The Latin language was the first language to be born in Europe and to have been used commonly throughout the continent. Despite being considered a dead (but not extinct) language, it’s still highly useful and used in many different instances, such as the scientific community. Plus, we can’t forget that the alphabet used in thousands of languages today, including English, is Latin! Discover how this ancient and enduring language was invented, spread, and adapted to a changing world over millennia.
The Birthplace of Latin
Where did the Latin language originate? Latin emerged in the Latium region of Europe, in a little town called Rome, specifically on Palatine Hill near the Tiber River. In the 6th century BCE, Rome was more like a village, with only a few thousand people in the area. Those who settled there were from the Latini tribe, which is why the language is called Latin and not Roman.
In this time period, it was normal for each village to have its own language. Towns and villages near one another might have had similar languages, but they were usually distinct enough to be considered separate.
Rome was so secluded at this time that it developed a new, unique dialect. The founders of Rome likely spoke something close to Oscan and Umbrian dialects (from the nearby regions). Indeed, all three languages are so similar that they are collectively called the Italic languages (as in, from the Italian Peninsula), which are a branch of Indo-European languages.
Though it’s not known exactly how the Roman dialect originally evolved, we know that at some point it became so distinct that it was its own language.
Latin is estimated to be about 2,700 years old. It originated in about 700 BCE near modern-day Rome.
Historical Development of Latin
Latin has had a long and storied development over the past 2,700 years or so. It arose naturally from the Latini tribal people. Eventually, it was standardized and spread across the Holy Roman Empire. When the Empire collapsed, the language lived on, but it evolved for a new era. Today, we still see Latin used regularly, integrated with many languages, including English.
700 BCE - 1st century BCE
Archaic Latin
Also known as Old Latin or Early Latin. Earliest Latin texts
700 BCE - 5th century CE
Vulgar Latin
The common language spoken by the people, not the refined version for use in literature.
1st century BCE - 3rd century CE
Classical Latin
Based on the polished, refined version of Latin spoken and written by the upper classes. Used for literature.
75 BCE - 14 CE
Golden Age of Latin Literature
14 CE - c.214 CE
Silver Age of Latin Literature
3rd century CE - 10th century CE
Late Latin
In strict language study definitions, Late Latin did not truly exist, and the authors of the time are considered medieval.
5th century CE - 15th century CE
Rise of Romance Languages
The fall of the Roman Empire allowed spoken Latin to evolve independently in each area by the local speakers.
c.4th century CE - 10th century CE
Medieval Latin
Generally includes much of Ecclesiastical Latin. Was used in scholarly pursuits even as Latin evolved into various Romance languages to maintain the availability of knowledge to educated individuals.
c.14th century CE - 16th century CE
Renaissance Latin
Includes Neo-Latin (New Latin). Humanists at the time sought to revert Latin back to its Classical roots. Used mostly in education, academia, government, and literature well into the 19th century.
c. 16th century CE - present
Contemporary Use of Latin
Includes use in taxonomy, Catholic Church ecclesiastical use, government use, the sciences, and deliberate use for artistry or significance.
Archaic Latin (700–100 B.C.E.)
Where was Latin first spoken? Some time after the settlement on Palatine Hill, the distinct Latin language developed. This was long before the Roman Empire existed.
At this time, there was no standard writing convention, nor was there standard grammar or spelling. Latin was used as a daily language for written and verbal communication. The origin of Latin was not based in reserving a language for the upper class or highly educated; it was simply the native language of the Latini people in Rome.
The Latin from this time is very different from the late Latin you might be familiar with. Since there were no formal rules, spelling, grammar, and pronunciation varied. Vowels and consonants were spoken in different ways and changed frequently. This made proper spelling difficult.
Strides were made with input from the Greeks in the Greek colonies located nearby, who had already devised a functioning writing system.
Historical evidence of writing from this time comes mostly from inscriptions, not books. There are only a few surviving examples of writing from this time period. A few notable examples of archaic Latin have been discovered over the years:
- Duenos inscription, c. 7th to 5th century BCE. Found in modern-day Rome, the inscription is on the outside of a kernos, a type of vase. No consensus has been made on the transcription.
- Praeneste Fibula (the brooch of Palestrina), 7th century BCE. Appears to be Old Latin or Proto-Latino-Faliscan. Its authenticity has been questioned since its discovery in the late 19th century, but a 2011 examination determined it was not a forgery.
- Lapis Niger (black stone), 8th to 7th century BCE. A black marble stone inscribed in very early Latin, showing clear Greek influence. It was found in an ancient shrine in the Roman Forum.
- Lex duodecim tabularum (Laws of the Twelve Tables), 449 BCE. Inscriptions of the formal laws of Rome that were on display in the Forum.
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The Latin alphabet was heavily influenced by the Greeks (the word alphabet is itself Greek!). The Latins adopted the characters and writing system from Etruscan models, which came from Greek colonies in Southern Italy.
Classical Latin (100 B.C.E.–200 C.E.)
Of the history of the Latin language, Classical Latin is the form most people today are familiar with.
Its development was directly related to the expansion of the Roman Empire.
One of the necessities of a prosperous, functioning empire is a standardized language, especially for writing.
Writers, teachers, and officials refined the language and developed writing, grammar, and pronunciation conventions.
They standardized how vowels and consonants were spoken and written.
This achieved several important things:
- Standard writing allowed officials from anywhere in the empire to communicate clearly with one another, imperative for monitoring the state of the empire
- A common language strengthened the connection between people of the same empire or republic through kinship, forced connection, or both
- Imposing the language on conquered peoples helps ensure they remain too weak to rebel
- Widespread literacy allowed most people to learn and thus contribute to artistic and scientific pursuits, leading to a more developed, stronger society
The superiority of the Roman Empire was not an accident. Much of it was strategically organized to ensure the perpetual success of the republic with the least resistance in the long term.
In this time period, Latin’s most famous literature was produced. Historic authors like Cicero, Caesar, Virgil, Horace, and Ovid directly influenced the standardization of Latin. Students were taught how to write based on their work.
Functionally, Classical Latin was used mostly for written works, especially for formalities and academia. In everyday speech and mundane use, Latin was still more casual and had more variations (called Vulgar Latin).
How were Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin different? Here’s a quick overview:
Classical Latin ✒️
- More formal and “proper” (ex: using the proper word caput when talking about a head)
- Used specifically for academic and important writing
- Was rarely spoken aloud, even by high-class intellectuals and academics
- Modern examples: Contracts, terms and conditions, scholarly books and studies, etc.
Vulgar Latin ✏️
- Casual, used slang (ex: using testa, meaning “jar” when talking about a head)
- Used for practical communication and everyday speech
- Even academics used vulgar vocabulary and syntax when writing non-formally, such as a letter to a friend
- Modern examples: Everyday speech, writing an email, information on signs and brochures, etc.
Vulgar Latin and the Rise of Romance Languages
Scholars and officials mostly wrote in the refined Classical Latin mentioned above, but the common person typically spoke what linguists call Vulgar Latin. The word “vulgar” just means “common” or “colloquial” in this use.
Vulgar Latin was spread by soldiers, merchants, and settlers across the Empire. It mixed with local languages and varied by region, taking on different accents and dialects.
Veni, vidi, vici. (I came, I saw, I conquered.)
Julius Caesar
When the Roman Empire began to break up, the imposed standardizations of Latin fell away, allowing the modified versions of Latin to continue evolving locally. This is where the Romance languages originate! In different regions of the former Roman Empire, several Roman-based languages developed:
- Italian
- French
- Spanish
- Portuguese
- Romanian
Each region changed Latin, modifying the vowels and consonants to better suit their specific preferred and natural ways of speaking.
Wait, isn’t English a Latin language? No. In modern English, many of our words derive from French, which is why we can see similarities between English and the other Latin languages. However, the origin of English is Germanic, which is why our grammar is so different and we have many words not found in the Romance languages.
Latin was spoken by the masses from its development in about 700 BCE until the Romance languages started to evolve, around the 5th century CE. It took hundreds of years for the transition to occur as the language slowly changed from regional Vulgar Latin to the proto-versions of the new Romance language of the specific region.
Only when looking back on historical accounts and artifacts can we determine the shift between Latin and the respective Romance language in a region. The change happens slowly and organically. The people living at the time may have thought themselves to be Latin speakers, even when they were speaking what we now know to be Old French or Old Spanish, for example.
By the early Middle Ages (c. 5th century BCE), people were generally not speaking Latin as a native language.
Medieval and Renaissance Latin
If the Romance languages replaced vulgar Latin, then where does Latin come from in our modern-day institutions? Although Latin began to die out as a common language after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it was still highly used in academics, arts, government, and the Church. Clergy continued to use Latin in religious texts and services. It acted as a uniting language of the Church; whether one’s native tongue was French, English, Dutch, or Spanish, the Latin language used in Catholicism transcended those barriers and united Catholics.
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Animus hominis semper appetit agere aliquid. (The mind of man is always longing to do something.)
Cicero
Similarly, scholars used Latin as a common written language with other academics. They wrote their important works in Latin so other intellectuals could read and interpret the information, helping the circulation and advancement of scientific ideas.
Importantly, Latin used in the Medieval period was more flexible than classical Latin, and new words were invented to describe contemporary concepts.
This kept the language alive as a changing, functional entity.
In the Renaissance (14th century), scholars known as ‘humanists’ desired a return to Classical Latin.
Their version of Latin, which can be called “Classical" Neo-Latin, purged most of the medieval words which were considered “corrupted."
They wanted to re-elevate Latin to a prestigious status, and they largely succeeded. Their efforts directly led to formal Latin being used in education, mostly for literature. However, it stunted Latin’s practicality as a language for science, medicine, and law, which required the contemporary terms.
The Latin language comes from the early settlement of the Latini tribe in Rome, located in the Latium region in Europe. It spread across the Roman Empire, which extended from the Portuguese shores of the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the banks of the Euphrates in what is today Iran.
Contemporary Use of Latin
Today, there are no native speakers of Latin (those who learned Latin as their first language and use it to communicate in daily life), which makes it functionally dead. However, Latin is still alive and well in academia. Here are just some of the Latin terms from law, science, and religion that are still functionally used today:
Science 🧪
- Taxonomy / Binomial Nomenclature (ex: “Dogs” are Canis familiaris)
- Medicine / Anatomy (ex: “back” is dorsum; sagittal; “subcutaneous” comes from sub (“under”) + cutis (“skin”) + aneus (adjectival suffix) )
- Elemental symbols (Plumbum = Pb = lead)
Law ⚖️
- Ad hominem (“at the person”)
- Bona fide (“in good faith”)
- Habeas corpus (“may you have the body” / bring the detained person into the room)
Religion ✝️
- Is still the official language of the Roman Catholic Church
- Pax vobiscum (“peace be with you”)
- Gloria in excelsis Deo (“Glory to God in the highest,” a common hymn)
Philosophy 💭
- Mea culpa (“by my fault”)
- Q.E.D., quod erat demonstrandum (“that which was to be demonstrated”)
- Ipso facto (“by the fact itself”)
Other / Culture 🗺
- E pluribus unum (“out of many, one,” motto on the Seal of the United States)
- Ad lib (short for ad libitum, meaning “according to pleasure”)
- Per diem (“per day”)
- Vice versa (“in-turned position”)
- Carpe diem (“seize the day”)
- Et cetera / etc. (“and so on”)
- Per se (“ by itself / of itself”)
- Per capita (“per person”)
- Verbatim (“word for word”)
Since much of English is derived from French (which was once the lingua franca of the world, that is, a language in common between people with different native languages, just like Latin once was!), it’s easy to see Latin’s influence in English words and in Romance languages.
While Latin is not used as a common language for normal communication today, it’s still an important part of language as a whole. Its vocabulary and syntax directly inform a handful of languages, and the Latin alphabet is used for writing thousands. Latin is still seen as a language of academia and scholarly pursuit.
References
- Adams, B. (2019). How Old is Latin? In Ancient Language Institute. https://ancientlanguage.com/how-old-is-latin/
- Element Oddities: 11 Confusing Chemical Symbols Explained. (2016). In Compound Interest. https://www.compoundchem.com/2016/02/02/confusing-elements/
- medical terminology, greek roots, latin roots, medical jargon, pocket. (2016). In Pocket Anatomy. https://www.pocketanatomy.com/teaching-anatomy/the-anatomy-of-medical-jargon Read, Min. (n.d.).
- Common Latin Phrases Used in Everyday English. In www.lingualinx.com. https://www.lingualinx.com/blog/common-latin-phrases-used-in-english
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