it's amazing how a word like the Dark Ages can conjure up
so many images.

Yes, I was using the term to refer to that period around the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century and lasting a century or two depending on where in Europe. I should have just used dates.

Most Romans spoke Vulgar Latin which started to diverge from Classical Latin in phonology and syntax starting in the late Republic (around 100 - 50 BCE). The first texts in a Romance language (kind of proto-French) show up in the Strasbourg oaths in the 9th century.

Ceci n'est pas un seing.