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Description
Yes, I'm aware of the existence of wenedyk, but wanted to do my own take on it.

So, recently I have been reading Henryk Sienkiewicz's Trylogy (which, for those who don't know, is a series of Polish adventure novels taking place in the XVII-century Commonwealth) and one thing I noticed was the preponderance of Latin-based vocabulary in the dialogues between the members of Polish szlachta. It was not surprising; after all, Latin was the most common second language among the szlachta, ie Polish gentry. But it made me think. What if szlachta's deepest dreams came true, and Polish was indeed a descendant of Latin?

The offhand point of divergence I came up with is that Roman emperor Commodus doesn't withdraw behind the Danube line after the death of his father, instead chosing to hold and expand the new possessions. Eventually Romans subjugate the territories of today's Lesser Poland, which leads to their inhabitants adopting Latin as the native language.

The empire falls in the V century, as it did in our timeline. However, the territories that were under Roman influence turn out to be more apt at state-building and it's the Southern Polish tribe of Wiślanie, instead of the Western Polans, that eventually unites the Polish tribes. Because the administrative and cultural center of the state is situated in the South (to which it also shifted in OTL, but in this one it's there from the beginning), Poles are less interested in expanding East and opt for a dynastic union with Hungary instead. This personal union turns in time into a real one. But enough with the timeline. Let's talk language.

Wiślina is an east-romance language, drawing heavily from Slavic influence, much like Romanian did in OTL. However, its substrate is composed of Western Slavic dialects that in OTL have developed into Polish. Thus, many features of Polish are retained. Among them:
1. The abundance of nasal sounds: ą, ę and ų (which is present in Polish, but doesn't have its own symbol).
2. Polish-like declension patterns
3. Polish-like spelling and phonetics
4. A change of gender in those Latin words the Slavic equivalent of which is of a different gender (e.g. Latin word 'fluvius' is masculine, but Polish word 'rzeka' is feminine; the Latin-root word remains but changes its gender to match that of the Slavic counterpart. Hence it evolves into 'fluwa')

Also, a duality of register is present; there are many words that have both Slavic and Latin-root variants, and the choice between them is often a stylistic one (the Romance ones sounding more refined).

The image is an excerpt of an imaginary textbook aimed at teaching the language using the natural method and is based on a real book dedicated to teaching Latin, called Lingua Latina per se illustrata.

Enjoy!

Description
Yes, I'm aware of the existence of wenedyk, but wanted to do my own take on it.

So, recently I have been reading Henryk Sienkiewicz's Trylogy (which, for those who don't know, is a series of Polish adventure novels taking place in the XVII-century Commonwealth) and one thing I noticed was the preponderance of Latin-based vocabulary in the dialogues between the members of Polish szlachta. It was not surprising; after all, Latin was the most common second language among the szlachta, ie Polish gentry. But it made me think. What if szlachta's deepest dreams came true, and Polish was indeed a descendant of Latin?

The offhand point of divergence I came up with is that Roman emperor Commodus doesn't withdraw behind the Danube line after the death of his father, instead chosing to hold and expand the new possessions. Eventually Romans subjugate the territories of today's Lesser Poland, which leads to their inhabitants adopting Latin as the native language.

The empire falls in the V century, as it did in our timeline. However, the territories that were under Roman influence turn out to be more apt at state-building and it's the Southern Polish tribe of Wiślanie, instead of the Western Polans, that eventually unites the Polish tribes. Because the administrative and cultural center of the state is situated in the South (to which it also shifted in OTL, but in this one it's there from the beginning), Poles are less interested in expanding East and opt for a dynastic union with Hungary instead. This personal union turns in time into a real one. But enough with the timeline. Let's talk language.

Wiślina is an east-romance language, drawing heavily from Slavic influence, much like Romanian did in OTL. However, its substrate is composed of Western Slavic dialects that in OTL have developed into Polish. Thus, many features of Polish are retained. Among them:
1. The abundance of nasal sounds: ą, ę and ų (which is present in Polish, but doesn't have its own symbol).
2. Polish-like declension patterns
3. Polish-like spelling and phonetics
4. A change of gender in those Latin words the Slavic equivalent of which is of a different gender (e.g. Latin word 'fluvius' is masculine, but Polish word 'rzeka' is feminine; the Latin-root word remains but changes its gender to match that of the Slavic counterpart. Hence it evolves into 'fluwa')

Also, a duality of register is present; there are many words that have both Slavic and Latin-root variants, and the choice between them is often a stylistic one (the Romance ones sounding more refined).

The image is an excerpt of an imaginary textbook aimed at teaching the language using the natural method and is based on a real book dedicated to teaching Latin, called Lingua Latina per se illustrata.

Enjoy!