Search results
Latin (lingua Latina, Latin: [ˈlɪŋɡʷa ɫaˈtiːna], or Latinum, Latin: [ɫaˈtiːnʊ̃]) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Considered a dead language, Latin was originally spoken in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area around Rome.
Mar 29, 2024 · Latin language, Indo-European language in the Italic group and ancestral to the modern Romance languages. During the Middle Ages and until comparatively recent times, Latin was the language most widely used in the West for scholarly and literary purposes.
- What is the Latin language?The Latin language is an Indo-European language in the Italic group and is ancestral to the modern Romance languages. During the Middle Ages and un...
- Why is Latin a dead language?A “dead” language is one no longer learned as a first language or used in ordinary communication. Classical Latin, the language of Cicero and Virgi...
- Why is Latin used for scientific taxonomy?Latin was the lingua franca of scientific work in the West during the Middle Ages, so Western scientists used Latin for naming species of organisms...
- Current Usage
- Varieties
- Grammar
- Writing Latin
- After Fall of Roman Empire
- Other Websites
Latin is called a dead language because no one speaks it as a first language anymore. However, it is not an extinct languagebecause it is still used in daily life by some people. In fact, many people still study it in school. Latin is still useful because it shows how society works. Latin makes it easier to learn the Romance languages. People still...
There are three types of Latin: Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin and Ecclesiastical Latin. Classical Latin was used by the educated Romans and is still studied around the world. Vulgar Latin was the more common spoken variety used by the common Romans and was learned by the peoples conquered by them. Ecclesiastical Latin is common in Italian schools a...
Latin has a similar inflection structure to Ancient Greek but a different alphabet. Latin has seven different noun cases: nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative and locative. The vocative case is almost always the same as the nominative case. The locative usually takes the form of the dative. Only place names and some nouns ha...
Latin used to be written on plates of wax. There was little space and so words were run together, with no space between words. Sometimes papyrus was used, but that was expensive. Punctuation was an ancient idea but came to Latin later. Lowercase letters (small letters) are relatively-modern inventions. The Roman alphabet was derived from Etruscan. ...
After the fall of the Roman Empire, many people still used Latin. Scholars such as Thomas Aquinas, Petrarch, Erasmus, Luther, Copernicus, Descartes and Newton wrote in Latin. For example, Hugo Grotius published his De jure belli ac pacis (On the Law of War and Peace) in Latin as late as 1625, which is one of the bases of international law.
Ainsworth, Robert (1830). A new abridgment of Ainsworth's Dictionary, English and Latin, by J. Dymock.Post-Classical Latin (including Medieval and Neo-Latin) Archived 2011-01-13 at the Wayback MachineBeginners' Latin on http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/Glossarium Anglico-Latinum Archived 2012-11-13 at the Wayback Machinehaving many modern wordsLatin was the language of the area known as Latium (modern Lazio), and Rome was one of the towns of Latium. The earliest known inscriptions in Latin date from the 6th century BC and were written using an alphabet adapted from the Etruscan alphabet. Rome gradually expanded its influence over other parts of Italy and then over other parts of Europe.
Latin is probably the easiest of the older languages for speakers of English to learn, both because of their earlier relationship and because of the long use of Latin as the language of educational, ecclesiastical, legal and political affairs in western culture. Moreover, we use the Latin alphabet, so that the language is read without ...
Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Considered a dead language, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, the lower Tiber area around Rome. Through the expansion of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian Peninsula and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire.
The term Latin alphabet may refer to either the alphabet used to write Latin (as described in this article) or other alphabets based on the Latin script, which is the basic set of letters common to the various alphabets descended from the classical Latin alphabet, such as the English alphabet.
