Latin

Latin (Latin: lingua latīna, ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages.

They include Latin and its descendants (the Romance languages), as well as a number of extinct languages of the Italian Peninsula, including Umbrian, Oscan, Faliscan, South Picene, and possibly Venetic and Sicel.

Latin was originally spoken in the area around Rome, known as Latium.

Rome (Latin and Roma ) is the capital city and a special comune of Italy (named Comune di Roma Capitale). Rome also serves as the capital of the Lazio region.

The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, and ultimately from the Phoenician alphabet.

The Latin or Roman alphabet is the writing system originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language.

Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian.

Vulgar Latin or Sermo Vulgaris ("common speech"), also Colloquial Latin, or Common Romance (particularly in the late stage), was a range of non-standard sociolects of Latin (as opposed to Classical Latin, the standard and literary version of the language) spoken in the Mediterranean region during and after the classical period of the Roman Empire.

Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian.

Around 75% of modern Spanish vocabulary is derived from Latin.

In particular, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in English descriptions of theology, biology, science, medicine, and law.

The binomial nomenclature used for animals and plants is largely derived from Latin and Greek words, as are some of the names used for higher taxa, such as orders and above.

Latin, Greek, and French have contributed many words to the English language.

It is closely related to the Frisian languages, but its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by other Germanic languages, particularly Norse (a North Germanic language), and to a greater extent Latin and French.

By the late Roman Republic (75 BC), Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin.

Classical Latin is the modern term used to describe the form of the Latin language recognized as standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and the Roman Empire.

Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, initially in Italy and subsequently throughout the western Roman Empire.

The Latin language of the Romans evolved into the Romance languages of the medieval and modern world.

Late Latin is the written language from the 3rd century, and Medieval Latin the language used from the 9th century to the Renaissance which used Renaissance Latin.

Late Latin (Latinitas serior) is the scholarly name for the written Latin of late antiquity.

Late Latin is the written language from the 3rd century, and Medieval Latin the language used from the 9th century to the Renaissance which used Renaissance Latin.

Medieval Latin was the form of Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages.

Latin, Greek, and French have contributed many words to the English language.

Although French is mainly from Latin (which accounts for about 60% of English vocabulary either directly or via a Romance language), it also includes words from Gaulish and Germanic languages (especially Old Frankish).

Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian.

When the Romans arrived at the Iberian Peninsula in 216 BC, they brought the Latin language with them, from which all Romance languages descend.

Late Latin is the written language from the 3rd century, and Medieval Latin the language used from the 9th century to the Renaissance which used Renaissance Latin.

Renaissance Latin is a name given to the distinctive form of Latin style developed during the European Renaissance of the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries, particularly by the Renaissance humanism movement.

Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved.

was a revival in the use of Latin in original, scholarly, and scientific works between c.

Ecclesiastical Latin remains the official language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.

Ecclesiastical Latin, also called Liturgical Latin or Church Latin, is a later form of Latin used to discuss Christian thought.

Latin, Greek, and French have contributed many words to the English language.

Some Greek words were borrowed into Latin and its descendants, the Romance languages.

In particular, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in English descriptions of theology, biology, science, medicine, and law.

Augustine of Hippo defined the Latin equivalent, theologia, as "reasoning or discussion concerning the Deity"; Richard Hooker defined "theology" in English as "the science of things divine".

By the late Roman Republic (75 BC), Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin.

The earliest known specimen of the Latin language appears on the Praeneste fibula.

Latin (Latin: lingua latīna, ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages.

In 1583, English Jesuit missionary and Konkani scholar Thomas Stephens wrote a letter from Goa to his brother (not published until the 20th century) in which he noted similarities between Indian languages and Greek and Latin.

Latin was originally spoken in the area around Rome, known as Latium.

The modern descendant, the Italian Regione of Lazio, also called Latium in Latin, and occasionally in modern English, is somewhat larger still, but not as much as double the original Latium.

Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian.

Romance languages are the continuation of Vulgar Latin, the popular and colloquial sociolect of Latin spoken by soldiers, settlers, and merchants of the Roman Empire, as distinguished from the classical form of the language spoken by the Roman upper classes, the form in which the language was generally written.

Philological analysis of Archaic Latin works, such as those of Plautus, which contain snippets of everyday speech, indicates that a spoken language, Vulgar Latin (termed sermo vulgi, "the speech of the masses", by Cicero), existed concurrently with literate Classical Latin.

His influence on the Latin language was so immense that the subsequent history of prose, not only in Latin but in European languages up to the 19th century, was said to be either a reaction against or a return to his style.

Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian.

Romanian has preserved a part of the Latin declension, but whereas Latin had six cases, from a morphological viewpoint, Romanian has only five: the nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and marginally the vocative.

Latin is a highly inflected language, with three distinct genders, seven noun cases, five declensions, four verb conjugations, four verb principal parts, six tenses, three persons, three moods, two voices, two aspects and two numbers.

Aspectual distinctions may be restricted to certain tenses: in Latin and the Romance languages, for example, the perfective–imperfective distinction is marked in the past tense, by the division between preterites and imperfects.