Part of the reason that Latin passed out of common usage is because, as a language, it's incredibly complex. Classical Latin is highly inflected, meaning that nearly every word is potentially modified based on tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender and mood. With no central power promoting and standardizing usage of Classical Latin, it gradually passed away from everyday usage.
Vulgar Latin , essentially a simplified version of the mother tongue, survived for a while but diverged more and more as it folded in various local languages.
By the end of the sixth century, people from different sections of the former empire could no longer understand each other. The clergy periodically attmepted to make the Christian Latin more uniform in pronunciation and usage which required training the clergy clear up through medieval times. Ultimately, even this was not enough to prevent the linguistic diversity from separating the Latin from the vulgar languages that emerged. During the Carolingian Renaissance, Charlemagne, an illiterate king from France, but with great influence, sought to revive Latin in its Classical form with special attention given to the pronunciation of Latin Radice He was fluent in spoken Latin and understood some Greek, and enjoyed the Classical forms of art, architecture, and language.
He had a school set up by an Englishman, Alcuin of York, in which to teach and promote the rebirth of Latin Yet despite the reforms he initiated to revive these things, it was short lived. Latin continued mainly as a vehicle for religion and religious reforms, law, and medicine. Concerning the retention of sounds and pronunciation, Wright argues that the forms used in law are pronounced in the Latin vernacular. This could be very significant due to its repetition and its use even today. This could be one of the few forms in which original Latin pronunciation is maintained.
Most linguistic historians concur that Latin ceased being spoken as a native tongue in the 8th-c. AD Herman It is summarized well that:. Thus, Latin gave way to its daughter languages and was relegated to being the language of science, law, and learning for the next few centuries. According to Pei Latin was displaced gradually in spoken form between The first Portuguese writing sample is from an act of partition in AD Elcock Rheto-Romance originated in the areas which correspond to modern day Switzerland, Bavaria, and Austria Latin is still seen in the form of inscriptions, medical taxonomy, legal jargon, and some religious settings.
Thus, the history of the Latin language is long and diverse. The daughter Romance languages which descend to us today are proof of its legacy.
The former lingua franca of the western world is now preserved through science, law, and religion, but more notably, it is preserved in the memory of its growth and long-lasting influence.
Bonfante, Larissa. Wayne State University Press: Detroit, We do not know what language the founders of Rome spoke before Latin developed, but it bore a close resemblance to Oscan and Umbrian dialects. By comparing ancient manuscripts of all three languages, it is evident that they share very similar vocabulary and grammar. But they are not so similar that knowing how to interpret one means you can interpret the others.
The comparison is similar between Italian and Spanish. However, because they are in the same language family, linguists refer to these three languages — Latin, Oscan, and Umbrian — as the Italic languages. How these languages are related is unclear. They might be siblings, sharing a common and long-extinct mother tongue. Or maybe one of them is the mother tongue of the others? It is not yet possible to say with certainty.
What is true of babies tends to be true of societies. They begin by speaking and only later pick up writing. Languages, as a rule, begin their lives orally. Materials like alphabets can take centuries to appear. The invention of writing is a watershed moment in the history of any language. The question is: How long did ancient Romans speak Latin before they put it into writing?
Archeologists have found an inscription on a stone in the Forum Romanum which has been dated to the 6th century BC.
While it is mostly illegible, it is clear that Latin letters were being used. This is the earliest known example of Latin writing. At the time, Latin did not have standard spelling or grammar. Whoever etched this sentence was just spelling it the way it sounded. There did not exist a single correct or incorrect way to spell anything.
This would eventually change. All this evidence means Latin appeared in writing shortly after Rome was founded. Written Latin is at least two and a half thousand years old, and possibly even older. How did the Romans develop writing so quickly? Well, they had a little help. They did not develop their own original alphabet. Instead, they borrowed the Etruscan alphabet and tweaked it slightly.
They spoke their own language. It did not belong to the Indo-European language family like the Italic languages. In fact, Etruscan is not related to any other known language, dead or alive! The Romans were mostly farmers, so they had much to gain from the more advanced Etruscans. From an early point, the two peoples developed a close relationship and traded a great deal.
Not only did the Romans borrow the alphabet from the Etruscans, but they also acquired a few new vocabulary words, like persona person and fenestra window. These vocabulary words indicate other things the Romans gained from their relationship with the Etruscans — like new technology! From the Etruscans, the Romans learned how to build houses with fenestrae — windows.
The Etruscan word persona originally meant a theatrical mask. This suggests that the Etruscans also introduced the Romans to theater, which would become a major part of Roman culture. Today, this alphabet is known as the Roman alphabet, even though the Romans did not invent it.
However, because of the influence of Latin, this alphabet has been inherited by all western European languages — including English. The Romans of Latium adopted the Etruscan alphabet as well as their technology and culture.
What happened? After murdering his brother, Romulus became the first Rex , or King, of Rome. Those new languages are what we now refer to as the Romance languages, which include French , Italian , Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish. Such linguistic evolutions happen with every language. Take English, for example. And the English of 'Beowulf,' from about the year , is so different from modern English [it's] not comprehensible to us today.
The only difference between English and Latin is that old English developed into modern English and modern English alone, whereas classical Latin diversified and gave rise to a number of different languages.
That's why people tend to think, perhaps erroneously, of Latin as an extinct language.
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