ABSTRACT

A brief history

HISTORY OF THE
LATIN LANGUAGE
Introduction............................................................................................................................................3

Origins....................................................................................................................................................4

Old Latin.................................................................................................................................................5

Classic Latin............................................................................................................................................6

Late Latin................................................................................................................................................7

Vulgar Latin.............................................................................................................................................8

New Latin................................................................................................................................................9
 Introduction

Latin is a member of the broad family of Italic languages. Its alphabet, the Latin alphabet,
emerged from the Old Italic alphabets, which in turn were derived from the Greek and
Phoenician scripts. Historical Latin came from the prehistoric language of the Latium region,
specifically around the River Tiber, where Roman civilization first developed. How and when
Latin came to be spoken by the Romans are questions that have long been debated. Various
influences on Latin of Celtic dialects in northern Italy, the non-Indo-European Etruscan
language in Central Italy, and the Greek of southern Italy have been detected, but when these
influences entered the native Latin is not known for certain.

Surviving Latin literature consists almost entirely of Classical Latin in its broadest definition. It
includes a polished and sometimes highly stylized literary language sometimes termed Golden
Latin, which spans the 1st century BC and the early years of the 1st century AD. However,
throughout the history of ancient Rome the spoken language differed in both grammar and
vocabulary from that of literature, and is referred to as Vulgar Latin. In addition to Latin, the
Greek language was often spoken by the well-educated elite, who studied it in school and
acquired Greek tutors from among the influx of enslaved educated Greek prisoners of war,
captured during the Roman conquest of Greece. In the eastern half of the Roman Empire,
which became the Byzantine Empire, the Greek Koine of Hellenism remained current and was
never replaced by Latin. It continued to influence the Vulgar Latin that evolved into the Eastern
Romance languages.

Origins
he name Latin derives from the Italic tribal group named Latini that settled
around the 10th century BC in Latium, and the dialect spoken by these
people.[1]

The Italic languages form a centum subfamily of the Indo-European

language family. These include the Romance, Germanic, Celtic, and
Hellenic languages, and a number of extinct ones.

Broadly speaking, in initial syllables the

Indo-European simple vowels — (*a),
*e, *i, *o, *u; short and long — are usually
retained in Latin. The schwa
indogermanicum (*ə) appears in Latin as a
(cf. IE *pəter > L pater). Diphthongs are
also preserved in Old Latin, but in
Classical Latin some tend to become
monophthongs (for example oi > ū or oe, and
ei > ē > ī).[2] In non-initial syllables,
there was more vowel reduction. The
most extreme case occurs with short vowels
in medial open syllables (i.e. short vowels followed by at most a single
consonant, occurring neither in the first nor last syllable): All are reduced
to a single vowel, which appears as i in most cases, but e (sometimes o)
before r, and u before an l which is followed by o or u. In final syllables,
short e and o are usually raised to i and u, respectively.

Old Latin
Old Latin (also called Early Latin or Archaic Latin) refers to the period of
Latin texts before the age of Classical Latin, extending from textual
fragments that probably originated in the Roman monarchy to the written
language of the late Roman republic about 75 BC. Almost all the writing of
its earlier phases is inscriptional.

Some phonological characteristics of older Latin are the case endings -os
and -om (later Latin -us and -um). In many locations, classical Latin turned
intervocalic /s/ into /r/. This had implications for declension: early classical
Latin, honos, honosis; Classical honor, honoris ("honor"). Some Latin texts
preserve /s/ in this position, such as the Carmen Arvale's lases for lares.

Classic Latin
Classical Latin is the form of the Latin language used by the ancient
Romans in Classical Latin literature. In the latest and narrowest
philological model its use spanned the Golden Age of Latin
literature – broadly the 1st century BC and the early 1st century AD
– possibly extending to the Silver Age – broadly the 1st and 2nd
centuries. It was a polished written literary language based on the
refined spoken language of the upper classes. Classical Latin differs
from Old Latin: the earliest inscriptional language and the earliest
authors, such as Ennius, Plautus and others, in a number of ways;
for example, the early -om and -os endings shifted into -um and -us
ones, and some lexical differences also developed, such as the
broadening of the meaning of words.[5] In the broadest and most
ancient sense, the classical period includes the authors of Early
Latin, the Golden Age and the Silver Age.
Golden Age

The golden age of Latin literature is a period consisting roughly of

the time from 75 BC to AD 14, covering the end of the Roman
Republic and the reign of Augustus Caesar. In the currently used
philological model this period represents the peak of Latin
literature. Since the earliest post-classical times the Latin of those
authors has been an ideal norm of the best Latin, which other
writers should follow.
Silver Age
In reference to Roman literature, the Silver age covers the first two
centuries AD directly after the Golden age. Literature from the
Silver Age is more embellished with mannerisms.

Late Latin
Late Latin is the administrative and literary language of Late
Antiquity in the late Roman empire and states that succeeded the
Western Roman Empire over the same range. By its broadest
definition it is dated from about 200 AD to about 900 AD when it
was replaced by written Romance languages. Opinion concerning
whether it should be considered classical is divided. The authors of
the period looked back to a classical period they believed should be
imitated and yet their styles were often classical. According to the
narrowest definitions, Late Latin did not exist and the authors of the
times are to be considered medieval.
 Vulgar Latin

Vulgar Latin (in Latin, sermo vulgaris) is a blanket term covering

vernacular dialects of the Latin language spoken from earliest times
in Italy until the latest dialects of the Western Roman Empire,
diverging still further, evolved into the early Romance languages –
whose writings began to appear about the 9th century.

This spoken Latin differed from the literary language of Classical

Latin in its grammar and vocabulary. It is likely to have evolved
over time, with some features not appearing until the late Empire.
Other features are likely to have been in place much earlier.
Because there are few phonetic transcriptions of the daily speech of
these Latin speakers (to match, for example, the post-classical
Appendix Probi) Vulgar Latin must be studied mainly by indirect
methods.
A replica of the Old Roman Cursive inspired by the Vindolanda
tablets

Knowledge of Vulgar Latin comes from a variety of sources. First,

the comparative method reconstructs items of the mother language
from the attested Romance languages. Also, prescriptive grammar
texts from the Late Latin period condemn some usages as errors,
providing insight into how Latin was actually spoken. The
solecisms and non-Classical usages occasionally found in late Latin
texts also shed light on the spoken language. A windfall source lies
in the chance finds of wax tablets such as those found at
Vindolanda on Hadrian's Wall. The Roman cursive script was used
on these tablets.
 New Latin

New Latin (or Neo-Latin) is a post-medieval version of Latin, now

used primarily in international scientific vocabulary and
systematics. The term came into widespread use towards the end of
the 1890s among linguists and scientists.

Classicists use the term "Neo-Latin" to describe the use of the Latin
language for any purpose, scientific or literary, after the
Renaissance (for which purpose they often use the date 1500),
although, for example, the editors of the I Tatti Renaissance Library
call their Renaissance Latin language texts Neo-Latin as well. Such
Contemporary Latin includes ecclesiastical use, as well as
translations from modern languages into Latin and the occasional
poetry. Under the name "Living Latin", some have advocated
reviving the language as a means of spoken communication.