Latin

Latin is a language belonging to the Indo-European language family, in the Italic branch. It was originally spoken in the Latium region of central Italy, where the city of Rome is located. As Roman power expanded, Latin became the language of administration, military affairs, and courts of the Roman Empire.

Today Latin is not used as a native spoken language in everyday society. However, it remains in use by the Catholic Church and the Vatican, and is written in the names of scientists, in law, and in medicine. For this reason many people refer to it as a 'learned, not native' language.

Writing and sound

The Latin alphabet was derived from the Greek alphabet, with the Etruscan writing system as an intermediary. Early writing lacked distinction between capital and lowercase letters and had few punctuation marks. The letters J, U, and W were added later. The Latin alphabet is now the most widely used writing system in the world, and Somali's official writing system also uses it.

Grammar

Latin is an inflectional language: word endings change to show the function of a word within a sentence. Nouns have several cases, such as nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and ablative. Verbs express tense, aspect, and person. Because meaning depends on the endings, word order in a sentence is relatively free, especially in poetry.

Historical periods and change

Scholars distinguish periods: Early Latin, Classical Latin (the writings of Cicero and Virgil), Vulgar Latin (the speech of ordinary people), Church Latin, and New Latin used in science. Vulgar Latin diverged by region and subsequently developed into the Romance languages: Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Romanian, and others.

Influence on vocabulary

Many words in English, French, and scientific languages have their roots in Latin. Linnaeus's system of binomial nomenclature is based on Latin. Law, medicine, and religion also use Latin phrases that remain untranslated.