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Latin

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Languages

   Latin
   lingua latina
   Spoken in: Vatican City
   Region: Italian Peninsula and Europe
   Language extinction: Late Latin developed into various Romance
   languages by the 9th century
   Language family: Indo-European
     Italic
      Latino-Faliscan
      Latin
   Official status
   Official language of: Vatican City
   Used for official purposes, but not spoken in everyday speech
   Regulated by: no official regulation
   Language codes
   ISO 639-1: la
   ISO 639-2: lat
   ISO/FDIS 639-3: lat
   Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA
   chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

   Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium,
   the region immediately surrounding Rome.

   Latin gained wide currency as the formal language of the Roman Republic
   and Roman Empire, and was also later adopted by medieval scholars, as
   well as the Catholic Church. An inflectional and synthetic language,
   Latin relies little on word order, conveying meaning through a system
   of affixes attached to word stems. The Latin alphabet, derived from
   that of the Etruscans and Greeks, remains the most widely used alphabet
   in the world.

   Although Latin is now widely considered to be an extinct language, with
   very few fluent speakers and no native ones, it has exerted a major
   influence on many other languages that are still thriving and continues
   to see significant use in science, academia, and law. Romance languages
   are descended from Vulgar Latin, and many words adapted from Latin are
   found in other modern languages—including English, where roughly six
   out of every ten commonly-used words are derived, directly or
   indirectly, from Latin. This is part of its legacy as the lingua franca
   of the Western world for over a thousand years. Latin was only replaced
   in this capacity by French in the 18th century, though Latin continued
   to be used in some intellectual and political circles.

   The Roman Catholic Church used Latin as its primary liturgical language
   until the advent of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, after
   which the various vernacular languages of its members were allowed in
   the liturgy. However, Ecclesiastical Latin remains the official
   language of Vatican City. Until recently, it was common to find
   Classical Latin, the literary language of the late Republic and early
   Empire, taught in many primary, grammar, and secondary schools
   throughout the world, often combined with Greek as the study of
   Classics.

History

   The Duenos inscription, from the 6th century BC, is one of the earliest
   known Old Latin texts.
   Enlarge
   The Duenos inscription, from the 6th century BC, is one of the earliest
   known Old Latin texts.

   Latin is a member of the family of Italic languages, and its alphabet,
   the Latin alphabet, is based on the Old Italic alphabet, which is in
   turn derived from the Greek alphabet. Latin was first brought to the
   Italian peninsula in the 9th or 8th century BC by migrants from the
   north, who settled in the Latium region, specifically around the River
   Tiber, where the Roman civilization first developed. Latin was
   influenced by the Celtic dialects and the non- Indo-European Etruscan
   language of northern Italy, as well as by the Greek of southern Italy.

   Although surviving Roman literature consists almost entirely of
   Classical Latin, an artificial and highly stylized literary language
   whose Golden Age stretched from the 1st century BC to the 1st century
   AD (encompassing the greatest Roman prose writers and poets like
   Cicero, Virgil, Ovid, Livy, and Caesar, among others), the actual
   spoken language of the Western Roman Empire was Vulgar Latin, which
   significantly differed from Classical Latin in grammar, vocabulary, and
   (eventually) pronunciation.

   Interestingly, while Latin long remained the legal and governmental
   language of the entire Roman Empire, Greek came to be the language most
   often used among the well-educated elite—as much of the literature and
   philosophy studied by upper-class Romans had been produced by Greek
   (usually Athenian) authors. In the eastern half of the Roman Empire,
   which became the Byzantine Empire after the final split of the Eastern
   and Western Roman Empires in 395 AD, Greek eventually supplanted Latin
   as the legal and governmental language, in keeping with the fact that
   it had long been the spoken language of most Eastern citizens (of all
   classes).

Legacy

   The language of Rome has had a profound impact on later cultures, as
   demonstrated by this Latin Bible from 1407 AD.
   Enlarge
   The language of Rome has had a profound impact on later cultures, as
   demonstrated by this Latin Bible from 1407 AD.

   The expansion of the Roman Empire spread Latin throughout Europe, and,
   eventually, Vulgar Latin began to dialectize, based on the location of
   its various speakers. Vulgar Latin gradually evolved into a number of
   distinct Romance languages; a process well underway by the 9th century
   AD. These were for many centuries only oral languages, Latin still
   being used for writing. For example, Latin was still the official
   language of Portugal in 1296, after which time it was replaced by
   Portuguese. Many of these "daughter" languages, including Portuguese,
   Spanish, French, Italian, and Romanian, flourished, the differences
   between them growing greater and more formal over time. Out of the
   Romance languages, Italian is generally considered the purest
   descendant of Latin in terms of vocabulary, though Romanian more
   closely preserves the Classical declension system, and Sardinian is the
   most conservative in terms of phonology.

   Classical Latin and the Romance languages differ in a number of ways,
   and some of these differences have been used in attempts to reconstruct
   Vulgar Latin. For example, the Romance languages have distinctive
   stress on certain syllables, whereas Latin had distinctive length of
   vowels. In Italian and Sardo logudorese, there is distinctive length of
   consonants and stress, in Spanish only distinctive stress, and in
   French length and stress are no longer distinctive. Another major
   distinction between Romance and Latin is that all Romance languages,
   excluding Romanian, have lost their case endings in most words, except
   for some pronouns. Romanian exhibits a direct case
   (nominative/accusative), an indirect case (dative/genitive), and a
   vocative, but linguists have said that the case endings are a Balkan
   innovation.

   There has also been a major Latin influence in English. Although
   English is not descended from Latin, being Germanic, rather than
   Romance, in origin— Britannia was a Roman province, but the Roman
   presence in Britain had effectively disappeared by the time of the
   Anglo-Saxon invasions—English borrows heavily from Latin and
   Latin-derived words: 60 per cent of the English vocabulary finds its
   roots in Latin. In the medieval period, much of this borrowing occurred
   indirectly after the Norman Conquest or through ecclesiastical usage.
   After the Conquest, the new King of England, William the Conqueror,
   spoke Norman, and Anglo-Norman became the accepted language of the
   court and nobility. The Anglo-Saxon language remained the speech of the
   vast bulk of the population however, and it was eventually and
   gradually readopted by the ruling classes.

   English grammar remains independent of Latin grammar, even though
   prescriptive grammarians in English have been heavily influenced by
   Latin. Attempts to make English grammar follow some Latin rules, such
   as the "prohibition" on split infinitives, have been met with some
   resistance from those who believe splitting infinitives occasionally
   improves the clarity of English.

   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" or " inkpot" 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,
   extrapolate, dormant and employer are all inkhorn terms carved from
   Latin words. Thus, many of the most common polysyllabic "English" words
   are simply adapted Latin forms, in a large number of cases adapted by
   way of Old French.

Phonology

Grammar

   Latin is a synthetic inflectional language: affixes (often suffixes,
   which usually encode more than one grammatical category) are attached
   to fixed stems to express gender, number, and case in adjectives,
   nouns, and pronouns—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 five Latin noun declensions. Every Latin noun belongs to one
   of these, each of which has a specific set of endings that are added to
   denote number and case (or grammatical "role") within any given
   sentence. Each declension and case has unique characteristics, "rules"
   (such as a more common gender or a vowel placed between many of the
   endings), and exceptions.

   There are seven noun cases. Each case has several uses which are less
   common and therefore are not noted below:
    1. Nominative: used when the noun is the subject of the verb or the
       predicate nominative.
    2. Genitive: used to indicate possession or origin.
    3. Dative: used when the noun is the indirect object of the verb,
       usually with verbs of giving, showing, helping, trusting, or
       telling.
    4. Accusative: used when the noun is the direct object of the verb or
       object of certain prepositions, or to denote movement towards.
    5. Vocative: used when the noun is used in a direct address (usually
       of a person, but not always, as in O Tempora! O Mores!; the only
       time there is a difference between the vocative and nominative
       cases is in a masculine, singular, second declension noun.
    6. Ablative: used when the noun shows separation or movement from,
       source, cause, agent, or instrument, or when the noun is used as
       the object of certain prepositions.
    7. Locative: used only with certain nouns (including names of cities,
       towns, small islands among others) to denote location (for instance
       Rōmae "in Rome", domī "at home").

   Note: The lexical entry for a noun lists the nominative followed by the
   genitive. An example of this would be mundus, -ī. The "ī" represents
   the genitive construction of the word, mundī. Some nouns, most commonly
   in the third declension, undergo a stem change after the nominative,
   thus: pax, pacis.

Verbs

   Nearly all verbs in Latin are encompassed by the four main
   conjugations—the groups of verbs with similar inflected forms. The
   first conjugation is typified by infinitive forms ending in -āre, the
   second by infinitives ending in -ēre, the third by infinitives ending
   in -ere, and the fourth by infinitives ending in -īre. However, there
   are a few key exceptions to these rules. There are six general tenses
   in Latin (present, imperfect, future, perfect, pluperfect, and future
   perfect), three grammatical moods (indicative, imperative and
   subjunctive), six persons (first, second, and third, each in singular
   and plural), two voices (active and mediopassive), and a few aspects.
   Verbs are described by four principal parts:
    1. The first principal part is the first person, singular, present
       tense, active voice (if possible), indicative mood form of the verb
    2. The second principal part is the present tense, active voice (if
       possible), infinitive form of the verb
    3. The third principal part is the first person, singular, perfect
       tense, active voice (if possible), indicative mood form of the verb
    4. The fourth principal part is the supine form, or equivalently,
       thenominative case, singular, perfect tense, passive voice
       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).

Education

   A multi-volume Latin dictionary in the University Library of Graz.
   Enlarge
   A multi-volume Latin dictionary in the University Library of Graz.

   Although Latin was once the universal academic language in Europe, in
   the latter part of the 20th century it has been supplanted by the study
   of many other languages; it is a requirement in relatively few places,
   and in some universities is not even offered. However, in Italy, Latin
   is still compulsory in secondary schools such as the Liceo Classico and
   Liceo Scientifico, which are usually attended by people who aim to the
   highest level of education. In Liceo Classico, ancient Greek is also a
   compulsory subject. In Spain, Latin is a compulsory subject for all
   those who study humanities (students can select three sort of studies:
   sciences, humanities or a mixture) in grades 11th and 12th. In France
   and Canada, Latin is optionally studied in secondary school. In Greece,
   Latin is compulsory for students who wish to study humanities, and is
   one of the six subjects tested in Greek examinations for entry into
   humanitarian University courses.

   In Germany, Belgium, Austria and the Netherlands, Latin is studied at
   the highest level of high schools called Gymnasium.

   Latin was once taught in many of the schools in Britain with academic
   leanings—perhaps 25% of the total. However, the requirement to learn
   Latin for admission to university for professions in law and medicine
   was gradually abandoned, beginning in the 1960s. After the introduction
   of the Modern Language General Certificate of Secondary Education in
   the 1980s, Latin was gradually replaced by other languages in many
   schools, but remains taught in others, particularly in the private
   sector. However only one British exam board now offers Latin ( OCR),
   since the exam board AQA recently stopped offering it.

   In the United States Latin is still taught in some high schools. It
   remains a required class (minimum 3 years) at the oldest public school
   in the new world, Boston Latin School.

   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 it for the purpose
   of oral communication. As such, the skill of reading is heavily
   emphasized, whereas speaking and listening skills are barely practiced.
   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. Institutions offering Living
   Latin instruction include the Vatican and 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, and the moderately successful Interlingua is a modernized and
   simplified version of the language.

   Latin translations of modern literature such as Paddington Bear, Winnie
   the Pooh, Tintin, Asterix, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Le
   Petit Prince, Max und Moritz, and The Cat in the Hat are intended to
   bolster interest in the language.

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   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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