Distance in change

[Frank Rossi]

However, in the area around the city of Rome itself, unlike the country
districts of Lazio, the language has changed even more due to the outside
influence of Tuscan, itself a descendant of Latin, but with an Etruscan
substrate.

The pre-modern "romanesco" dialect, as spoken for example in the last
century,  was not a pure local dialect of Lazio, descended without
interruption from Latin, but was strongly influenced by Tuscan, cf.
Corsican.

Secondly, the present spoken language in the city of Rome is the Roman
version of the Italian language, itself based on the Florentine dialect of
Tuscan, and of course influenced by the "romanesco" substrate.

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[ moderator snip ]

> I'll make an exception to my policy of only replying to statements when I
> disagree: This is simply too good and too important to pass unnoticed. In
> Finno-Ugric linguistics it was for a long time a matter of hot debate
> which Finnish sound changes were due to Germanic influence - and which
> ones to Baltic. It may have dawned on the field since then that any
> language can change by itself, but simple things just need to be said once
> in a while.

> Jens