Is the Latin language and the Italian language the same thing?
Friday, September 11th, 2009 at
9:09 pm
I was just wondering because I'm taking a Latin course and studying about Roman culture which is in Rome. Which Rome is in Italy. So I was just wondering if the Latin language is similar to the Italian language or if it's the same thing.
Please give me your view on this. Thanks! 
Home | Contact | About | Privacy Policy | Sitemap
Tagged with: italian language • italy • latin course • Latin Language • roman culture • rome
Filed under: Latin Language
No. Latin is antiquated and no longer used as a spoken language.
It is the root basis for most western languages, however.
No. The Italian language derives from Latin, like all roman languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese etc). But grammar, syntax and vocabulary are very different.
Latin preceded Italian…it’s somewhat like a great-grandfather of Italian, which is why the two languages are very much alike, though still very different. check out the site listed as my source for a discussion of this, and even a language tree to show the evolution of Latin into several different languages, not just Italian (most common of which are French and Italian, though there are many others!).
Italian is the language that is most similar to Latin, since it originated from it, but it’s not the same. You can find similarities between Latin and Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and French which are all called Romance or Latin languages because they all originated from Latin directly. Many other languages have also words imported from Latin.
They’re similar since Italian, just like French and Spanish and Romanian,etc. is a Romance Language, or a descendant of Late Latin.
But they’re not typical. Romance languages changed over time till they became separate.
Still, however, if you can speak Latin: Romance languages would probably be really easy to you.
Well, they’re basically the same language.
Italian is a modern version of Latin, after going through centuries of evolution.
They’re similar but not the same. Latin is the ancestor of
Italian, as well as of French, Spanish, and several other languages (the Romance languages). Italian is grammatically simpler (fewer inflections), has two genders instead of three, and has borrowed words from other languages and changed the spellings of many words inherited from Latin. Once you’ve had Latin, Italian should be fairly easy to learn, but it’s not just "modern Latin."
its similar not the same though
latin is like the romance languages french spanish english etc
Italian can be viewed as a modern dialect of Latin. Its vocabulary, grammar and syntax derive from Latin. Occasionally one can be surprised to hear a complete phrase which is the same as the original Latin. However, over a couple of thousand years Italian has undergone many changes, including the addition of many modern words, as the centuries progressed, and a simplification of the grammar. An ancient Roman time traveller would be baffled and unable to cope. However, you, with a knowlege of Latin, would find that you were able to learn Italian without much difficulty.
Lingua latina multum pulchra est. (latin)
La lingua latina è molto bella. (italiano)
La lengua latina es muy bella. (español)
A língua latina es muito bela. (português)
La langue latine c´est beaucoup belle. (français)
If you can speak latin language, you can understand a lot of modern languages of south Europe.
Saludos desde España / Ego saluto vobis de Hispania.