Language – Latin

The Latin language was spoken in Ancient Rome. As the Romans of that time conquered a large area of what is now western Europe, Latin spread rather further than many other languages. It formed the basis of many modern European languages including French, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian. A lot of the vocabulary of many other languages (including English) consists of words derived from the spoken Latin language.

Until the late 1600’s it was the language used by international scholars and also for science. From that time it was gradually replaced by the locally developed language, although in a lot of the time the French language was used instead.

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For most of the last 2,000 years there were two main versions of Latin – Classical Latin was used for writing and for poetry while the so-called Vulgar Latin (meaning folk Latin) was the spoken language. It differed from Classical Latin not only in grammar, but also in pronunciation and vocabulary. This remained in use until around 800 CE (Common Era, Christian Era, or Current Era – it is the same as the Christian AD dating). At around that time, the modern languages started to take over.  As well as the six noted above, these languages included Occitan, Aromanian, Corsican, Sardinian, Venetian and Leonese.

Latin continued to be used by the Roman Catholic Church and this ensured that the language survived even though it was no longer being used as much in everyday life. The style of Latin being used around 1000 CE is now referred to as Medieval Latin, while the Latin now being used by the church is considered to be Ecclesiastical Latin.

Classical Latin is still taught in many schools. Many of these courses are geared towards teaching Latin for the purposes of language translation - generally there is little emphasis on the need for spoken Latin.

The Latin alphabet has formed the basis of many modern alphabets including French, Spanish and English. As a result, it is the most widely used alphabet in the world. This alphabet itself came from the Old Italic alphabet which came from the Greek one. The ancient Romans did not use spacing between words or punctuation. (It has been suggested that this was to reduce the space that the writing took up as the wax tablets normally used were rather small and the alternative, papyrus , was expensive.) Hence the written language from the time appears to be totally incomprehensible at first glance. Sometimes a dot was placed between words that may have been too hard to otherwise decipher. The letters “j”, “u” and “w” were not used either.

An example (which is often quoted) of the difference in the written form is:
AVREAPRIMASATAESTAETASQVAEVINDICENVLLOSPONTESVA SINELEGEFIDEMRECTVMQVECOLEBAT

which when written in Modern Latin becomes:
Aurea prima sata est aetas, quae vindice nullo, sponte sua,
sine lege fidem rectumque colebat.

The English translation is:
This was the Golden Age that, without coercion, without laws, spontaneously nurtured the good and the true.

Spoken Latin is taught not only at the Vatican, but also in places such as the University of Kentucky in the USA. In the UK, this is encouraged by the Classical Association. To further encourage interest in written Latin, a Latin translation has been made of various modern books including Paddington Bear, Treasure Island, The Cat in the Hat, Robinson Crusoe and the Harry Potter series.

Although Latin terminology is still used in widely differing fields including medicine, philosophy, law and biology, the largest single user of Latin is still the Catholic Church. Latin remains the official language of the Vatican City-State and the Holy See.

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