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Homework Help: Social Studies: World History: General History of Latin
by Emily McPherson
 Have you ever found yourself telling a friend or relative, "Carpe
diem," ('seize the day') and wondered where it came from? Well, many
people might think that it is Spanish, but in truth it is Latin. There
is also the fact that Spanish, being one of the Romance languages, is
derived from Latin. You may also have heard quid pro quo, ex post facto,
ad hoc, and de facto. Latin has had a tremendous influence on several
languages. Do you ever wonder how or why?
The first thing to explore is where Latin started out. It grew out of
the tongue that was originally brought by the Indo-European people who
migrated to eastern and southern Italy around the end of the Trojan War
(1193 B.C.). It evolved into Latin and then was spoken mainly by the
Romans in their city of Rome and the region around it. As the Romans
were increased their mighty empire, Latin slowly expanded to the
remaining sector around the western Mediterranean Sea. The following are
the different periods of ancient literary Latin: the Early Period, the
Golden Age, the Silver Age, and the Late Latin Period. Each period
changed Latin and how more forms were added to the language. There was
also Medieval Latin and Modern Latin. Finally, a look at what the Latin
language has become at the end of the 20th century: how we use it and
what we think of it.
Latin is a part of the Italic branch of Indo-European languages. It was
greatly influenced by the non-Indo-European Etruscan language from
central Italy, the Celtic tongues from northern Italy, and especially by
the Greek language. But Latin did not begin in Italy. It was brought
there in prehistoric times by Indo-European peoples who moved there from
northern Europe. When brought to Italy, Latin was spoken mainly in Rome
and the surrounding area.
Latin gradually spread throughout the entire western Mediterranean
region as more and more people came under Roman sway (Wyatt 2). There
were more complicated reasons responsible for this tremendous change.
There was always a conflict between Latin and the Italic languages and
the Social War of 90-88 B.C., between Rome and the Italians. This was an
important time for that problem, because this was when a change in the
political treatment Rome's of territories in Italy occurred. Up until
that time, Rome had followed the unspoken rule of trying to keep all
their conquered Italian metropolis' away from each other. This was to
prevent any scheming and later rebellion against Rome. One of their
tactics was to give these communities all different rights and
privileges because they figured that if they had different rights, they
would have different complaints, then they would not have the same
reason for action, and could not combine their forces in going against
Rome. An obvious part to this unspoken rule was to allow the communities
to speak different languages than their neighbors. With the end of the
Social War, this rule went away because of the new idea of political
unity for the Italian peoples, and with this political unity came the
presentation of Latin as the common language for all local as well as
federal business.
Lucania, Samnium and the county of Bruttii were extremely low in
population. Rome sent lots of colonies to all three. Even though the old
tongues were still in use for a little while, they eventually
disappeared and Latin took their place. Latin was now in larger use all
over the central and southern areas of the peninsula.
Ancient literary Latin can be divided into four periods. The first was
from 240-70 B.C. and included the writings of Plautus, Terence, and
Ennius.
The next period was from 70 B.C. to AD 14 and called the Golden Age. This
age is famous for the works of Livy, Julius Caesar, and Cicero and the
poetry of Catullus, Lucretius, Virgil, Hoarse, and Ovid. During this
time, the Latin language rose to another height of... "artistic medium
of expression and attained its greatest richness and flexibility" .
The third period was the Silver Age, 14-130. It is noted for...
"striving for rhetorical elaboration and ornament and concise and
epi-grammatic expression".
The last period was named the Late Latin Period. It extended from the
2nd century until the 6th century. Invading barbarian tribes changed
Latin by bringing in a whole bunch of unknown forms and idioms. The
result was a form of "corrupted" Latin and named it the lingua Romana,
which was different from the lingua Latina, the classical dialect
refined by the educated.
Latin during the Middle Ages of Europe was called Medieval Latin or Low
Latin. It was the language used to write letters. At this time Latin was
still a living language because the church provided a large amount of
religious literature. And once again, the language changed. Sentence
structure was simplified again, new words were added from many different
sources, and new meanings were created. However, the change in Latin
during this period was far less than the change in either English or
French.
Next would be Modern Latin, also called New Latin. This was during the
15th and 16th centuries. The ingenious Renaissance writers created a new
wonderful Latin literature that imitated the Latin literature of the
classical writers.
During this time, most of the books of scientific, religious, or
philosophical importance were written in Latin. The termination of Latin
as the international language was not until the latter years of the
1600's. It still remained the language of scholarship in the 1700 and
1800's though.
Now in the 20th century, theses for college or some other type of
research papers are occasionally written in Latin. But, mostly it is
only the Roman Catholic Church that uses Latin. It is still an extremely
useful language for people to know. "In fact, 75% of the English
language is made up of Latin. I have been taught etymology in my Latin
class, and being able to break down words into their simple meanings has
even garnered me a few extra points on the TER!".
Etymology is the branch of linguistics that deals with finding the
history of a word as shown by determining its earliest use and recording
its changes in form and meaning. Many of us fail to notice the bits and
pieces of this language that work themselves into our everyday lives; a
myriad of phrases and abbreviations. Most law terms are also Latin.
Latin is still alive through the five Romance languages- Spanish,
French, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian. These five dialects represent
the "modern evolution of Vulgar Latin" during the Late Latin period.
Vulgar Latin, also named serbo plebeius, was the form of Latin spoken by
the uneducated classes.
The Roman Empire was one of the main causes behind the expansion and
popularity of the Latin tongue. But Latin also happened to be a
wonderful language in its own right. It produced magnificent literature,
played a big hand in the development of Italian, French, Romanian,
Portuguese, and Spanish and greatly influenced our own English. Latin is
still a useful tool for life in the 20th century. So how does Latin
affect your everyday life?
Homework Help: Social Studies: World History
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