The Roman Empire began with the rule of Augustus Caesar in 31 BCE and by 285 AD during the reign of Diocletian it was divided into an Eastern and Western Empire. In 476 AD the Western Empire ended when King Odoacer deposed of Romulus Augustulus. This left only the Eastern Empire, known as the Byzantine Empire which lasted until the death of Constantine XI and the siege of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453. Despite the Roman Empire being gone for nearly 600 years, their influence still remains in many aspects of modern society such as Architecture, Art, Government and Language. In this paper I will focus on the influence of Latin on European culture for the past 1500 years.
Latin which is part of the Indo-European Language family began sometime before the legendary founding of Rome in 753AD. The language is believed to have come a small area near the Tiber river called Latium. The language would later be influenced by the Etruscans a tribe from Northern Italy, who intermarried with the Romans. As the Roman Empire grew the Latin language was spread throughout much of Europe in many cases intermingling and influencing the local languages. This is part of the reason why the Latin language has undergone a number of changes in the last 2,500 years. Each of these transformations in the language occurred in eras that were about five thousand years long.
The first of these began with the founding of the Roman Empire in 753 BCE and lasted until the First Punic War in 264 BCE when it went from being a largely regionalized language to being the language of the Empire. The second big transformation in Latin began in 250AD. Prior to this the language did not expand in the same way that the rule of the Roman Empire did. This was mostly because the conquered territories and countries tended to keep their own languages. This changed in 250 AD when Roman soldiers were given control over the language spoken in a region. By the third century Latin was the language of the church. In fact, Latin is still the official language of the Catholic church and has been since the 1600’s.
The next big change in the language came by 750 and occurred as a result of the intermingling of Latin with the local languages of the regions. The result of these bastardizations which were known as Vulgar Latin eventually came to be referred to as Romance Languages (Buck 1933). The Romance Languages are: Spanish, French, Romanian, Italian and Portuguese, which currently have over 800 million speakers. Latin in its Classical form was relegated to the church and its monasteries with the majority of the population unable to read, write or speak “even the Lord’s Prayer in Latin” (Herman 1996). This caused monks to preach the gospel and to hold religious services in the language of the common people (Palmer 1954). This resulted in Latin all but dying out as a spoken language by 750AD.
Then sometime after 750 until 1250 Latin enjoyed a revival of sorts as many of the intellectuals of the day saw the knowledge of Latin as being a sign of higher learning and education. As a result of this Latin began to be taught in schools of religion and universities. It even had a resurgence as a spoken language during this period. Finally, from 1250-1750 Latin began to lowly die out, in part because of the creation of the printing press. Despite the death of Latin as a spoken language. Much of our modern language is influenced by it due to the roots of many of our words being derived from Latin. This is most noticeable in the fields of science and law.
One of the biggest reasons the Latin had such as strong impact was due to the fact that as Latin spread throughout the Roman Empire the number of languages decreased from sixty to twelve. The second reason that Latin had such an influence on European society was due to education. During the Medieval period education was provided by private tutors for the aristocracy and church officials for the monks. This allowed both members of the aristocracy and monks to write many manuscripts that still exist today. Some of these works include Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People and the Historia Regum Britanniae by Geoffrey of Monmouth. In 1583 Professor of French Antoine Muret said in Latin: “He who speaks Italian will be understood only by Italians; he who speaks only Spanish will have the status of a mute among Germans; a German among Italians will be forced to use nodding and his hands in place of his tongue; he who uses the French language with high skill and knowledge will often be mocked gratuitously when he leaves France; but as for the man who knows Greek and Latin, he will be admired by the majority wherever in the world he arrives”. (The Survival of Latin).
In the seventeenth century Latin became the language of science, religion and law. This tradition continues even today with legal jargon that consists of only a couple sentences. Thus, enabling lawyers and legislators to get right down to business. Science uses Latin to name both animal, insect and plant species. This is because according to the naming system science uses there is only one right Latin name for any species. Which means that if you came upon the same species anywhere in the world you would know its name. This ensures less disruptive communication in the science world. The second reason is because in the seventeenth century when Latin first started being used by science, it was a language that was familiar to the educated elite but dead enough that they were not going to run the risk of the words being corrupted or changed overtime. This is why the Latin words used in religion, law and science mean the same thing as they did 400 years ago.
The church made Latin its official language during the reign of Pope Damasus and many of the books used for the Rite are still written in Latin. In fact, the laws of the church stipulate that the Eucharist celebration must be performed in Latin and cannot be done in any other language unless it has been legally approved. The reason for this adherence to Latin by the Catholic church stems from the Catholic church wanting to keep the language alive in some context. In conclusion, Latin has influenced European culture in many ways form the languages many Europeans speak to the book they read because many of the words used today are rooted in the Latin language. Rather it the words stem from Classical Latin or from one of its descendent Romance languages.
Works Cited
Buck, Carl Darling. 1933, Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin. University of Chicago Press: Chicago
Herman, Jozsef. 1996, “The End of the History of Latin” Romance Philology. 49:4, pp364-382.
Palmer, Robert Leonard. c.1954, The Latin Language. Faber & Faber Limited: London
The Survival of Latin? Retrieved January 15, 2016, from http://www.lms.org.uk/resources/articles-on-the-mass/the_survival_of_latin
