During our middle and high school studies, our language is presented to us as a direct derivation of Latin. Latin, again during the same courses of study, is presented to us as a monolithic object with the physical and stylistic features of the great writings of Cicero, Ovid, and Virgil, as if it had never changed. The transition from Latin to Italian is summarised as a magical metamorphosis of words from the ancient versions used by the Romans to their contemporary counterparts in everyday life, but this is not quite the case.

Reconstructing Italy's history is difficult because much of it is obscure. Its true root is Vulgar Latin, spoken by common people, not the high-status Classical Latin. Vulgar Latin had no standard grammar and was rarely written down.

For this reason, our ability to consult the primary source, the Appendix Probi, dated to the 3rd-5th centuries AD, is fundamental and invaluable. It records the considerations of a classical Latin grammarian on certain vernacular expressions that he deemed corrupt and erroneous. This concept is expressed through a comparison of the incorrect expression with its correct classical counterpart. For example, the vernacular word "calda" is corrected to the classical "calida," the vernacular word "colomna" is corrected to "columna," and the word "pecten" is corrected to "pectinis" (meaning comb).

What immediately strikes us is the astonishing similarity between the vernacular and the language we still use today, demonstrating a clear, direct genealogical relationship between our language and Vulgar Latin, not Classical Latin. In short, Italian is not the product of the prestigious language in which Cicero or Virgil wrote. We Italians speak a language that is a direct consequence of the language these poets used every day to communicate with friends and family, a much more popular language and therefore much more dynamically transformed.