I got chatting with my mother about Latin over lunch, and she told me that she didn't think that the way we learn Latin accurately reflects the way it was used - if it was ever spoken by the people in the street.
And we could both be wrong here, but I think she's right. Because what I've noticed is that it's terribly clunky. For example, they have declensions and so on to indicate whether there is more than one person involved, and then they include "sunt" (which translates as "they are.") in the sentence as well. The sunt is totally unnecessary.
Which makes me wonder - was there a High Latin and a Low Latin, and all we know about is High Latin?