Indo-European Roots and the Evolution of Latin to Romance Languages
Indo-European Roots and the Evolution of Latin
The Origins of Latin
Latin originated in Lazio, a small region of central Italy, located on the left bank of the Tiber River. It was bordered by Etruria to the north, Umbria to the east, the Volsci to the south, and the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west. Latin was very similar to other languages spoken in the Italian Peninsula, such as Oscan and Umbrian, all of which are Indo-European. Indo-European was a language spoken in the fourth millennium BC in central Europe and parts of southwestern Asia. The people who spoke this language migrated westward from their original settlement in the second millennium BC, occupying Europe and reaching as far east as India. Due to this geographical dispersion, Indo-European evolved into different language variants, known as the Indo-European languages.
The Indo-European languages, spoken across Europe, parts of southwestern Asia, and India, share many similarities because they all belong to a single language family and originate from a single language, commonly referred to by scholars as Indo-European. As no written evidence of Indo-European has been found, it is a hypothetical language reconstructed from the comparison of its derived languages. Thus, Indo-European would include all the common features of the languages spoken then and now in Europe and southwestern Asia. The Indo-European language groups are classified according to the affinities they share.
The Evolution from Latin to Modern Languages
Around 100 BC, several Indo-European peoples settled in the central areas of the Italian Peninsula. Among these peoples were the Latins, who came from central Europe and settled in the Lazio region, where they founded the city of Rome in 753 BC. In addition to the Latins, there were the Sabines and Volsci, who spoke Sabine and Volscian, respectively. Shortly after the eighth century BC, the Greeks, who were also Indo-Europeans, arrived in the south of the Italian peninsula and Sicily, an area that received the name Magna Graecia. Before the third millennium BC, the Etruscans, a non-Indo-European people who came from Asia, settled in the Etruria region and had their economic, political, and cultural peak in the thirteenth century BC.
As the Latins conquered central Italy, then the north, and finally the south, they eventually subjected all the peoples (except the Greeks) to abandon their languages and use Latin as a language of communication. After the conquest of the entire Italian peninsula, until the second century AD, the Romans gained control of the entire Mediterranean, both Western and Eastern, central and northern Europe, and the Middle East. Throughout this territory, Latin became the official language.
From the second century AD, the Roman Empire, which had reached its maximum territorial expansion, entered a slow decline for various reasons (barbarian invasions, the spread of Christianity, political factors, etc.). This decline culminated in the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD. As a consequence of these events, the Latin language underwent a process of fragmentation that resulted in the emergence of the Romance languages between the eighth and ninth centuries AD. These languages derived from Latin are:
- Catalan
- Spanish
- French
- Portuguese
- Italian
- Galician
- Occitan
- Romansh
- Sardinian
- Romanian
With the replacement of Latin by the Romance languages, the Latin language did not disappear entirely. It survived in written form, evolving almost without interruption from the Middle Ages until today. Thus, from the ninth century until the Renaissance, it became a language associated with the world of culture, used by major literary authors, philosophers, scientists, etc.
At present, Latin is still the official language of the Vatican City, where a group of Latinists, in an attempt to modernize and transmit the language of the Romans, has prepared a dictionary called Lexicon recentis latinitatis, featuring many words from today’s world defined in Latin.