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o answer your first question, Latin belongs to a very broad family of languages which we call "Indo-European", and which we assume spread prehistorically from the emerging cultures of India and the Middle East. It has some affinity with Greek (which was the language of one of the most important Mediterranean cultures of classical times), and as it grew from the distinct language of the district of Latium, it would have absorbed elements of Etruscan and the Celtic languages of ancient Italy. To answer your second question, generally newer languages are seen to be degenerate versions of older ones, their usage changing with decadence rather than to any plan, and have all been subject to outside influences, to a greater or lesser extent. Our own English has often been called little more than a dialect of French! More convincingly it has been called a creole or pidgin of Anglo-Saxon and Norman French. Sometimes, in the development of a language such as ours, we can spot historical events which influenced it. For example, the inovative and inventive language of William Shakespeare, and the enforced standardisation in the 19c and early 20c. I am sure other people will wish to add to this. As to Chinese and Japanese, I leave that to someone else.

Paul Thompson, Perth Scotland