What living language is the closest to Latin?

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The Roman Empire conquered a large portion of Europe, they brought their language, Latin along with them. It was spoken throughout the empire but over the centuries, local, popular, nonstandard forms of Latin called 'Vulgar Latin' evolved into today's Romance languages. 
Image by KayYen

There are 5 major Romance languages (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian) and several minority Romance languages (such as Sardinian, Sicilian and Occitan). Romance languages are split into two groups, Western and Eastern. Western Romance languages include Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese, while Romanian is an Eastern Romance language.  



Grammar:
There is a common belief that Romanian is the closest language to Latin, but Romanian is probably only the closest in grammar. Romanian preserved certain features of Vulgar Latin grammar that other Romance languages lost. For example, Romanian has three genders (Masculine, Feminine and Neuter) and kept all six Latin cases. 

But, the pronunciation and vocabulary is not as similar to Latin when compared to Italian or Spanish. This is because Romanian was influenced by the surrounding Slavic languages.

Image by Mario Sánchez Prada
Pronunciation:
According to Wikipedia, Sardinian is the closest living language to Latin in phonology. 
There are ten vowels in Latin; a,e,i,o,u (short) and a,e,i,o,u (long). In continental Romance languages the short vowels e,i,o and u evolved into different sounds while in Sardinian the short vowels evolved and pronounced as long vowels. This probably helped to retain the original pronunciation. 

Image by Piermario
Vocabulary:
According to Wikipedia, Italian is the closest living language to Latin in vocabulary. This is because other Romance languages were influenced by their native Germanic, Slavic or Celtic languages such but in Rome, Latin was their native language. 

Image by Gerald Queen
Heritage:
Sardinian is the least evolved Romance language because the island was isolated from the changes that continental Vulgar Latin went through. 


Romance Language 'Family Tree'
Overall:
According to a study by Mario Pei, this is the percentage of difference between Romance languages and Latin:
Sardinian 8%,
Italian 12%, 
Spanish 20%,
Romanian 23.5%,
Occitan 25%,
Portuguese, 31%,
French 44%

So, the major Romance languages in order of closeness to Latin are Italian, Spanish, Romanian, Portuguese and French. 

Personally, I don't find it surprising that Italian is the closest because Latin originally came from Italy.

More information and resource list:

Vulgar Latin - Wikipedia
Romanian grammar - Wikipedia
Romance languages - Wikipedia


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