The origins of the Latin language

You wanted to know

“Why do most languages stem from Latin?” asked a student in Gregg Thompson's sixth-grade social studies class at Woodland Middle School in Gurnee.

Nearly 1,000 years B.C., Indo-European tribes settled on the Italian peninsula, building a community in a hilly region near lakes Albano and Nemi.

This area had been populated since prehistoric times. Called the Latini, this group developed a distinct culture and language called Latin.

Nearby tribes — the Etruscans, Volsci and Romans — engaged in commerce with the Latini. Their cultures blended and the Latini were absorbed around 300 B.C. into what ultimately became the Roman Empire.

“Latin is a branch of the family of Indo-European language and was related to several other languages spoken in central Italy in the first millennium B.C. One of those languages, Oscan, appears alongside Latin on inscriptions and graffiti preserved in the city of Pompeii, for instance,” said Pedar Foss, professor of classical studies at DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana.

Pompeii was a Roman city perched on an active volcano that erupted in A.D. 79, destroying the town's population, estimated at 11,000. Pompeii was rediscovered in the 1750s when archaeologists began the painstaking work of removing tons of volcanic debris and sediment, uncovering city scenes so well preserved it was almost like seeing daily life in its original form, including graffiti-covered walls.

The Roman poet Virgil's epic poem, “Aeneid,” tells the story of the wanderer Aeneus, who traveled to Rome and conquered the Latini. In the tale, the god Jupiter proclaims Latin as the official language so the conquered tribes and Roman citizens meld into one community.

When Augustus declared himself the first emperor of Rome in 27 B.C., he declared Latin the official Roman language. A classical form of Latin became the universal business language across the empire.

As the empire spread east and west, soldiers, government leaders and citizens brought Latin with them to new territories.

“The political, economic, and military ascension of Rome, the capital of the Latin people, facilitated the growth of their language,” Foss said. “The spread of Christianity, the Norman conquest of England, and the Renaissance all brought influxes of Latin-based words into English.”

Commonalities between Latin and English continue in the English language, with about 30 percent of English words stemming from Latin roots. The languages differ in alphabet size — Latin contains 23 letters and omits the J, U and W found in English.

Latin is preferred for several reasons.

“A key value is its precision; most Latin verbs have more than 200 different forms. While this makes Latin a challenge to learn, it confers two major benefits: the power of exact expression and an understanding of the structure and nuance of language itself,” Foss explained.

“It was only when I began to learn Latin in college that I began truly to understand English.”

Latin's exact meaning makes it a logical choice for science and industry.

“In the interest of a common vocabulary for the categories and labels of the scientific and industrial revolutions, Latin came to comprise nearly 90 percent of scientific and technical terms,” Foss said.

Latin remains a key language of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, and many Latin terms are used in law, medicine and archaeology. Sewanee and Harvard universities include Latin speeches during graduation ceremonies.

Check it out

The Grayslake Area Public Library District suggests these titles on Ancient Rome:

• “Pompeii” by Liz Sonneborn

• “Your Travel Guide to Ancient Rome” by Rita J. Markel

• “Ancient Rome” by Dr. Simon James

• “How'd They Do That in Ancient Rome?” by Pete DiPrimio

• “Roman Myths and Legends” by Jilly Hunt