The citation for Italian being the closest national Romance to Latin is buried in note 32 about Mario Pei's article. The main sticking point IMO -- beyond the obvious questions why limit to national languages, and what is meant by "Sardinian" -- is that Pei's determination is based solely on Italian's phonological conservatism, i.e. far from a comparison of a full array of linguistic features. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 20:17, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
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