The parallel to post-Roman Europe is interesting, where Latin lived on for quite a while as the language of writing. It gradually gave way to written forms of t

The parallel to post-Roman Europe is interesting, where Latin lived on for quite a while as the language of writing. It gradually gave way to written forms of the various spoken languages, derivatives of Latin or others. During this time of parallel usage Latin, just by being there as an alternative for the elites to show off pedantry, may have helped establishing a tradition of keeping the new written languages continuously aligned with their permanently changing spoken counterparts. Keeping Latin while it was helpful as a shared language when the scholar density was low and then moving on once local intellectual networks became stronger and mass education required efficiency may have been one of those "guns germs and steel" factors where Europe just happened to be lucky.