Why did Latin replace the languages of Western Europe while it

paganism

Look at the land accumulated by the Holy Roman Empire, then look at where the Latin language was most used.

Latin was encouraged and did well in the area north of Greek in the Balkans too. Even Albanian is a semi-Latinized language pretty much.

It didn't penetrate the East as much because there was already a unifying language that had also been prestigious for Rome since early times, Greek, alongside with local languages that had developed literary traditions. Even the emperors who didn't care much for Greek and the sometimes anti-Greek attitudes didn't do much about it in the East overall.

>>2744524
Not getting exactly what you mean but since you brought it up, it's obvious to compare the Holy Roman Empire and the Teutonic Order with territories that had been formerly Slavic and Baltic speaking in the East and slowly became German.

>>2744634
>It didn't penetrate the East as much because there was already a unifying language that had also been prestigious for Rome since early times, Greek

This, basically. The only weird exception is Romanian (and its close relatives), which is a descendant of Latin in the eastern half of the empire.

>>2744504
Gaulish and Latin were very close, thye were partly mutually intelligible, closer than Gaulish is in relation to modern Celtic languages. Hence Latin was able to spread very fast in Gaul.