So Latin spread pretty well across Europe, being the basis of almost every language there, but how come it didn’t take as strong a hold in the Middle East? It’s not as if the Romans were never there, and they lingered there far longer than they did in Europe. Was it just a matter of a stronger preexisting culture, or did the Arabs have something to do with it? What happened here?
There are other (minor) Romance languages, like Provencal, Catalan and then the various Italian languages like Venetian, but most speakers of these also speak one of the six big ones so the overall number shouldn’t change much.