Your clean-sounding taxonomic framework tends to be much, much messier in practice, but ok. As so often happens, I think this boils down to a vocab disagreement. Normally, you would refer to the ethnolinguistic group as "Latins". "Roman" is much more closely associated with the populus romanus, which was defined by citizenship.
Re:The last Romans are still around
by carlosjobim on Friday June 26, 2026 @11:56AM
(#48688131)
It is messy, but that's why it is beautiful and interesting. It couldn't be any other way, seeing as it takes a man and a woman to make a child.
Once you loose the knowledge of your ancestry that connection is lost forever, until the end of time.
The native Americans would absolutely consider themselves as more similar to each other than to the European and African arrivals. Just by matter of undeniable physical features.
As for the Romans, it is within the mists of history and mythology (Rape of the Sabine Women), but nobody can deny that there was an original people there in Italy, and other peoples who became citizens and/or subjects of Rome weren't ethnically Roman.