Latin (lingua Latīna, pronounced [laˈtiːna]) is an Italic language The Italic subfamily is a member of the Indo-European language family. It includes the Romance languages derived from Latin , and a number of extinct languages of the Italian Peninsula, including Umbrian, Oscan, and Latin historically spoken in Latium Its area constituted a part of the much larger modern Italian Regione of Lazio, also called Latium in Latin, and occasionally in modern English. The ancient language of the region was to become the basis of Latin and Ancient Rome Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea off the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The name Mediterranean means "in the middle of the land". It covers an approximate area of 2.5 million km² , but and a large part of Europe Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast. Europe is washed upon to the north by the Arctic Ocean and. Romance languages The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family comprising all the languages that descend from Latin, the language of ancient Rome. There are more than 600 million native speakers worldwide, mainly in the Americas, Europe, and Africa, as well as many smaller regions scattered throughout the world. The five most well-known such as Italian Italian ( italiano , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken as mother-tongue by about 60 million people in Italy, and by a total of around 70 million in the world. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Standard Italian,, French French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 90 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 54 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France, where the language originated. The rest live, Catalan Catalan pronounced /ˈkætəˌlæn/ is a Romance language, the national and official language of Andorra, and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of the Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencià (Valencian) and in the city of Alghero in the Italian island of Sardinia. It is also, Romanian Romanian or Daco-Romanian ; self-designation: limba română, pronounced [ˈlimba roˈmɨnə]) is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova. It has official status in Romania, Moldova, and the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia. In the Republic of Moldova, the language is officially, Spanish Spanish sometimes called Castilian (castellano) is a Romance language that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade. It was taken most notably to the Americas, and also to Africa and Asia Pacific with the expansion of the Spanish Empire between the, and Portuguese Portuguese ( português or língua portuguesa) is a Romance language that was originated in what is now Galicia and northern Portugal. It is derived from the Latin spoken by the romanized Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula (namely the Gallaeci, the Lusitanians, the Celtici and the Conii) around 2000 years ago. It spread worldwide in the 15 are descended from Latin, while many others, especially European languages Most of the many languages of Europe belong to the Indo-European language family. Another major family is the Finno-Ugric. The Turkic family also has several European members. The North and South Caucasian families are important in the southeastern extremity of geographical Europe. Basque is a language isolate and Maltese is the only national, including English English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries and of the United States since the late 19th century, it has become the lingua franca in many parts of the world. It is used, have inherited and acquired much of their vocabulary from Latin. It was the international language of science and scholarship in central and western Europe until the 17th century, then it was gradually replaced by vernacular languages Vernacular refers to the native language of a country or a locality. In general linguistics, it is used to describe local languages as opposed to linguas franca, official standards or global languages. It is sometimes applied to nonstandard dialects of a global language. For instance, in Western Europe up until the 17th century, most scholarly, especially French, becoming the new lingua franca Lingua franca is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic history or structure of the language: though pidgins and creoles often function as lingua francas, many lingua francas are neither pidgins nor creoles of Europe. There are two main varieties of Latin: Classical Latin Classical Latin is the form of the Latin language used by the ancient Romans in what is usually regarded as "classical" Latin literature. 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, the literary dialect used in poetry and prose, and Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin is a blanket term covering the popular dialects and sociolects of the Latin language which diverged from each other in the early Middle Ages, evolving into the Romance languages by the 6th century. Vulgar Latin can also refer to vernacular speech from other periods, including the Classical period,[citation needed] in which case it may, the form of the language spoken by ordinary people. Vulgar Latin was preserved as a spoken language in much of Europe after the decline of the Roman Empire The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor, Augustus. The nearly 500-year-old Roman Republic,, and by the 9th century diverged into the various Romance languages The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family comprising all the languages that descend from Latin, the language of ancient Rome. There are more than 600 million native speakers worldwide, mainly in the Americas, Europe, and Africa, as well as many smaller regions scattered throughout the world. The five most well-known.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Latin survived as the lingua franca Lingua franca is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic history or structure of the language: though pidgins and creoles often function as lingua francas, many lingua francas are neither pidgins nor creoles of educated classes in the West, and this survival was reinforced by the adoption of Latin by the Catholic Church. In this milieu, it survived as a mother tongue at least into the second millennium A.D. and is referred to as Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Latin used in the Middle Ages, primarily as a medium of scholarly exchange and as the liturgical language of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, but also as a language of science, literature, law, and administration. Despite the clerical origin of many of its authors, Medieval Latin should not be confused with. The Renaissance briefly reinforced the position of Latin as a spoken language, through its adoption by the Renaissance Humanists. After the 16th century, the popularity of Medieval Latin began to decline, although it remained in use for academic discourse and publication until the 18th century. Few people still speak it in the present day^{[citation needed]}.

Latin lives on in the form of Ecclesiastical Latin Ecclesiastical Latin is the Latin used by the Roman Catholic Church in all periods for ecclesiastical purposes. It can be distinguished from Classical Latin by some lexical variations, a simplified syntax in some cases, and, commonly, an Italianate pronunciation. It appears in various contexts, including theological works, liturgical rites, and used for edicts and papal bulls A Papal bull is a particular type of letters patent or charter issued by a pope. It is named after the bulla that was appended to the end to authenticate it issued by the Catholic Church. Much Latin vocabulary is used in science, academia, and law. Classical Latin Classical Latin is the form of the Latin language used by the ancient Romans in what is usually regarded as "classical" Latin literature. 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, the literary language A literary language is a register of a language that is used in literary writing. This may also include liturgical writing. The difference between literary and non-literary forms is more marked in some languages than in others. Where there is a strong divergence, the language is said to exhibit diglossia of the late Republic and early Empire, is still taught in many primary, grammar, and secondary schools, often combined with Greek Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic , Classical (c. 5th–4th centuries BC), and Hellenistic (c. 3rd century BC–6th century AD) periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek. Its Hellenistic phase is known as Koine in the study of Classics Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean World; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity . Initially, study of the Classics (the period’s literature) was the principal study in the humanities, though its role has diminished since the early 20th century. The Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, and was initially developed by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language, together with its modern variants such as the English The exact shape of printed letters varies depending on the typeface. The shape of handwritten letters can differ significantly from the standard printed form , especially when written in cursive style. See the individual letter articles for information about letter shapes and origins (follow the links on any of the uppercase letters above), Spanish Spanish orthography is one of the most phonemic among those that are written with the Latin alphabet. For detailed information on the pronunciation not found here, see also Spanish phonology and French The French alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet. It uses the standard 26 letters. The words in the column "Letter name in French" are sometimes used when discussing the letters alphabets, is the most widely used alphabet in the world.

History

Latin is a member of the Italic languages The Italic subfamily is a member of the Indo-European language family. It includes the Romance languages derived from Latin , and a number of extinct languages of the Italian Peninsula, including Umbrian, Oscan, and Latin. In the 9th or 8th century BC, the Italic languages were brought to the Italian peninsula The Italian Peninsula or Apennine Peninsula is one of the three peninsulas of Southern Europe (the other two being the Iberian Peninsula and Balkan Peninsula), spanning 1,000 km from the Po Valley in the north to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south. The peninsula's shape gives it the nickname Lo Stivale (The Boot). Three smaller peninsulas by migrating tribes, and the dialect spoken in Latium Its area constituted a part of the much larger modern Italian Regione of Lazio, also called Latium in Latin, and occasionally in modern English. The ancient language of the region was to become the basis of Latin around the River Tiber The Tiber is the third-longest river in Italy, rising in the Apennine mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing 406 kilometres through Umbria and Lazio to the Tyrrhenian Sea. It drains a basin estimated at 18,000 km². The river has achieved lasting fame as the main watercourse of the city of Rome, founded on its eastern banks, where Roman civilization Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world would develop, evolved into Latin.

Although surviving Roman literature Latin literature, the body of written works in the Latin language, remains an enduring legacy of the culture of ancient Rome. The Romans produced many works of poetry, comedy, tragedy, satire, history, and rhetoric, drawing heavily on the traditions of other cultures and particularly on the more matured literary tradition of Greece. Long after the consists almost entirely of Classical Latin, the actual spoken language of the Western Roman Empire among ordinary people was what is known as Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin is a blanket term covering the popular dialects and sociolects of the Latin language which diverged from each other in the early Middle Ages, evolving into the Romance languages by the 6th century. Vulgar Latin can also refer to vernacular speech from other periods, including the Classical period,[citation needed] in which case it may, which differed from Classical Latin in grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation.^{[citation needed]}

Orthography

To write Latin, the Romans used the Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, and was initially developed by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language, derived from the Old Italic alphabet Old Italic refers to several now extinct alphabet systems used on the Italian Peninsula in ancient times for various Indo-European and non-Indo-European (e.g. Etruscan) languages. The alphabets derive from the Euboean Greek Cumaean alphabet, used at Ischia and Cumae in the Bay of Naples in the eighth century BCE, which itself was derived from the Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is the first and oldest alphabet in the narrow sense that it notes each vowel and consonant with a separate symbol. It is as such in continuous use to this day. The letters were also used to represent. 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 Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world did not use punctuation Punctuation marks are symbols that correspond to neither phonemes of a language nor to lexemes (words and phrases), but which serve to indicate the structure and organization of writing, as well as intonation and pauses to be observed when reading it aloud. See orthography; macrons A macron, from Greek μακρόv meaning "long", is a diacritic placed over or under a vowel, originally used to mark a long (i.e., heavy) syllable in Græco-Roman metrics, but now also indicates that the vowel is long. (The opposite is a breve ˘, used to indicate originally a short syllable and now also a short vowel.) Distinctions (although they did use apices The apex is a mark roughly with the shape of an acute accent ( ´ ) which is placed over vowels to indicate that they are long 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 In punctuation, a word divider is a glyph that separates written words. In languages which use the Latin, Cyrillic, and Arabic alphabets, as well as other languages of Europe and the Mideast, the word divider is a blank space, or whitespace, a convention which is spreading, along with other aspects of European punctuation, to Asia and Africa (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 Venuses Venus was a major Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty and fertility,who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths. From the third century BC, the increasing Hellenization of Roman upper classes identified her as the equivalent of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. In this way Venus was the consort of Vulcan. Virgil, and Cupids In Roman mythology, Cupid is the god of erotic love and beauty. He is also known by another one of his Latin names, Amor (cognate with Kama). He is the son of goddess Venus

The Roman cursive Roman cursive is a form of handwriting (or a script) used in ancient Rome and to some extent into the Middle Ages. It is customarily divided into old (or ancient) cursive, and new cursive script is commonly found on the many wax tablets A wax tablet is a tablet made of wood and covered with a layer of wax. It was used as a reusable and portable writing surface in Antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages. Cicero's letters make passing reference to their use, and some examples of wax-tablets have been preserved in waterlogged deposits in the Roman fort at Vindolanda on Hadrian's excavated at sites such as forts, an especially extensive set having been discovered at Vindolanda The Vindolanda tablets are fragments of wooden leaf-tablets with writing in ink containing messages to and from members of the garrison of Vindolanda Roman fort, their families, and their slaves. For example there is a famous letter written around 100 AD from Claudia Severa, the wife of the commander of a nearby fort, to Sulpicia Lepidina, wife of on Hadrian's Wall Hadrian's Wall is a stone and turf fortification built by the Roman Empire across the width of what is now northern England. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the middle of three such fortifications built across Great Britain, the first being from the River Clyde to the River Forth under Agricola and the last the Antonine in Britain Great Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest in Europe. With a population of approximately 58.9 million people, it is the third most populated island on Earth. Ireland is to its west, and it is surrounded by over 1000 smaller islands and islets. Curiously enough, most of the Vindolanda tablets show spaces between words, though spaces were avoided in monumental inscriptions from that era.

Legacy

The expansion of the Roman Empire From its origin as a city-state in Italy in 9th century BC, the rise as an empire covering much of Eurasia and North Africa and fall in the 5th century AD of Ancient Rome was often closely entwined with its military history. The core of the campaign history of the Roman military is an aggregate of different accounts of the Roman military's land spread Latin throughout Europe, and, eventually, Vulgar Latin began to diverge into various dialects. Vulgar Latin gradually evolved into a number of distinct Romance languages The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family comprising all the languages that descend from Latin, the language of ancient Rome. There are more than 600 million native speakers worldwide, mainly in the Americas, Europe, and Africa, as well as many smaller regions scattered throughout the world. The five most well-known by the 9th century. 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. Many of these "daughter" languages, including Italian Italian ( italiano , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken as mother-tongue by about 60 million people in Italy, and by a total of around 70 million in the world. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Standard Italian,, French French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 90 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 54 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France, where the language originated. The rest live, Spanish Spanish sometimes called Castilian (castellano) is a Romance language that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade. It was taken most notably to the Americas, and also to Africa and Asia Pacific with the expansion of the Spanish Empire between the, Portuguese Portuguese ( português or língua portuguesa) is a Romance language that was originated in what is now Galicia and northern Portugal. It is derived from the Latin spoken by the romanized Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula (namely the Gallaeci, the Lusitanians, the Celtici and the Conii) around 2000 years ago. It spread worldwide in the 15, Catalan Catalan pronounced /ˈkætəˌlæn/ is a Romance language, the national and official language of Andorra, and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of the Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencià (Valencian) and in the city of Alghero in the Italian island of Sardinia. It is also, Occitan Occitan , known also as Lenga d'òc or Langue d'oc (native name: occitan [utsiˈta], lenga d'òc [ˈleŋɡɔˈðɔ(k)]; native nickname: la lenga nòstra i.e. "our [own] language") is a Romance language spoken in Occitania, that is, Southern France, the Occitan Valleys of Italy, Monaco and in the Aran Valley of Spain. It is also spoken, Romansh Romansh (also spelled Romansch, Rumantsh, or Romanche, Romansh rumantsch/romontsch/rumauntsch, German Rätoromanisch) is one of the four official languages of Switzerland, along with German, Italian and French. It is one of the Rhaeto-Romance languages, believed to have descended from the Vulgar Latin variety spoken by Roman era occupiers of the and Romanian Romanian or Daco-Romanian ; self-designation: limba română, pronounced [ˈlimba roˈmɨnə]) is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova. It has official status in Romania, Moldova, and the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia. In the Republic of Moldova, the language is officially flourished, the differences between them growing greater and more formal over time.

Out of the Romance languages, Italian Italian ( italiano , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken as mother-tongue by about 60 million people in Italy, and by a total of around 70 million in the world. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Standard Italian, is the most conservative descendant of Latin in terms of vocabulary,^[2] and Sardinian Sardinian is, after Italian, the main language spoken on the island of Sardinia, Italy. It is considered the most conservative of the Romance languages in terms of phonology and is noted for its Paleosardinian substratum is the most conservative in terms of phonology Phonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system. When describing the formal area of study, the term typically describes linguistic analysis either beneath the.^[3]

Some of the differences between Classical Latin and the Romance languages have been used in attempts to reconstruct Vulgar Latin. For example, the Romance languages have distinctive stress In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense on certain syllables, whereas Latin had this feature in addition to distinctive length of vowels In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in many other languages, for instance in Arabic,. In Italian and Sardo logudorese Sardu logudorese, or Logudorese, is a standardised dialect of Sardinian, often considered the most conservative of all Romance languages. Its ISO 639-3 code is src, there is distinctive length of consonants as well as stress; in Spanish and Portuguese, only distinctive stress; while in French length (for most speakers) and stress are no longer distinctive. Another major distinction between Romance and Latin is that Romance languages, excluding Romanian Romanian shares practically the same grammar and most of the vocabulary and phonological processes with the other three surviving Eastern Romance languages: Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian, have lost grammatical case In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun indicates its grammatical function in a greater phrase or clause; such as the role of subject, of direct object, or of possessor. While most languages distinguish cases in some fashion, it is only customary to say that a language has cases when these are codified in the morphology of its nouns — that is,.^[4]

There has also been a major Latin influence in English English has been called a Germanic language with a Romance vocabulary. Estimates of native words in English range from 20%–33%, with the rest made up of foreign borrowings. A large number of these borrowings are Latinate, coming directly from Latin, from Latin through one of the Romance languages (French, Italian, Portuguese, Catalan, Occitan,. In the medieval period, much of this borrowing occurred through ecclesiastical usage established by Saint Augustine of Canterbury Augustine of Canterbury was a Benedictine monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 598. He is considered the "Apostle to the English" and a founder of the English Church in the 6th century, or indirectly after the Norman Conquest The Norman conquest of England began in 1066 AD with the invasion of the Kingdom of England by the troops of William, Duke of Normandy , and his victory at the Battle of Hastings. This resulted in Norman control of England, which was firmly established during the next few years. The Norman Conquest was a pivotal event in English history for, through the Anglo-Norman language The Anglo-Norman language is a term traditionally used to refer to the variety of Old Norman used in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles following the Norman conquest in 1066.

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 An inkhorn is an inkwell made out of horn. It was an important item for many scholars and soon became symbolic of writers in general. Later it became a byword for fussy or pedantic writers" or "inkpot An inkwell is a small jar or container, often made of glass, porcelain, silver, brass, or pewter, that is used for holding ink in a place convenient for the person who is writing. The artist or writer dips their brush or dip pen into the inkwell as needed or uses the inkwell as the source for filling the reservoir of a fountain pen" 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 A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants) English words are simply adapted Latin forms, in a large number of cases adapted by way of Old French Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories which span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from around 900 to 1300. It was then known as the langue d'oïl to distinguish it from the langue d'oc (Occitan language, also then called Provençal), whose territory bordered that of.

Latin mottos are adopted by many organizations.

Pronunciation

Grammar

Latin is a synthetic A synthetic language, in linguistic typology, is a language with a high morpheme-per-word ratio. This linguistic classification is largely independent of morpheme-usage classifications , although there is a common tendency for agglutinative languages to exhibit synthetic properties, fusional language A fusional language is a type of synthetic language, distinguished from agglutinative languages by its tendency to overlay many morphemes in a way which can be difficult to segment: affixes An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes. Affixation is, thus, the linguistic process speakers use to form new (often suffixes, which usually encode more than one grammatical category) are attached to fixed stems In linguistics, a stem is the part of a word that is common to all its inflected variants. Stems are often roots, e.g. atomic, its root is atom, but its stem is atom·ic. A stem can be morphologically complex, as seen with compound words (cf. the compound nouns meat ball or bottle opener) or words with derivational morphemes (cf. the derived verbs to express gender If a language distinguishes between masculine and feminine gender, for instance, then each noun belongs to one of those two genders; in order to correctly decline any noun and any modifier or other type of word affecting that noun, one must identify whether the noun is feminine or masculine. The term "grammatical gender" is mostly used, number The count distinctions typically, but not always, correspond to the actual count of the referents of the marked noun or pronoun, and case In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun indicates its grammatical function in a greater phrase or clause; such as the role of subject, of direct object, or of possessor. While most languages distinguish cases in some fashion, it is only customary to say that a language has cases when these are codified in the morphology of its nouns — that is, in adjectives In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or pronoun's referent. Some examples can be seen in the box to the right. Collectively, adjectives form one of the traditional English eight parts of speech, though linguists today distinguish adjectives from words, nouns Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of expressions. The syntactic rules for nouns differ from language to language. In English, nouns may be defined as those words which can occur with articles and attributive adjectives and can function as the head of a noun phrase, and pronouns In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun with or without a determiner, such as you and they in English. The replaced phrase is called the antecedent of the pronoun. A pronoun used for the item questioned in a question is called an interrogative pronoun, such as who—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:

1. 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 boy runs. Puer currit.)
2. Genitive: used when the noun is the possessor of an object (example: "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 (example: "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.)
3. 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.)
4. 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.)
5. 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.
6. 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 opposed to 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 tenses 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 persons (first, second, and third), two numbers (singular and plural) , two voices (active and passive), and a few aspects. Verbs are described by four principal parts:

1. 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).
2. The second principal part is the present infinitive active (or passive, as above) form.
3. The third principal part is the first person singular, perfect indicative active (or passive when there is no active) form.
4. 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.

Instruction

The linguistic element of Latin courses offered in secondary schools and in universities is primarily geared toward an ability to translate Latin texts into modern languages, rather than using the language for the purpose of oral communication, as many modern concepts, such as those encountered in technology, have no accepted modern linguistic equivalents, and no formal organization for adopting new words. Thus the skills of reading and writing are heavily emphasized, while speaking and listening skills are de-emphasized (usually passively, through omission).

However, there is a growing movement, sometimes known as the Living Latin movement, whose supporters believe that Latin can be taught in the same way that modern "living" languages are taught, i.e., as a means of both spoken and written communication. This approach to learning the language assists speculative insight into how ancient authors spoke and incorporated sounds of the language stylistically; patterns in Latin poetry and literature can be difficult to identify without an understanding of the sounds of words.

Living Latin instruction is provided in the Vatican, and some institutions in the U.S. like the University of Kentucky. In Great Britain, 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 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.

Modern use

Today, Latin terminology 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). The Latin terms are used in isolation, as technical terms.

The largest organization that still uses Latin in official contexts is the Roman Catholic Church (particularly in the Latin Rite). 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.

In situations when lingual neutrality is preferred, such as in scientific names for organisms, Latin is typically the language of choice, followed by Greek.

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 due to 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.

The University Orator at the University of Cambridge makes a speech in Latin marking the achievements of each of the honorands at the annual Honorary Degree Congregations. These degree ceremonies as well as the formal proceedings of other degree ceremonies are conducted in Latin. Harvard, Princeton, and Brown also hold a portion of their graduation ceremonies in Latin.^{[citation needed]}

Also Latin Grammar has been taught in most Italian schools since the 18th century, for example in the Classico (School of fine arts) and Scientifico (Science school) Latin is still one of the primary subjects, together with Italian and Mathematics.

See also

Language

• AP Latin Literature
• Latin alphabet
  • Alphabets derived from the Latin
  • Latin characters in Unicode
    • Latin-1
    • Western Latin character sets (computing)
  • List of Latin letters
• Latin encyclopedia
  • Latin Wikipedia (Vicipaedia)
• Latin grammar
  • Latin conjugation
  • Latin declension
  • Latin mnemonics
  • Latin school
  • Golden line
• Latin literature
  • Latin poetry
  • List of Latin language poets
  • Panegyrici Latini
• Latin profanity
• Latin spelling and pronunciation
  • Latin regional pronunciation
  • Traditional English pronunciation of Latin
• Latinism
  • Greek and Latin roots in English
  • Latin honors
  • Latin influence in English
  • Latinisation
  • List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents in English
  • List of Latin abbreviations
  • List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names
  • List of Latin phrases
  • List of Latin words with English derivatives
  • List of Latinised names
  • List of legal Latin terms
  • List of songs with Latin lyrics
• List of Latin place names in Europe

Culture

• Ancient Rome
  • Culture of ancient Rome
  • Romanization (cultural)
• Brocard
• Carmen Possum
• Dog Latin
• pig Latin
• Hiberno-Latin
• Interlingua
• Internationalism
• Judeo-Latin
• Latin liturgy
  • Latin Mass
  • Latin Rite
• Macaronic Latin
• Latino sine Flexione
• Loeb Classical Library
• Romance languages
• Romance peoples

Historical periods

Notes

1. ^ Opus Fundatum Latinitas is an organ of the Roman Catholic Church, and regulates Latin only with respect to its official status in the Vatican City
2. ^ Grimes, Barbara F. (October 1996). Barbara F. Grimes. ed. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. Consulting Editors: Richard S. Pittman & Joseph E. Grimes (thirteenth ed.). Dallas, Texas: Summer Institute of Linguistics, Academic Pub. ISBN 1-55671-026-7.
3. ^ Foreign Languages: Italian, specifically, "Sardinian in fact conserves many archaic features from Latin which disappeared in Italian, such as the hard k-sound in words like chelu, where Italian has cielo."
4. ^ Columbia University Language Resource Center

References

• Bennett, Charles E., Latin Grammar (Allyn and Bacon, Chicago, 1908)
• N. Vincent: "Latin", in The Romance Languages, M. Harris and N. Vincent, eds., (Oxford Univ. Press. 1990), ISBN 0-19-520829-3
• Waquet, Françoise, Latin, or the Empire of a Sign: From the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries (Verso, 2003) ISBN 1-85984-402-2; translated from the French by John Howe.
• Wheelock, Frederic, Latin: An Introduction (Collins, 6th ed., 2005) ISBN 0-06-078423-7
• Frank Palmer Grammar

External links

• English - Latin A search engine for English to Latin translations
• Open Latin Dictionary English-Latin dictionary with wiki-like user editable vocabulary
• Dictionary of Latin phrases
• LATdict Online Latin Dictionary currently contains 39,225 Latin word entries, and 229,345 searchable English words
• Latin language history and Classical Latin texts translated into English.
• Latin dictionary access to thousands of Latin terms, Latin phrases, Latin expressions and Latin words.
• Latin dictionary plugin for Mac OS X's Dictionary.app.
• Latin-English dictionary and Latin grammar, from the University of Notre Dame
• Latin Etymology, An Etymological Dictionary of the Latin Language
• Latin for Beginners at Publicliterature.org
• Latin Language, origin and history, grammar, vocabulary, texts, etc.
• Latin Online from the University of Texas at Austin
• Latinum — Anglice et Latine — Extensive Latin language learning podcast.
• National Latin Exam
• Omniamundamundis, Latin texts from fourteen ancient Roman authors
• Online Latin Community Web forum for discussion of Latin language both in Latin and in [1] (English)
• Schola Latina Universalis, a version of Comenius's Orbis Sensualium Pictus
• The Latin Library A collection of Latin texts: classical, Christian, medieval, and modern. See also The Latin Library
• The Perseus Project, a resource for classical languages and literature
• Understanding Anatomical Latin, explaining common medical/anatomical forms

Learn Latin

• Academia Thules offers online courses on Roman History, Philosophy, Archaeology, Religion, Language, Military Arts, Law.
• Advanced Latin - covers the next stages.
• Beginners' Latin - UK Government website for learning Latin (UK National Archives)
• Free public domain Latin textbooks - from TextKit.com
• Latin for Beginners - an ebook of a 1911 Latin textbook
• MP3 Audio of the Latin Text 1962 Ordo Missae
• Real Latin Dictionary

Contemporary usage

• An Drouizig - Latin Spell-checker
• Classical Academic Press, online Latin vocabulary review

Categories: Latin language | Ancient languages | Fusional languages | Languages of Italy | Languages of Vatican City | Latino-Faliscan languages

See Also:

• Latin
• Latin Language

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