Latin (
lingua lătīna, ) is an
Italic language originally spoken in
Latium and
Ancient
Rome.
Through the Roman conquest, Latin
spread throughout the Mediterranean
and a large part of Europe. Romance
languages such as
Catalan,
French,
Italian,
Portuguese,
Romanian, and
Spanish are descended from
Latin, while many others, especially
European languages, have inherited and
acquired much of their vocabulary from it. It was the international
language of science and scholarship in central and western Europe
until the 17th century, when it was gradually replaced by
vernacular language.
Legacy
The Latin heritage has been delivered in these broad genres:
- Inscriptions
- Latin literature
- Latin words and concepts in modern languages and scientific
terminology
- An extensive tradition of instruction in the Latin language,
including grammars and dictionaries
Most inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed
upon, monumental, multi-volume series termed the
Corpus Inscriptionum
Latinarum (CIL). Authors and publishers vary but the
format is approximately the same: volumes detailing inscriptions
with a critical apparatus stating the provenience and relevant
information. The reading and interpretation of these inscriptions
is the subject matter of the field of
epigraphy. In addition to the approximately
180,000 known inscriptions the works of several hundred ancient
authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part, in
substantial works or in fragments to be analyzed in
philology. They are in part the subject matter of
the field of
classics. Their works were
published in
manuscript form before the
invention of printing and now exist in carefully annotated printed
editions, such as the
Loeb
Classical Library by
Harvard University Press.
There has also been a major
Latin influence in English. In
the medieval period, much of this borrowing occurred through
ecclesiastical usage established by Saint
Augustine of Canterbury in the 6th
century, or indirectly after the
Norman
Conquest, through the
Anglo-Norman language. From the 16th
to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge
numbers of new words from Latin and Greek roots. These words were
dubbed "
inkhorn" or "
inkpot" words, as if they had spilled from a pot of
ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then
forgotten, but some were so useful that they survived.
Imbibe and
extrapolate are inkhorn terms created
from Latin words. Many of the most common
polysyllabic English words are simply adapted
Latin forms, in a large number of cases adapted by way of
Old French.
History of Latin
Latin has been divided into historical phases, each of which is
distinguished by minor differences in vocabulary, usage, spelling,
morphology and syntax. In addition to the historical phases,
Ecclesiastical Latin refers to
the styles used by the writers of the
Roman Catholic Church in all
historical phases from Late Latin on.
Old, early or archaic Latin
The earliest known is
Old Latin, a phase
of the early and middle Roman republic attested in inscriptions and
the earliest surviving Latin works of literature.
Classical Latin
Old Latin was followed in the late republic and empire by
Classical Latin, a conscious creation of the
orators, poets, historians and other literate men, who wrote the
great works of classical literature, and was taught in the schools
of
grammar and
rhetoric. The concepts of today's instructional
grammars originated in these
schools,
which served as a sort of informal language academy to maintain and
perpetuate the classical language.
Late Latin
After the fall of the
Western Roman
Empire, literary Latin survived as the
lingua franca of educated classes in the West.
The population of the Eastern Roman Empire, later known as
Byzantine, used a form of Greek that
evolved into modern Greek, even though the administration assumed
names and titles that had come from Latin. The eastern empire
survived until it was conquered by the
Ottoman Empire.
Vulgar Latin
Philological analysis of Old Latin works, such as the plays of
Plautus, which contain dialogue purporting
to be the speech of the common people, indicates that
contemporaneous with the literary and official language was a
spoken language, which has from ancient times been called
Vulgar Latin (
sermo vulgi in
Cicero), the language of the
vulgus or
"common people." Since the
vulgus spoke — but did not
write their language — it can only be known through words and
phrases cited by classical authors or in inscriptions.
As vulgar Latin was not under the control or encouragement of the
schools of rhetoric, there is no reason to expect any uniformity of
speech either diachronically or geographically. Just the opposite
must have been true: European populations learning Latin developed
their own dialects of the language. This is the situation that
prevailed when the
Migration
Period, ca. 300-700 AD, brought an end to the unity and peace
of the Roman world and removed the stabilizing influence of its
institutions on the language. A post-classical phase of Latin
appeared, Late Latin, in which the spoken forms reappeared, and
which is regionalized. Starting about the 5th or 6th centuries,
Late Latin contains minor features that are germinal to the
development of the
Romance
languages.
One of the tests as to whether a given Latin feature or usage was
in the spoken language is to compare its reflex in a Romance
language with the equivalent structure in classical Latin. If it
appeared in the Romance language but was not preferred in classical
Latin, then it passes the test as being vulgar Latin. For example,
grammatical case in nouns is
present in classical Latin but not in the Romance languages,
excluding
Romanian. One might
conclude that case endings in regions other than Romania were
already wholly or partly missing in the spoken language even while
being insisted upon in the written. (Even in Romanian there are as
many case endings for nouns as there are for pronouns in the other
languages; cf. Romanian endings
i,
lor with the
Italian pronouns
gli,
loro). Also, much of the
vocabulary that went into the Romance languages came from Vulgar
Latin rather than classical. The following examples follow the
formula, classical Latin word/vulgar Latin word/French word:
ignis/focus/feu, equus/caballus/cheval, loquor/parabolare/parler,
pulcher/bellus/bel (or belle). In each case French does not use the
classical Latin word. The words actually used: focus, caballus,
etc., must have been in the Vulgar Latin vocabulary.
The
expansion of
the Roman Empire had spread Latin throughout Europe.
Vulgar Latin began to diverge into various
dialects and many of these into distinct
Romance languages by the 9th century at
very latest, when the earliest known writings appeared. The
languages must already have been in place. These were, for many
centuries, only oral languages, Latin still being used for writing.
For example, Latin was still the official language of Portugal
until 1296, when
Portuguese
replaced it. Portuguese had already developed and was in use under
the umbrella of the vulgar language.
Medieval Latin
The term
Mediaeval Latin refers to
the written Latin in use during that portion of the post-classical
period when no corresponding Latin vernacular existed. The spoken
language had developed into the various incipient Romance
Languages; however, in the educated and official world Latin
continued without its spoken base. Moreover, this Latin spread into
lands that had never spoken Latin, such as the Germanic and Slavic
nations. It became useful as a means of international communication
between the member states of the
Holy
Roman Empire and its allies.
Cut loose from its corrective spoken base and severed from the
vanished institutions of the Roman empire that had supported its
uniformity, mediaeval Latin lost the precise knowledge of
correctness; for example,
suus ("his/her own") and
eius ("his/her") are used interchangeably, an error that
would have been swiftly corrected in the schools of classical Rome.
In classical Latin
sum and
eram are used as
auxiliary verbs in the perfect and pluperfect passive, which are
compound tenses. Mediaeval Latin might use
fui and
fueram instead. Furthermore the meanings of many words
have changed and new vocabulary has been introduced from the
vernacular.
While these minor changes are not enough to impair comprehension of
the language, they introduce a certain flexibility not in it
previously. The style of each individual author is characterized by
his own uses of classically incorrect Latin to such a degree that
he can be identified just by reading his Latin. In that sense
mediaeval Latin is a collection of individual Latins united loosely
by the main structures of the language. Some are more classical,
others less so. As the majority of these writers were influential
members of the Christian church: bishops, monks, philosophers,
etc., the term Ecclesiastical Latin does not accurately apply; the
majority were ecclesiastical by occupation but there was no uniform
language of the church; that was a product of the Renaissance. Late
Latin is sometimes classified as mediaeval, sometimes not.
Certainly many of the individual Latins were influenced by the
vernaculars of their authors.
Renaissance Latin
The
Renaissance briefly reinforced
the position of Latin as a spoken language, through its adoption by
the Renaissance Humanists. Often led by members of the clergy, they
were shocked by the accelerated dismantling of the vestiges of the
classical world and the rapid loss of its literature. They strove
to preserve what they could. It was they who introduced the
practice of producing revised editions of the literary works that
remained by comparing surviving manuscripts, and they who attempted
to restore Latin to what it had been. They corrected mediaeval
Latin out of existence no later than the 15th century and replaced
it with more formally correct versions supported by the scholars of
the rising universities, who attempted, through scholarship, to
discover what the classical language had been.
Language characteristics
Throughout its entire history the Latin language retained the same
major characteristics and is on that account classified as one
language. These characteristics are reflected best in the classical
Latin period and are introduced in this article rather than in the
Classical Latin article.
Over its 2500-3000 year history the language varied considerably in
minor ways. In general, a native speaker in one historical period
understood the Latin of another only with difficulty or not at all.
Persons educated in Latin, however, were able through study to
broaden their horizons to two or more periods, an event that always
commanded the respect of their peers.
Queen Elizabeth I of England and her close relatives,
for example, who received the best classical education from tutors
hired for the purpose from Oxford University
, were respected at home and abroad for their
command of Latin and ancient Greek. Elizabeth could when
required slip easily from French or Spanish into Latin for the
convenience of foreign dignitaries.
Pronunciation
Pronounciation of Latin by the Romans in ancient times can be
reconstructed from evidence in the modern Romance languages,
transliteration to and from Greek, and the statements of ancient
authors themselves.
Latin spelling seems to have been a fairly close representation of
the pronunciation, but some distinctions did not show up in the
spelling. In particular all vowels could be either long or short,
the letter N before G, or X (and probably G before N) represented
IPA /ŋ/ (like English ng in
sing) and the letters I and V
each functioned sometimes as a vowel and sometimes as a consonant.
In modern texts, V is generally printed as
U /
u when a vowel and
V /
v when a consonant (although some editions use
V for upper case and
u for lower
case). Less commonly, I is printed as
I /
i when a vowel and
J /
j when a consonant.
Most of the letters are pronounced the same as in English, but note
the following:
- Consonants:
- c = /k/ (never "soft c")
- g = /g/ (never "soft g")
- t = /t/ (never as in English nation)
- v (consonantal u) = /w/
- j (consonantal i) = /j/ (like English y in
you)
- Vowels:
- a = /a/ when short and /aː/ when long.
- e = /ɛ/ (as in pet) when short and /eː/ (somewhat as in English
they) when long.
- i = /ɪ/ (as in pin) when short and /iː/ (as in
machine) when long
- o = /ɔ/ (as in British English got) when short and
/oː/ (somewhat as in holy) when long.
- u = /ʊ/ (as in put) when short and /uː/ (as in true)
when long.
Orthography
To write Latin, the Romans used the
Latin
alphabet, derived from the
Old
Italic alphabet, which itself was derived from the
Greek alphabet. The Latin alphabet flourishes
today as the writing system for the Romance, Celtic, Germanic
(including English), and some Slavic (such as Polish) languages,
among others.
The
ancient Romans did not use
punctuation;
macrons
(although they did use
apices to
distinguish between long and short vowels); the letters
j,
u or
w; lowercase letters (although they did have
a cursive script); or
interword
spacing (though dots were occasionally placed between words
that would otherwise be difficult to distinguish). So, a sentence
originally written as:
- LVGETEOVENERESCVPIDINESQVE
would be rendered in a modern edition as
- Lugete, O Veneres Cupidinesque
or with macrons
- Lūgēte, Ō Venerēs Cupīdinēsque.
and translated as
- Mourn, O Venus and Cupids
The
Roman cursive script is commonly found
on the many wax tablets excavated at
sites such as forts, an especially extensive set having been
discovered at Vindolanda on
Hadrian's
Wall
in Britain
.
Curiously enough, most of the Vindolanda tablets show spaces
between words, though spaces were avoided in monumental
inscriptions from that era.
Grammar
Latin is a
synthetic,
fusional language:
affixes (often suffixes, which usually encode more
than one grammatical category) are attached to fixed
stem to express
gender,
number, and
case in
adjectives,
nouns, and
pronouns—a process called
declension. Affixes are attached to fixed
stems of verbs, as well, to denote
person, number,
tense,
voice,
mood, and
aspect—a process called
conjugation.
Nouns
There are six main Latin noun cases. These play a major part in
determining a noun's syntactic role in the sentence, so word order
is not as important in Latin as it is in some other languages, such
as English. Because of noun cases, words can often be moved around
in a sentence without significantly altering its meaning, though
the emphasis will have been altered. The cases, with their most
important uses, are these:
- Nominative: used when the noun is the
subject of the sentence or phrase, or when functioning as a
predicative of
the subject. The thing or person acting (e.g., The
girl ran. Puella
cucurrit.)
- Genitive: used when the noun is the
possessor of an object (e.g., "the horse of the man", or "the man's
horse"—in both of these cases, the word man would be in
the genitive case when translated into Latin). Also indicates
material of which something greater is made (e.g., "a group of
people"; "a number of gifts"—people and gifts
would be in the genitive case). Some nouns are genitive with
special verbs and adjectives too. (e.g., The cup is full of
wine. Poculum plenum 'vini
est. The master of the
slave' had beaten him. Dominus 'servi eum
verberaverat.)
- Dative: used when the noun is the
indirect object of the sentence, with special verbs, with certain
prepositions, and if used as agent, reference, or even possessor.
(e.g., The merchant hands over the stola to
the woman. Mercator 'feminae
stolam tradit.)
- Accusative: used when the noun
is the direct object of the sentence/phrase, with certain
prepositions, or as the subject of an infinitive. The thing or
person having something done to them. (e.g., The slave woman
carries the wine. Ancilla 'vinum
portat.)
- Ablative: used when the noun
demonstrates separation or movement from a source, cause, agent, or instrument, or when the noun is used as
the object of certain prepositions; adverbial.
- Vocative: used when the noun is used in
a direct address. The vocative form of a noun is the same as the
nominative except for second declension nouns ending in -us. The
-us becomes an -e or if it ends in -ius (such as filius) then the
ending is just -i (fili) (as distinct from the plural nominative
(filii). (e.g., "Master!" shouted the slave.
"'Domine!" servus
clamavit.)
There is also a seventh case, called the
Locative case, used to indicate a location and
services (corresponding to the English "in" or "at"). This is far
less common than the other six cases of Latin nouns and usually
applies to cities, small towns, and small islands, along with a few
common nouns. In the first and second declension singular, its form
coincides with the genitive (
Roma becomes
Romae,
"in Rome"). In the plural, and in the other declensions, it
coincides with the dative and ablative (
Athenae becomes
Athenis, "at Athens").
Latin lacks
definite and indefinite
articles; thus
puer currit can mean either "the boy
runs" or "a boy runs".
Verbs
Verbs in Latin are usually identified by four main
conjugations, groups of verbs with
similarly inflected forms. The first conjugation is typified by
active infinitive forms ending in
-āre, the second by
active infinitives ending in
-ēre, the third by
infinitives ending in
-ere, and the fourth by active
infinitives ending in
-īre. However, there are exceptions
to these rules. Further, there is a subset of the 3rd conjugation,
the
-iō verbs, which behave somewhat like the 4th
conjugation. There are six general
tense in Latin (present, imperfect,
future, perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect), three
grammatical moods (indicative, imperative
and subjunctive, in addition to the
infinitive,
participle,
gerund,
gerundive
and
supine), three
person (first, second, and third), two
numbers (singular and plural), two
voice (active and passive), and a few
aspect. Verbs are described by
four principal parts:
- The first principal part is the first person singular, present
tense, indicative mood, active voice form of the verb (or passive
voice for verbs lacking an active voice).
- The second principal part is the present infinitive active (or
passive for verbs lacking an active) form.
- The third principal part is the first person singular, perfect
indicative active (or passive when there is no active) form.
- The fourth principal part is the supine form, or alternatively,
the nominative singular, perfect passive participle form of the
verb. The fourth principal part can show either one gender of the
participle, or all three genders (-us for masculine,
-a for feminine, and -um for neuter). It can also
be the future participle when the verb cannot be made passive.
Contemporary use
Latin lives in the form of
Ecclesiastical Latin used for edicts
and
papal bulls issued by the
Catholic Church, and in the form of a sparse
sprinkling of scientific or social articles written in it, as well
as in numerous Latin clubs. Latin vocabulary is used in
science,
academia, and
law.
Classical
Latin is taught in many schools often combined with
Greek in the study of
Classics, though its role has diminished since the
early 20th century. The
Latin
alphabet, together with its modern variants such as the
English,
Spanish and
French alphabets, is the most widely used
alphabet in the world. Terminology deriving from Latin words and
concepts is widely used, among other fields, in
philosophy,
medicine,
biology, and
law, in
terms and abbreviations such as
subpoena duces tecum,
q.i.d. (
quater in die: "four times a day"), and
inter alia (among other things). These Latin terms are
used in isolation, as technical terms. In
scientific names for organisms, Latin is
typically the language of choice, followed by
Greek.
The largest organization that still uses Latin in official and
quasi-official contexts is the
Roman Catholic Church (particularly in
the
Latin Rite).
The Tridentine Mass uses Latin, although the
Mass of Paul VI is usually said in
the local vernacular language,
it can be and often is said in Latin, particularly in the Vatican
.
Indeed, Latin is still the official standard language of the Roman
Rite of the Catholic Church, and the
Second Vatican Council merely
authorized that the liturgical books be translated and optionally
used in the vernacular languages.
Latin is the official language of the
Holy See and the Vatican
City-State
. The Vatican City is also home to the only
ATM where instructions are
given in Latin..
Some films of relevant ancient settings, such as
Sebastiane and
The Passion of the Christ,
have been made with dialogue in Latin for purposes of realism.
Occasionally, Latin dialogues are used because of its association
with religion or philosophy, in such film/TV series as
the Exorcist and
Lost (
Jughead). Subtitles are usually employed for
the benefit of audiences who do not understand Latin. There are
also
songs written with
Latin lyrics.
Many organizations today have Latin mottos, such as "
Semper Paratus" (always ready), the motto of
the
United States Coast
Guard, and "
Semper fidelis"
(always faithful), the motto of the
United States Marine Corps.
Several of
the states of the United States also have Latin mottos, such as
"Montani Semper Liberi"
(Mountaineers are always free), the state motto of West Virginia
, and "Esse Quam
Videri" (To be rather than to seem), that of North Carolina
.
Latin grammar has been taught in most Italian schools since the
18th century: for example, in the
Liceo
classico and
Liceo
scientifico, Latin is still one of the primary subjects. Latin
is taught in many schools and universities around the world as
well.
Instruction in Latin
The
Living Latin movement attempts to
teach Latin in the same way that modern living languages are
taught, i.e., as a means of both spoken and written communication.
Living
Latin instruction is provided at the Vatican, and at some
institutions in the U.S., such as the University of
Kentucky
. In the United Kingdom, the
Classical Association encourages this
approach, and Latin language books describing the adventures of a
mouse called
Minimus have been published.
In the
United
States
, the National Junior Classical
League (with more than 50,000 members) encourages high school
students to pursue the study of Latin, and the National Senior Classical
League encourages college students to continue their studies of
the language.
Many
international
auxiliary languages have been heavily influenced by Latin.
Interlingua, which lays claim to a
sizeable following, is sometimes considered a simplified, modern
version of the language.
Latino
sine Flexione, popular in the early 20th century, is a language
created from Latin with its inflections dropped.
Latin
translations of modern literature such as
Treasure Island,
Robinson Crusoe,
Paddington Bear,
Winnie the Pooh,
Olivia,
Tintin,
Asterix,
Harry
Potter,
Le Petit
Prince,
Max und
Moritz,
How
the Grinch Stole Christmas, and
The Cat in the Hat are intended to
bolster interest in the language.
Notes
- Herman (2000), pp. 17-18.
- Herman (2000) p 8.
- Herman (2000), pp. 1-3.
References
See also
Language
Culture
External links