After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Illyrian towns on the Dalmatian coast continued to speak Latin and their language evolved relatively independent from other Romance languages, progressing towards a regional variant and finally to a distinct neo-Latin language called Dalmatian (today extinct). The earliest reference on the language dates from the 10th century and it is estimated that about 50,000 people spoke it at that time along the eastern Adriatic in the Dalmatian coast from Fiume (Rijeka) as far south as Kotor (Cattaro) in Montenegro (according to the linguist Matteo Bartoli).