 He and his contemporaries recognized the "lingua Latina"; but they also knew varieties of "speech" under the name '.Latin could be "sermo Latinus", but there was also a variety known as "sermo vulgaris", "sermo vulgi", "sermo plebeius" and "sermo quotidianus".These modifiers inform post-classical readers that a conversational Latin existed, which was used by the masses (') in daily speaking (') and was perceived as lower-class (').