Latin

The Latin language (Latin lingua Latina), Latin for short, is an Indo-European language originally spoken by the Latins, the inhabitants of Latium with Rome as its centre. The earliest evidence dates back to the 5th or 6th century B.C. (Early Latin), from the 3rd century B.C. onwards longer texts are available (Old Latin), and the (written) language reached its full form in the shape of Classical Latin, which is mainly known and taught today, in the 1st century B.C.

Latin was the official language of the Roman Empire and thus became the dominant lingua franca in the western Mediterranean. While the Romance languages developed from the spoken colloquial language, so-called Vulgar Latin, in the early Middle Ages, the Latin of Roman writers remained the leading language of literature, science, politics and the church, even as a dead language, until modern times. Scholars such as Thomas Aquinas, Petrarch, Erasmus, Copernicus, Descartes, and Newton wrote works in Latin. Until the 19th century, lectures at universities throughout Europe were given in Latin; dissertations were usually written in Latin, sometimes until the early 20th century. In Poland, Hungary, and the Holy Roman Empire, Latin was by then the official language. In thousands of loan words, foreign words and idioms, Latin is also present today in non-Roman languages such as German or English. In the formation of new technical terms, Latin is used again and again.

Because of its enormous importance for the linguistic and cultural development of Europe, Latin is taught at many schools and universities, especially in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. For some courses of study, knowledge of Latin or the Latinum is required. The situation is similar in the United Kingdom, where Latin is already taught at primary level.

Linguistic classification

Latin belongs to the main Italic branch of the Indo-European languages, of which notable traces have survived outside Latin only in the form of Oscian and Umbrian. The vocabulary suggests a proximity of Italic to the Celtic languages, but it is not certain whether this means a closer genetic relationship or a prehistoric language contact.

Latin, like ancient Greek, Sanskrit and other ancient Indo-European languages, is a typical inflectional language with a synthetic language structure.

Scripture

Like many other cultural items, the Latin alphabet was borrowed from Greece, via the ancient Italian alphabet of the Etruscans. In classical times, the Latin alphabet consisted of the following 23 characters:

A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X Y Z

Minuscules were unknown in classical times, i.e., it was written only with the majuscules listed here. I and V stood simultaneously for the vowels i, u and the consonants j, v. The word iuventus (youth) was thus written IVVENTVS. The letters K, Y and Z were mainly used in Greek foreign words or proper names.

Besides stone inscriptions, writing was done on wooden and wax tablets (tabula cerata), parchment or papyrus. Styluses were used for writing on the wax tablets. Papyrus was written with black and red ink. The black ink consisted of soot and a solution of gum arabic, the red ink was made of ochre (red chalk). The writing instrument was a brush made of rushes, in Greco-Roman times a writing tube, Greek κάλαμος (kálamos), Latin calamus. In classical times, large volumes of writing were written down on scrolls and codices and reproduced by copying.

The first known stenographic script was invented by Marcus Tullius Cicero's house slave and private secretary Marcus Tullius Tiro.