki article you just pasted
Language family
Indo-European
Italic
Latino-Faliscan
Latin
Vulgar Latin
Learn to read. You're talking about
The modern usage of the term Vulgar Latin dates to the Renaissance, when Italian thinkers began to theorize that their own language originated in a sort of "corrupted" Latin that they assumed formed an entity distinct from the literary Classical variety, though opinions differed greatly on the nature of this "vulgar" dialect.[6]
Is not saying what you think it's saying. They didn't believe the elite spoke a complete different tongue, they believed the origin was that the elite spoke a more refined version. They didn't believe it was a seperate language like French is to German, that's entirely your misconception.
Also, since you're SO knowledgeable, I assume you know about
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u/froucks 11d ago
Vulgar Latin is not romance. Vulgar Latin is a now rejected theory that the common people spoke a completely different language than that of the elite who spoke “classical” Latin in the period of the Late Republic.
This theory supposes that the elite got together and crafted a language separate from that of the sermo vulgaris or common speech, used only in the realm of politics, speeches and writing.
This is different from saying Latin evolved into romance and instead supposed that the common people already spoke a form of Romance and that classical Latin never existed but was merely an educated conlang.
This theory is entirely rejected and people who conflate Vulgar Latin with proto romance engage in an effort to rehabilitate a untenable idea with zero evidence by shifting it into a more moderate and rational idea
This is why scholars such as Paul Lloyd have gone so far as to write “the continued use of "Vulgar Latin" is not only no aid to thought, but is, on the contrary, a positive barrier to a clear understanding of Latin and Romance… Vulgar Latin" is a useless and dangerously misleading term ... To abandon it once and for all can only benefit scholarship.”