query latin romance following hypothetical question arisen connection possibly real case sort another domain suppose latin occasionally written suppose latin texts indeed knowledge latin totally lost long ago apart perhaps odd place name personal name unknown significance suppose single romance language survived present day say galician gascon sicilian variety written four centuries never acquired learned words latin fact safe side let assume entire indo european family died apart one romance language suppose fairly substantial latin texts happened dug somewhere none longer fifty words wordboundaries systematically marked subject matter unknown might written several centuries case later first century bc knowing alphabet would able read phonological level least roughly first language would utterly mysterious question would possible specialists last surviving romance language establish recovered texts fact represented archaic form language would able use knowledge interpret least part texts anything turns summarize responses explain point admittedly curious inquiry sending query linguist list ie list apologies receive twice larry trask cogs university sussex brighton bn1 9qh england larryt cogs susx ac uk