In some cases, the shared derivation of a group of related languages from a common ancestor is directly attested in the historical record. For example, this is the case for the Romance language family, wherein Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and French are all descended from Latin, as well as for the North Germanic language family, including Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic, which have shared descent from Ancient Norse. Latin and ancient Norse are both attested in written records, as are many intermediate stages between those ancestral languages and their modern descendants.
in some cases the shared derivation of a group of related languages from a common ancestor is directly attested in the historical record for example this is the case for the romance language family wherein spanish italian portuguese romanian and french are all descended from latin as well as for the north germanic language family including danish swedish norwegian and icelandic which have shared descent from ancient norse latin and ancient norse are both attested in written records as are many intermediate stages between those ancestral languages and their modern descendants