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Omniglot is how I make my living. Note : all links on this site to Amazon. This means I earn a commission if you click on any of them and buy something. So by clicking on these links you can help to support this site. Latin alphabet The Latin, or Roman, alphabet was originally adapted from the Etruscan alphabet during the 7th century BC to write Latin.
Notes This is one version of the Ancient Latin alphabet. These islands maintained contact with the Roman capital while trading and socializing with their non-Roman neighbors. Because Latin was the language of power and trade, conquered peoples learned to pick it up quickly. After a few generations, Latin gradually became the vernacular language of the peoples the Romans had subjugated.
A soldier, miles in Latin, could become a colonus , or grower. A group of such coloni formed a colonia , which is a number of Romans living together in a conquered country. Roman expansion spelled the death of many languages. We occasionally find traces of these in ancient Roman literature, as bits of vocabulary. Scholars have labored to reconstruct a few of these languages, but many are unsalvageable. On the other hand, we should remember that Italy was still extraordinarily diverse in terms of ethnicity, social and political organization, religion, and material culture in those early days.
The gradual standardization of Latin, however, ended up creating a common identity throughout Italy. One could say the standardization of Latin was itself the creation of Italy. Today, Latin is known for its literary elegance, but in its early centuries, Rome had produced no great poets, philosophers, or playwrights.
Very little written work in Latin exists from before BC, and these are mostly inscriptions on gravestones and such. Clearly, ancient Romans did not bother much with writing. They were good at two things: farming and war. But when it came to literature, education, philosophy, science, art, and music, the Romans did not produce much. But this would soon change.
As Rome continued to expand, it came into contact with the Greeks and eventually conquered them by BC. Walking into a Greek city, the Romans were awed by what they found. Greece was an advanced culture. This contact would lead to a great flowering for the Latin language.
At first, the Romans were just copy-cats. They took Greek culture and adapted it for a Roman audience. It seems the first type of literature the Romans plagiarized from the Greeks would be the one they already knew a little something about: theatrical plays!
They had learned theater from the Etruscans, if you recall. Some of the oldest Latin literature we have are the plays written by Plautus around BC. Surprisingly enough, the encounter between Greek and Latin was actually a family reunion. Linguists describe the relationship between Latin and Greek as cognate : This means they are actually siblings. Though the two would have a long history together, neither pre-dates the other. Rather, both descend from a common mother language.
This mother language remains unknown — perhaps she was numbered among the casualties of imperial expansion? Before encountering the Greeks, early Latin was a language for warfare, trade, and law. It was muscular, practical, and unrefined. But by imitating Greek culture, Latin writers cut their teeth on literature, poetry, and music. They would eventually tap into their artful side, find their own voice, and become a Classical Language like Greek.
In the late Roman Republic, the Latin language made huge advances. Works were produced which showed this Italic language was capable of great eloquence, subtlety, precision, and lyricism. The Romans would invent a term for the literature which appeared during this period. Thus Classical Latin was born. For centuries, the works from the Classical period would be the model for proper Latin as opposed to vulgar Latin.
The first books on Latin grammar and spelling were soon to follow. This helped create a standard form of Latin which slowed the rate of change. A few centuries after Christ, late Latin became the equal of Greek as a language of literature, philosophy, science, and theology.
When the Roman Empire collapsed, Latin carried on. Even after no one spoke it as a first language, it continued to be spoken as the official language of educated discourse. It seemed a shame to let it go to waste. For modern people, learning Latin creates the opportunity to converse with the past. There are thousands of books in Latin since it was spoken for centuries even after it died, and only a fraction of these have been translated into English!
Latin also helps us converse with the Romance languages of the present! Get it? Roman-ce languages! French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Italian — all of these and more are direct descendants from Latin.
The resemblance is so striking that by learning Latin, you could learn to pick up any Romance language in record time. If you visit Vatican City today, you will find the Roman Catholic Church still publishes all major documents and decisions in Latin. Since the Roman Catholic Church has been an international institution since the early middle ages, this actually helps them overcome modern language barriers.
Finally, English has much to gain from making contact with Latin , just like Latin had much to gain from contacting Greek. Even though English is not a Romance language, she has been deeply formed by Mother Latin over the centuries.
Palmer Thus, even from the beginning the Christian Latin diverged from the more pristine forms of Classical Latin and contributed to the spread of Vulgar Latin, ultimately leading to distinct languages. The clergy periodically attmepted to make the Christian Latin more uniform in pronunciation and usage which required training the clergy clear up through medieval times.
Ultimately, even this was not enough to prevent the linguistic diversity from separating the Latin from the vulgar languages that emerged. During the Carolingian Renaissance, Charlemagne, an illiterate king from France, but with great influence, sought to revive Latin in its Classical form with special attention given to the pronunciation of Latin Radice He was fluent in spoken Latin and understood some Greek, and enjoyed the Classical forms of art, architecture, and language.
He had a school set up by an Englishman, Alcuin of York, in which to teach and promote the rebirth of Latin Yet despite the reforms he initiated to revive these things, it was short lived.
Latin continued mainly as a vehicle for religion and religious reforms, law, and medicine. Concerning the retention of sounds and pronunciation, Wright argues that the forms used in law are pronounced in the Latin vernacular. This could be very significant due to its repetition and its use even today. This could be one of the few forms in which original Latin pronunciation is maintained.
Most linguistic historians concur that Latin ceased being spoken as a native tongue in the 8th-c. AD Herman It is summarized well that:. Thus, Latin gave way to its daughter languages and was relegated to being the language of science, law, and learning for the next few centuries.
According to Pei Latin was displaced gradually in spoken form between The first Portuguese writing sample is from an act of partition in AD Elcock Rheto-Romance originated in the areas which correspond to modern day Switzerland, Bavaria, and Austria Latin is still seen in the form of inscriptions, medical taxonomy, legal jargon, and some religious settings.
Thus, the history of the Latin language is long and diverse. The daughter Romance languages which descend to us today are proof of its legacy. The former lingua franca of the western world is now preserved through science, law, and religion, but more notably, it is preserved in the memory of its growth and long-lasting influence.
Bonfante, Larissa. Wayne State University Press: Detroit, Buck, Carl Darling. Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, Herman, Jozsef. Pei, Mario.
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