Textos y contextos del mundo clásico

Estudios Ingleses (2020-21)

Tema 2. El latín desde el indoeuropeo hasta hoy. Su relación con el inglés y las lenguas
europeas.

2.2 The Latin language

Member of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European languages, Latin was originally spoken
in the Latium, the area around Rome. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became
the dominant language in Italy, and subsequently throughout the western Roman Empire.

After the Romans began to develop a literature (in the third cent. bce), a gap emerged
between literary, or classical, Latin and Vulgar Latin, the popular spoken form of the
language. It is from Vulgar Latin that the modern Romance languages are descended.

• Between the common Indo-European and the Romance languages of today, Latin
presents a moment of transition of singular importance. As the language of a great
empire, Latin remained stable for some eight hundred years. When the unity of the
spoken language began to break down, the unity of the written language persisted.
Classical Latin remained the organ of science and philosophy in Western Europe well
into modern times. All the great languages of Western Europe have been nourished
by its substance. No other language has had more influence for two thousand years.
Nourished by Greek and associated with Greek, Latin has provided modern
civilisation with the basis of its linguistic expression. (Antoine Meillet, Esquisse d'une
histoire de la langue latine, 1933, 1)

2.2.1 Development of Latin

Indo-European tribes are thought to have penetrated Italy during the late 2nd millennium
bce. The city of Rome appeared in history around the middle of the 8th century bce, in the
centre of the Italian peninsula. As Rome extended its influence, Latin borrowed many words
from neighbouring languages.

1. Italic languages (Indo-European). Languages such as Oscan and Umbrian are know from
the inscriptions that have been preserved. Some Oscan graffiti were found in Pompeii,
destroyed in 79 ce. An important borrowing is the name of the wild lupus ('wolf'). The -p-
shows its Oscan or Umbrian origin: in Latin it would have been *luquos.

2. Etruscan. The Etruscans, who lived north and west of Rome (modern Tuscany), exerted
strong political and cultural influence over early Rome. Etruscan is an isolated language,
preserved in inscriptions from the seventh to the late first century bce. The most important
influence of the Etruscan on Latin is the alphabet (2.2.1.1). The effect of Etruscan on Latin is
quite comparable to the effects on medieval English of French: a major cultural infusion of
an early urban culture on a more countrified society. Borrowed nouns show Etruscans
leading the way in architecture (atrium, columna, fenestra 'window', turris 'tower',
cisterna…), domestic conveniences (lanterna 'lantern', catena 'chain'), city trades (taberna
’shop’), the arts of the culina 'kitchen', and words like littera 'letter' or titulus 'label'. In
military language we have miles 'soldier', triumphus, ‘triumph’ or satelles 'bodyguard' (stem
satellit-), applied to a small planet that revolves around a larger one by Kepler (17th c.). The
Etruscans were great purveyors of entertainment in the harena ‘sand’: persona was a
'theatrical mask', hence a role in a play and finally a 'person'.

3. Greek. While Rome was still just a small town, the Greeks had created an unrivalled
literature and had laid the foundations of western philosophy, science and art. The early
impact of Greek culture came to the Romans through the Etruscans and the Greek-speaking
colonies of southern Italy and Sicily. In time Rome conquered Greece and other areas of
Greek culture and way of life.

The Greek language also contributed words to Latin at every stage of Latin’s history and in
vastly greater numbers than any other language, starting with the intellectual vocabulary,
which has largely been transmitted through Latin into all the modern European languages.
But Greek was also the source of many everyday words in spoken Latin. For example, the
very words for olive and its oil (oliva, oleum) and many names for vegetables (asparagus,
raphanus…), seafood (polypus, sepia…) or foreign delicacies (amygdalum 'almond', dactylus,
'date', oryza 'rice'…).

Most musical instruments and musica itself had Greek names: tympanum 'drum', lyra,
chorda 'string'... So were many terms in the world of school and writing: schola ('leisure' in
Greek), for which the Latin word was ludum ('play, game'), abacus, epistula, papyrus,
grammaticus 'language teacher', poeta, philosophus, theatrum, scaena 'stage', bibliotheca,
etc. Medical terms taken from Greek are: 'plaster' from emplastrum, paralysis, dosis, rheuma
'flow', stomachus, etc. The Roman institution of the bath was clearly influenced by its Greek
origins too: balneum 'bath', thermae 'hot baths', palaestra 'wrestling ground', etc.

2.2.1.1 The Latin (or Roman) alphabet

Latin alphabet, the most widely used writing system in the world, can be traced through
Etruscan, Greek, and Phoenician scripts, to the North Semitic alphabet used in Syria and
Palestine about 1100 bce. The Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet (ca 800 bce) and
they reused Phoenician consonants not needed in Greek to express vowels: the consonant
aleph became the vowel alpha. The addition of symbols for the vowels increased the
accuracy and legibility of the writing system.

The Etruscans adopted Greek alphabet, and the Romans modified the Etruscan alphabet to
suit Latin. For example, Etruscan did not know the Latin distinction between /k/ and /g/:
acer 'sharp' / ager 'field'. The letter C, from Greek gamma, was used in Etruscan, and
retained in Latin, for the /k/ sound, and, to note the voiced consonant, was invented the
letter G by adding a vertical stroke to the letter C.

In the first century bce, Y and Z were reintroduced for Greek words. During the Middle Ages
and after, new letters were created by slightly modifying an existing letter: U and I were
used to represent the vowel sounds and V and J the consonants. The W appeared in
Germanic-speaking regions and in Spanish Ñ originated from NN.
2.2.2 History of literary Latin

The oldest examples of Latin are preserved in inscriptions: fragments of songs, laws,
religious texts, etc., such as the Praeneste fibula, a gold brooch from the 7th century bce.

2.2.2.1. Early Latin (Latín arcaico): period before 100 bce.

The Romans took over the whole idea of writing literature from the Greeks, and the first
works were translations of Greek originals. But gradually Latin literature evolved its own
topics and themes, and in due course it served as the model for the whole of Europe.

In 240 bce a Roman audience saw a Latin version of a Greek comedy and tragedy at the
Roman Games. The adaptor was Livius Andronicus, a Greek prisoner of war brought to
Rome. He became a teacher and also translated the Odyssey. Greek stories from drama and
epic dominated Latin literature for the next century, but only most of the comedies of
Plautus and Terence have been preserved complete. Neither writer invents a single plot.
Plautus adapted Greek plays to the Roman context. The characters were Greek merchants
and landowners and their wives, children, and slaves, and the plots revolved around young
lovers finally united or lost sons or daughters who turn up unexpectedly. Shakespeare took
several plots from Plautus (The Comedy of Errors is an adaptation of Menaechmi and
Amphitruo). But Plautus was funnier: he concentrates on quick-witted slaves who are more
resourceful than their masters and comical misunderstandings.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962) is a musical with music and lyrics
by Stephen Sondheim. It is inspired by the comediess of Plautus Pseudolus, Miles Gloriosus,
and Mostellaria. The musical tells the story of a slave named Pseudolus and his attempts to
win his freedom by helping his young master get the girl next door. The film based on the
stage musical (1966) was directed by Richard Lester and filmed in Madrid (Golfus de Roma).

2.2.2.2 Classical Latin (about 100 bce to 100 ce)

The Latin used by Plautus showed an expressive vocabulary and some freedom with
morphology and syntax. In the first half of the first century bce, was fixed a suitable, pure
and worthy form for the language.

In republican Rome, beyond the elementary level, education without Greek was
inconceivable: it was common for the elite to travel to Greek academic centers. The dialect
of Athens, known as Attic, which had established itself as the most prestigious and most
suitable for refined speech and writing, served as an example to Caesar, Cicero, and others.

This grammatically uniform language is “Classical Latin”: the Latin that has always been
taught in the schools, with unchanging grammar and vocabulary. Exemplified in Cicero’s
works, it’s a highly artificial language spoken by virtually no one, but deliberately proposed
as an ideal, established by convention, and assiduously propagated.

This Rome’s classical period, the golden age of Roman literature, saw an extraordinary
development of letters in all fields, and became a basis for all the western European
literatures that were to follow.
1. History. Caesar wrote his own account of the war he waged in Gaul, and another one
about the civil war he precipitated. Livy devoted his whole life to writing the history of Rome
(Ab urbe condita ‘From the foundation of the city’). He sought to give the Romans a glorious
version of their own history, and transmitted, for example, the legends of Romulus and
Remus and the description of Hannibal’s march across the Alps in the Punic wars.

2. Oratory and philosophy. These disciplines were dominated by Cicero. When he was about
twenty-five he began to appear for the defence in controversial trials, he entered the Senate
and became consul in 63 bce. Some 50 Cicero’s speeches still survive. He was a master of the
ars oratoria ‘the art of public speaking’ (rhetorica in Greek) and wrote important books
about it. Rhetoric was linked with the theory of creative writing in general and with politics.
The rhetorical skill of persuading people was essential in Rome's republican institutions,
where careers were based on public speeches in the courts and assemblies. Modern
handbooks of rhetoric are still based on the teachings of the ancient writers.

Roman philosophers, although did not introduce many new philosophical ideas,
communicated the essence of Greek philosophy and created a terminology for philosophical
reasoning in Latin. Cicero saw it as his task to present Greek thought in an appropriate
literary form and he wrote fictitious dialogues: he and his friends talk about topics like
death, duty, good and evil, friendship and old age.

3. Poetry. Latin poems are very carefully crafted and refined. Catullus express his passionate
love for Lesbia and also writes humorous poems for his friends or enemies. In the next
generation a small number of poets were the classic representatives of their art forms.
Horace wrote lyric poetry about politics, friendship, love, and how to live. English poets who
imitated the Horatian ode were Marvell, Gray, and Keats. Propertius, Tibullus and Sulpicia,
the only extant woman poet of the classical era, wrote love elegies.

Ovid is the author of a sort of handbook for lovers in verse, the Ars amatoria ‘The Art of
Loving’, but his Metamorphoses is one of the most influential works in Western culture. It
has inspired such authors as Dante, Chaucer or Shakespeare. His Romeo and Juliet is
influenced by the story of Pyramus and Thisbe (Book IV), that also appears in A Midsummer
Night's Dream. Most of Prospero's speech in The Tempest (Act V) is taken from a speech by
Medea in Book VII, which also inspired John Milton and Edmund Spenser.

The highest praise by Roman writers was reserved for epic poetry. Virgil (70-19 bce)
attempted the ultimate challenge, to measure himself (and Latin) against Homer in the
Aeneid, considered by some critics to be the greatest poem in the history of literature.

2.2.2.3 Postclassical Latin (100 to 2nd century ce)

Latin was a factor unifying the Empire's elites, through a common education and literary
culture. In the first and second centuries ce the greatest writers came from the provinces of
the Empire. Spain was preeminent. For example, Quintilianus from Calagurris (Calahorra)
wrote the most detailed handbook on rhetorical theory, the Institutio Oratoria. From
Corduba came the Stoic philosopher Seneca, who was the tutor of the emperor Nero. He fell
from grace and was forced to commit suicide. Seneca's tragedies greatly influenced the
growth of tragic drama in Europe, the Elizabethan drama in particular. This influence is seen,
for example, in the treatment of the supernatural, in the selection of horrible and
sensational themes, in the tendency to insert long rhetorical and descriptive passages, in the
introduction of moralising common-places, and philosophic fatalism.

The authors of the Silver age of Latin literature tried new ways of expression and new
literary genres such as the novel. Petronius wrote the Satyricon (about 60), the first
picaresque Latin novel, and Apuleius wrote The Golden Ass, which concerns a young man
who is accidentally changed into a donkey. At the midpoint of the novel is the famous tale of
Cupid and Psyche ('soul'). It concerns the overcoming of obstacles to the love between the
main characters and their ultimate union in a sacred marriage.

The historian Tacitus created posterity’s images of emperors like Claudius and Nero. In the
Germania, he describes the peoples living along the Rhine. Tacitus made an important
contribution to the history of Britain in the biography of his father-in-law: Agricola. This
military commander and politician was governor of the province from 78 to 84 ce. The book
records Agricola’s successful campaigns in Wales and in the north and also contains
information about the Britons. Tacitus is quite ambiguous in his attitude to the Roman
conquest: he admires Agricola, who works hard to change the hostile attitude of the Britons,
enticing them to give their children a Roman education. On the other hand, he thinks that
this is just a very efficient way to deprive them of their former freedom.

2.2.2.4 Late latin (Latín tardío) (2nd-5th c. ce)

In the third century ce, Christianity became the official religion of the state. It supplanted
Roman traditional religion, the worship of the emperor, and also swept away tolerance for
other religions. Christianity had originated in the eastern part of the Empire, so its texts,
doctrines and rituals were all in Greek. Neverthless, western Christianity was to assert Latin
as its primary language. The Pope Damasus (360-82) commissioned the scholar Jerome to
produce a revised Latin translation of the Bible as a whole. Jerome translated the Old
Testament from the Hebrew and revised the Greek versions of the New Testament. Not
without pride did he call himself homo trilinguis ‘a trilingual man’. This Biblia Vulgata, ‘the
common version’ (ca 384) became the official version of the Church. The last revision was
promulgated in 1979.

The greatest of the Catholic Church Fathers was Augustine. This teacher of rhetoric became
bishop in the town of Hippo (Tunisia) until his death in 430. Augustine summarizes the whole
of Christian philosophy. His Confessiones ‘Confessions’ is the first autobiography. It covers
his life until his conversion at about the age of thirty, describing his personal development.

Christianity led to enormous changes in people’s way of thinking, and hence many new
words and expressions were needed, which Latin incorporated in these ways:

▪ borrowing words from Greek (apostolus, diabolus, baptizare, etc.), or Hebrew (messias,
amen, cherubim…). English church comes from the adjective kyriakon 'belonging to the
Lord', and priest from presbyter 'elder'. The bishop (episcopum) is the 'overseer'. A
 propheta is 'one who speaks ahead of time', and a martyr is 'a witness' to the faith.
Angelus is a 'messenger'. The 'good message' is the ev-angelium, with eu- 'well, good'.
▪ New Latin words (neologisms) were invented: trinitas, incarnatio, salvatio…
▪ Old Latin words acquired new meanings (gratia, paganus, confessio, peccatum,
sanctus…) Dominus means ‘master’, but in Christian contexts it always means ‘the Lord’.
The verb for ‘to make a speech’ was orare and the speech was the oratio, but in Christian
Latin the verb orare meant ‘to pray (to God)’ and oratio meant ‘prayer’, etc.

In the year 432, a monk called Patricius left his monastery in France to preach Christianity in
Ireland. He is St Patrick, the patron of the island. Ireland had never belonged to the Roman
Empire and the population spoke Celtic Irish, so Irish monks learned Latin as a foreign
language. In the monasteries proficiency in Latin was maintained at a very high level during
the following centuries, when the ability to read and write became increasingly rare in most
of the rest of Europe.

2.2.2.5 Medieval Latin (6th-13th c.)

2.2.2.5.1 The “barbarian invasions”

During the 5th century ce, the territory where Latin was spoken went from being a single
empire to being a number of separate states governed by Germanic peoples (Franks,
Vandals, Goths, etc.) speaking Germanic languages. In Western Europe, these peoples, after
a few generations, started speaking vulgar Latin, the language of the people they ruled over.
The great exception was England. The Germanic language of the Angles, the Saxons, and the
Jutes became the language of the majority. Latin did not survive as a spoken language. The
reason is that, even in Roman times, it seems that most people used Celtic languages.

At first, society did not change greatly as a result of the Germanic invasions. The new rulers
often left the local administration in place. There were still important writers, like the
philosopher Boethius, or Isidore of Seville in Visigothic Spain (6-7th c.). His Etymologiae is an
encyclopedia of classical learning, ranging from grammar and rhetoric to the earth and the
cosmos, animals, medicine, buildings, war, law, religion, etc.

Gradually, however, the situation got worse and it became increasingly uncommon for
people to use the written language. Only the Church had its own education system, so only
the clerici were literate (the word clerk came to mean ‘someone who can read and write’).

The most important Latin writer of the 8th century was the English monk Bede, who had the
honorary name of venerabilis ‘the venerable’. In his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
(‘Ecclesiastical History of the English People’), his main goal is to describe how England was
Christianized, but he also writes about the history of the island, starting with Caesar’s
landing and coming right down to the year 731. At the beginning of his history he establishes
that there are five languages, Anglorum, Brettonum, Scottorum, Pictorum et Latinorum
(‘those of the Angles, the Britons, the Scots, the Picts and the Romans’). These languages
were: an early form of English, Welsh, Gaelic, and the unknown language of the Picts. Bede
says that Latin is the language which Christians had in common through the study of the
Scriptures. This is another way of saying that Latin was not a native, but a learned language.
2.2.2.5.2 The Carolingian Renaissance (8th-9th c.)

In the 8th century, Charlemagne expanded the empire of the Franks, so that it included all of
France, western Germany, and northern Italy. Charlemagne, acting in concert with the
Roman papacy, wanted to improve the education of the clergy to help him govern through
the network of bishops. The lack of Latin literacy of the clergy caused several problems: not
all priests could read the Bible, and very few people could serve as court scribes. Another
problem was that spoken Latin had begun to diverge into regional dialects that were
becoming mutually unintelligible and prevented communication.

For his educational reform, he invited to his court the elite scholars from all Europe, like the
English Alcuin of York, a central figure among a whole circle of learned men who established
the basis for the intellectual revival. Charlemagne and his successors fostered a network of
cathedral and monastic schools throughout the Empire. The curriculum was based on the
seven liberal arts. The first three or the trivium (‘three ways’) were taught in elementary
school: grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics. Rhetoric was useful in writing. Dialectics or logic
dealt with philosophical concepts and the ability to draw formally correct conclusions from a
set of premisses. The remaning arts, the quadrivium (‘four ways’), were sub-branches of
philosophy: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music.

2.2.2.5.3 Latin is the lingua franca

In the Middle Ages Latin was completely dominant as the written language in Europe (and as
a spoken language among the educated) over a much larger area than the western part of
the Roman Empire. However, the situation of Latin as it was spoken by the common people
was very different. After the collapse of the Empire, contacts between any given place and
its surrounding regions were reduced to a minimum. As a result, it seems that the spoken
language changed very fast between the 6th and the 11th centuries throughout the area
where people used to speak Latin. As popular speech changed and began to lose touch with
written Latin, it emerged as a language artificially maintained.

Some few women got the chance to learn Latin throughout the Middle Ages. Female authors
whose works have survived are the English nun Hygeburg (8th c.), who wrote lives of saints;
a Frankish noblewoman, Dhuoda (early 9th c.), who wrote an extended letter of advice for
her elder son; the Saxon nun Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim (late 10th c.) wrote Latin comedies
in the style of Terence to celebrate the deeds of holy virgins. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-
1179), head of her convent, was a writer and a composer of music.

Around the 12th century there was a period of economical and cultural prosperity in
Western Europe. In England, William of Malmesbury wrote a history of England (Gesta
regum Anglorum, ‘Deeds of the English Kings’). Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his Historia regum
Britanniae (‘History of the Kings of Britain’), tells the story of Britain from its first settlement
by Brutus of Troy, a descendant of Aeneas, to the 7th century. This eventful work became
very popular. It presents the first written version of the Arthurian legend.

New sources of learning came from Constantinople and from the south of Europe, where
knowledge of Greek and Arabic remained widespread. In central Spain, under Muslim rule
since the 8th century, Toledo became the focus of Arabic (and Greek) expertise. Muslim
philosophers, such as Averroes from Córdoba, translated Aristotle’s works into Arabic. The
disciplines that were directly enriched by the new works were above all sciences and
philosophy. In England, John of Salisbury, who had studied under the most famous teachers
of the time and became secretary to Thomas Becket, wrote only in Latin. The idea of
“contemporaries standing on the shoulders of giants” of Antiquity first appears in his
philosophical work Metalogicon (1159).

The discovery of the new literature had in fact come very much in the same period as the
origin of the universities such as Bologna, Paris and Oxford. This development meant the
conversion of the old studium generale, a school in a city, into a universitas magistrorum et
scholarium, a trade guild or general body (the literal meaning of universitas), formed to
protect the rights of masters and scholars. The university would have been impossible
without the new translated learning of the 11th to 13th centuries, which revolutionized the
quadrivium and established the Aristotelian basis for theology, with the prominent scholar
Thomas Aquinas. Other two important philosopher-theologians of Western Europe in the
High Middle Ages are the Scotsman Duns Scotus and the English William of Ockham.

The translations of scientific and highly abstract texts in Arabic and Greek into Latin resulted
in the adoption of new technical terms (algebra, algorismus, alkimia…), and the creation of
neologisms. For example, abstract nouns in -tas were coined on adjectives (superioritas,
actualitas, individualitas, realitas…) and the ending –ntia created nouns out of verbs:
dependentia, differentia, exigentia, etc. The Greek suffixes -izo for the verb, -ista for the
agent, -ismus for the action, and -isma for the product, gave carbonizo, solemnizo,
temporizo, judaismus, artista, humanista, jurista… The expression of 'being' increases:
existere ('to exist') gives existentia and existentialis. Other forms related to the roots -sta-
and -sist- are status, substantia, subsistentia. From the infinitive esse ‘to be’ there was
essentia and essentialis. This verb never had a present participle ('being'), so were created
ens (Spanish ente) and entitas ‘entity’.

2.2.2.5.4 Poetry

In the 12th and 13th centuries, appeared a new kind of poetry whose authors were mainly
students who moved from school to school. Most of the poems that have survived are
anonymous, and they were written down in manuscript anthologies. The collection called
Carmina Burana (‘songs from Benediktbeuren’) was originally kept in a German monastery.
The manuscript contains 254 poems in Latin, a few in Middle High German, and in Old
French. The main themes are morals, mockery, love songs and drinking and gaming songs.

The composer Carl Orff set 24 poems to music and created the great choral work called
Carmina Burana (1936). The opening and closing movement, O Fortuna, has been used in
numerous films and advertisements since Excalibur (1981). The goddess Fortuna spins her
wheel, changing the positions of those on it. The tragic aspect of the downfall of the mighty
served to remind people of the temporality of earthly things.

Gaudeamus igitur, the traditional University student's song, is played and sung along at
graduation ceremonies in many schools, colleges, universities, etc. Despite its use as a
formal hymn, it was a drinking song in the tradition of carpe diem (‘seize the day’) with its
exhortations to enjoy life. A latin manuscript dated 1267 does contain the words to verses
two and three of the modern Gaudeamus. C. W. Kindleben published the modern lyrics in
the German songbook Studentlieder (1781). The melody was already quite well-known.

Gaudeamus igitur, iuvenes dum sumus Let us rejoice, therefore, while we are young.
Post iucundam iuventutem After a pleasant youth
Post molestam senectutem After a troubling old age
Nos habebit humus. The earth will have us.

Vivat Academia, vivant professores. Long live the academy, long live the professors,
Vivat membrum quodlibet, Long live each student;
vivant membra quaelibet, Long live the whole fraternity;
semper sint in flore. For ever may they flourish!

2.2.2.6 Renaissance Latin, Neo-Latin (14th-19th c.)

The modern era starts with the Renaissance, which brought the rebirth of classical culture
and values. Leading representatives of the movement were mainly Italian artists and
intellectuals living in the 14th-16th centuries (Petrarch, Boccaccio, Leonardo, Raphael, etc.).

The first printed books were mostly in Latin, and by 1475 most of the classics were already
available in print. By 1500 there had been over 300 editions of Cicero. Mass production
meant that rare books, which had always been in danger of disappearing, could now survive.
Printing also allowed the improvement in the quality of texts through collation of
manuscripts and selection of the best versions of the same text. As book prices fell,
individual printed copies of textbooks came within the reach of teachers and students.

The learned humanists worked hard to improve the standards of written (and spoken) Latin,
following the exemplary language of classical literary texts. An important classicist and
thinker was Erasmus of Rotterdam. In addition to original works in Latin (for example,
Moriae Encomium ‘In Praise of Folly’ from 1511), he also published Adagia ‘Proverbs’, a
collection of thousands of Latin and Greek sayings.

The 16th and 17th centuries had taken Latin across the Atlantic. The language naturally was
important in education in the colonies, just as in Britain. It was no coincidence that the
constitution of the United States was heavily influenced by the ideas of the Roman republic.

Nevertheless, the great effort spent on learning perfect classical Latin did not mean a return
to a wider use of it, since the real literary landmarks of the Renaissance were written first in
Italian, and later in French, English, etc. In England, the last era in which creative literature
was written in Latin was the Elizabethan and Jacobean Age, around 1530-1640.

Latin lost one domain of use after another, first, in the centers of political and cultural
innovation in the west, and last in Europe's eastern periphery. France abandoned official
government use of Latin in 1539, but in Poland and Hungary administration was still in Latin
in the 18th century, when French replaced Latin also in international diplomacy.
1. Philosophy. Latin was the only language with a fully developed terminology, except for
Greek, which hardly anyone knew. It is not until the 16th century that philosophy was
tending to split into different national traditions in the vernacular languages. Thomas More’s
Utopia (1516), a fantasy of exotic but rational government, is written in Latin. Francis Bacon
(16-17th c.), pioneer of the scientific method, wrote in Latin and English, and Descartes used
Latin and French. His most famous principle is known in Latin: cogito, ergo sum ‘I think,
therefore I am’. In the same period, the English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes wrote
his early works in Latin, but he republished them all in English. The Dutch Spinoza (17th c.)
and the German Leibniz (17-18th c.) still wrote in Latin. Only in the Scandinavian countries
intellectual works in Latin went on being published until the 19th century.

2. Religion. Latin was the only language of the Catholic Church. Not even the Reformation
(16th century) brought about any great change. Latin survived for a long time as the
language of the educated even in Protestant countries, where priests conducted their
services in the local language, but they had to learn Latin in the universities. The poet John
Milton, author of the epic poem Paradise Lost, was in charge of correspondence in Latin
relating to foreign affairs in Cromwell’s government. He wrote pamphlets in support of the
Puritan cause in Latin. His Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio, ‘A Defence of the English People’
(1651) caused considerable indignation and it was burned publicly in Paris. Milton published
similar works in English that did not have such effect in other countries—a nice illustration of
the fact that in the 17th century Latin was still the truly international language of Europe. By
the 19th century even Catholic theologians had started writing in the modern languages.

3. Astronomy, physics, mathematics. Galileo’s views of his book Dialogo sopra i due massimi
sistemi (1632) were declared to be heretical by the Church, and he spent the rest of his life
under house arrest. The book’s circulation was prohibited, but it was translated into Latin
and became accessible to educated people everywhere. Natural science in general went on
being published in Latin until the end of the 18th century. Isaac Newton wrote in English and
Latin. His Principia Mathematica (1687) was the last major scientific work to appear in Latin
in England. The German mathematician Carl Gauss sustained Latin into the 19th century.

Nevertheless, in astronomy, Latin survives in the nomenclature of constellations and stars,

developed by Johann Bayer in 1603. The definitive list of 88 constellations, established in
1930, have Latin names. The stars are designated with a lower-case Greek or Latin letter,
combined with the Latin name of the star's constellation in genitive. For example, Aldebaran,
the brightest star of Taurus (the Bull), is designated α Tauri (Alpha Tauri).

The transition to national languages came much earlier within mathematics and physics than
in biology. A good deal of technology and applied science wasn’t developed in universities,
and authors were eager to have a wide readership amongst engineers, etc., who were
concerned with practical applications of sciences and had no knowledge of Latin.

4. Medicine. The western tradition is based on the writings on anatomy of Galen, Greek
personal physician of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (3rd century ce). Galen’s writings had
been translated into Latin, so it was created an elaborate Latin terminology, which included
a great number of Greek words. Things began to change once doctors started to investigate
anatomy using dissections. In the 17th century, the English William Harvey published a book
with the grand title Exercitatio anatomica motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus ‘An
anatomical disquisition on the movement of the heart and blood in animals’. These
innovators wrote and discussed matters in Latin, as indeed was necessary if their ideas were
to become known internationally, till the 19th century. It was also difficult to translate
medical terminology into the national languages.

5. Botany, zoology. Thanks to the Swedish botanist and zoologist Carl Linnaeus, Latin is the
language of botanical description. Linnaeus only knew Swedish and Latin. In the 1750s he
published Latin descriptions with names of all the plants and animals known at that time.
Since then, many new species have been discovered, but they have always been named
according to Linnaeus’ principles: the name must be in Latin (although from 2011 the
description can be also in English), and it must consist of two (or three) words (the ‘binomial’
system). The first word is the ‘generic name’ (genus), common to all the species within the
family. Canis (“dog” in Latin) is the ‘generic name’ for doglike carnivores (dogs, wolves,
jackals...). The second word, the ‘specific name’ (species), qualifies the first and distinguishes
domestic dogs (canis familiaris) from wolfs (canis lupus). These names may come from Latin
or other languages, but they must have correct Latin endings.

Certainly remarkable is the current situation of cosmetology. The nomenclature or INCI

(International Nomenclature Cosmetic Ingredients), updated in 2006, indicates the
composition of products for sale in the European Union, so it is essential to ensure
uniformity in the labelling names of the ingredients. For cosmetic ingredients derived from
plants, the INCI nomenclature is based on the Linnaeus’ system: the genus and species of the
plant in Latin with additional information in English (the part of the plant, etc.). This is a step
toward a closer harmonisation of plant INCI names used in the EU and in the USA, for
example: Malva Sylvestris Leaf Powder. But the “trivial names” (common, non-scientific
names) in the USA are in English, but in the EU are in Latin. For example: cera alba/beeswax,
lac/milk, ovum/egg, maris sal/sea salt, acetum/vinegar, etc. The reason is that it is
impractical to put all the 24 official languages of the EU in the labels of products, so instead
of water/Wasser/agua/eau, etc., the most neutral form is Latin aqua.

In general, Latin held on longer where a lingua franca was required. Physicians, pharmacists
and lawyers had a need for standardized terminology at an international level, so in natural
sciences, publications continued to be written in Latin even in the early 19th century.

2.2.2.7 Contemporary Latin (20th-21th c.)

In the late 19th century, Latin periodicals advocated the revived use of Latin. Living Latin
(Latinitas viva), is an effort to use Latin as a spoken language and as the vehicle for
contemporary communication and publication.

1. Latin instruction. To make learning Latin both more enjoyable and efficient, is promoted
the active use of it in everyday situations, drawing upon the methodologies of modern
languages, rather than merely learning grammar. Cambridge University Press has published
a series of school textbooks based on the adventures of a mouse called Minimus designed to
primary school, as well as its Cambridge Latin Course to secondary school. One of the most
accomplished handbooks of this “direct method” is Lingua Latina per se illustrata by the
Dane Hans Henning Ørberg (1955, 1990). Also many online Latin courses are available.

A substantial group of institutions and associations in Europe and America organise seminars
and conferences and publish periodicals in Latin. In 1996, at the University of Kentucky, was
held the first Conventiculum, a conference in which participants meet annually and
communicate in Latin. In Spain, the teachers of Collegium Latinitatis from Valencia organise
guided visits of the Museo del Prado in Latin (cf. Youtube).

2. On the Internet. The emergence of the Internet has provided a great tool for the
communication in Latin. Google and Facebook have Latin as a language option. The German
Radio Bremen has regular broadcasts in Latin. Ephemeris, a wide-ranging illustrated weekly
newspaper in Latin, has been published from Warsaw since 2004.

The Vicipaedia Latina has 135,000 pages on all kinds of topics. There are as well many Latin
Twitter accounts: for example, the account of the Pope or of a group of Barcelona’s football
club supporters. The HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera onboard
the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (NASA) has a Latin version. Around the world, there are
many Circuli whose members communicate in Latin, for example, the Circulus Latinus
Londiniensis (London Latin Circle).

3. Literary creation and traduction. Poems and other works continue to be written in Latin.
Numerous famous books also have been translated into Latin: for example, Asterix and
Tintin comics, and two volumes in the Harry Potter series: Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis
(2003) and Harrius Potter et Camera Secretorum (2006). J. K. Rowling uses her knowledge of
Latin in her books. For example, the coat of arms with the motto Draco dormiens nunquam
titillandus means ‘A sleeping dragon should never be tickled’. Latin first names of several
characters hint at their qualities: Albus (‘White’) Dumbledore is good, while Draco (‘Dragon’)
Malfoy and Severus (‘Strict’) Snape are mean and unpleasant. The spells and curses are often
in Latin. Several are verbs with the ending –o of the first person, such as Reparo! ‘I repair’.
Others are nouns, such as Impedimenta! ‘Impediments’ when something is to be obstructed,
or adjectives such as Impervius! ‘Impervious’ (to make Harry’s spectacles repel water). There
are even some short sentences, such as Expecto Patronum ‘I wait for the Patronus’. But
many spells, such as Reducio! (used to shrink a spider), look like Latin forms, but actually are
pseudo-Latin, really based on English. This one is obviously connected with English ‘reduce’
and Latin reduco, that means ‘I lead back’. Latin remains a language of prestige in the
context of arcane knowledge found in old books, and many Latin word stems are
understandable to speakers of English.

2.2.3 Pronunciation of Latin

Today, there are two main ways of pronouncing Latin in use. The first is the Classical
Pronunciation, which represents how Latin was spoken in the Classical period. The sound
system is recovered by linguists according to certain evidences (information provided by
ancient writers, inscriptions, transcriptions of Latin into Greek, etc.) and it is usually taught in
classical Latin classes, and applied to classical literatures.
The second is Ecclesiastical Pronunciation, which is the way Latin is spoken in the Catholic
Church. It is mainly based on the Italian language, and is often used to read out Neo-Latin
literatures and to sing religious works. In this pronunciation, the classical diphthongs ae, oe
were equalized with e: praemium ‘prize’ > premium, but the most important phonetic
change was the palatalization of certain consonants:

• C before e and i was changed in Italy to [ts]: It. celo [tʃelo], from Lat. caelum [káelum].
• G was palatalized to [dʒ] before e, i, y: Lat. and It. gente [dʒɛnte].
• GN is [ɲ]: It. sogno, Sp. niño.
• Ti before a vowel was palatalized to [ts] > natio [natsjo].

Finally, people tend to pronouce Latin in their mother tongue, the so-called "Anglo-Saxon"
(“French”, “Spanish”, etc.) pronunciation. English language has completely different
phonetic rules from Latin, so such pronunciation is definitely incorrect-not even close-, thus,
should be prevented.

Bibliography and Links

• Tore Janson (2004), A Natural History of Latin, Oxford Univ. Press, passim.
• Jürgen Leonhardt (2013), Latin : story of a world language, translated by Kenneth
Kronenberg, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.), London.
• Nicholas Ostler (2007), Ad Infinitum. A Biography of Latin, Walker Publishing Company,
New York.
• Robert Palmer (1954), The Latin Language, Faber & Faber Limited, London.
• Joseph B. Solodow (2010), Latin Alive, The Survival Of Latin In English And The Romance
Languages, Cambridge Univ. Press., London.

• Richard H.A. Jenkyns, Lancelot Patrick Wilkinson et al. Latin literature, Encyclopædia
Britannica
• Bibliothèque nationale de France (2007): Carolingian Treasures
• Dylan Lyons (2018), Fact Vs. Fiction: Is Latin A Dead Language?, Babbel Magazine.