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LATIN LANGUAGE
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LATIN See also:LANGUAGE . ,. Earliest Records of its See also:Area.—Latin was the language spoken in See also:Rome and in the See also:plain of See also:Latium in the 6th or 7th See also:century B.c.—the earliest See also:period from which we have any contemporary See also:record of its existence. But it is as yet impossible to determine either, on the one See also:hand, whether the archaic inscription of See also:Praeneste (see below), which is as-signed with See also:great See also:probability to that See also:epoch, represents exactly the language then spoken in Rome; or, on the other, over how much larger an area of the See also:Italian See also:peninsula, or even of the lands to the See also:north and See also:west, the same language may at that date have extended. In the 5th century B.C. we find its limits within the peninsula fixed on the north-west and See also:south-west by See also:Etruscan (see See also:ETRURIA: Language) ; on the See also:east, south-east, and probably north and north-east, by Safine (See also:Sabine) dialects (of the See also:Marsi, See also:Paeligni, See also:Samnites, See also:Sabini and See also:Picenum, qq.v.); but on the north we have no See also:direct record of Sabine speech, nor of any non-Latinian See also:tongue nearer than Tuder and Asculum or earlier 'Ilan the 4th century B.C. (see See also:UMBRIA, See also:IGUVIUM, PICENTJM). 1V,: know however, both from tradition and from the archaeological data, that the Safine tribes were in the 5th century B.C. migrating, or at least sending off swarms of their younger folk, farther and farther southward into the peninsula. Of the 'anguages they were then displacing we have no explicit recordsave in the See also:case of Etruscan in See also:Campania, but it may be See also:reason-ably inferred from the See also:evidence of See also:place-names and tribal names, combined with that of the Faliscan See also:inscriptions, that before the Safine invasion some See also:idiom, not remote from Latin, was spoken by the pre-Etruscan tribes down the length of the west See also:coast (see See also:FALISCI; See also:VOLSCI; also ROME: See also:History; See also:LIGURIA; See also:SICULI). 2. Earliest See also:Roman Inscriptions.—At Rome, at all events, it is clear from the unwavering See also:voice of tradition that Latin was spoken from the beginning of the See also:city. Of the earliest Latin inscriptions found in Rome which were known in 1909, the See also:oldest, the so-called See also:Forum inscription," can hardly be referred with confidence to an earlier century than the 5th; the later, the well-known Duenos (= later Latin See also:bonus) inscription, certainly belongs to the 4th; both of these are briefly described below (§§ 40, 41). 'At this date we have probably the period of the narrowest See also:extension of Latin; non-Latin idioms were spoken in Etruria, Umbria, Picenum and in the Marsian and Volscian hills. But almost directly the area begins to expand again, and after the See also:war with See also:Pyrrhus the Roman arms had planted the language of Rome in her military colonies throughout the peninsula. When we come to the 3rd century B.C. the Latin inscriptions begin to be more numerous, and in them (e.g. the oldest epitaphs of the Scipio See also:family) the language is very little removed from what it was in the See also:time of See also:Plautus. 3. The See also:Italic See also:Group of See also:Languages.—For the characteristics and See also:affinities of the dialects that have just been mentioned, see the See also:article See also:ITALY: See also:Ancient Languages and Peoples, and to the See also:separate articles on the tribes. Here if is well to point out that the only one of these languages which is not akin to Latin is Etruscan; on the other hand, the only one very closely resembling Latin is Faliscan, which with it forms what we may See also:call the Latinian See also:dialect of the Italic group of the Indo-See also:European family of languages. Since, however, we have a far more See also:complete knowledge of Latin than of any other member of the Italic group, this is the most convenient place in which to See also:state briefly the very little than can be said as yet to have been ascertained as to the See also:general relations of Italic to its See also:sister See also:groups. Here, as in many kindred questions, the See also:work of See also:Paul Kretschmer of See also:Vienna (Einleitung in See also:die Geschichte der griechischen Sprache, See also:Gottingen, 1896) marked an important epoch in the See also:historical aspects of linguistic study, as the first scientific See also:attempt to interpret critically the different kinds of evidence which the Indo-European languages give us, not in vocabulary merely, but in phonology, See also:morphology, and especially in their mutual borrowings, and to combine it with the non-linguistic data of tradition and See also:archaeology. A certain number of the results so obtained have met with general See also:acceptance and may be briefly treated here. It is, however, extremely dangerous to draw merely from linguistic kinship deductions as to racial identity, or even as to an See also:original contiguity of habitation. See also:Close resemblances in any two languages, especially those in their inner structure (morphology), may be due to identity of See also:race, or to See also:long neighbourhood in the earliest period of their development; but they may also be caused by temporary neighbourhood (for a longer or shorter period), brought about by migrations at a later epoch (or epochs). A particular See also:change in See also:sound or usage may spread over a whole See also:chain of dialects and be in the end exhibited alike by them all, although the time at which it first began was long after their See also:special and distinctive characteristics had become clearly marked. For example, the See also:limitation of the word-See also:accent to the last three syllables of a word in Latin and Oscan (see below)—a phenomenon which has See also:left deep marks on all the See also:Romance languages—demonstrably See also:grew up between the 5th and and centuries B.C.; and it is a permissible conjecture that it started from the See also:influence of the See also:Greek colonies in Italy (especially See also:Cumae and See also:Naples), in whose language the same limitation (although with an accent whose actual See also:character was probably more largely musical) had been established some centuries sooner. 4. Position of the Italic Group.—The Italic group, then, when compared with the other seven See also:main " families " of Indo- European speech, in respect of their most significant See also:differences, ranges itself thus: (i.) Back-palatal and Velar Sounds.—In point of its treatment of the Indo-European back-palatal and velar sounds, it belongs to the western or centum group, the name of which is, of course, taken from Latin; that is to say, like See also:German, See also:Celtic and Greek, it did not sibilate original k and g, which in Indo-Iranian, Armenian, See also:Slavonic and Albanian have been converted into various types of sibilants (Ind.-Eur.* kmlom=See also:Lat. centum, Gr. (O-Karov, Welsh cant, Eng. hund-(red), but Sans. Iatam, Zend satam) ; but, on the other hand, in See also:company with just the same three western groups, and in contrast to the eastern, the Italic languages labialized the original velars (Ind.-Eur. * qod=Lat. quod, Osc. pod, Gr. iroS-(aaos), Welsh pwy, Eng. what, but Sans. kas, " who ?"). (ii.) Indo-European Aspirates.—Like Greek and See also:Sanskrit, but in contrast to all the other groups (even to Zend and Armenian), the Italic group largely preserves a distinction between the Indo-European mediae aspiratae and mediae (e.g. between Ind.-Eur. dh and d, the former when initial becoming initially regularly Lat. f as in Lat. fec-i [cf. Umb. feia, " facial "], beside Gr. m-OrtK-a [cf. Sans. da-dha-ti, " he places "], the latter simply d as in domus, Gr. I6 ios). But the aspiratae, even where thus distinctly treated in Italic, became fricatives, not pure aspirates, a character which they only retained in Greek and Sanskrit. (iii.) Indo-European O.—With Greek and Celtic, Latin preserved the Indo-European o, which in the more northerly groups (Germanic, Balto-Slavonic), and also in Indo-Iranian, and, curiously, in Messapian, was confused with d. The name for See also:olive-oil, which spread with the use of this commodity from Greek ( NaiFov) to Italic speakers and thence to the north, becoming by See also:regular changes (see below) in Latin first *olaivom, then *oleivom, and then taken into See also:Gothic and becoming alev, leaving its See also:parent See also:form to change further (not later than too Inc.) in Latin to oleum, is a particularly important example, because (a) of the See also:chronological limits which are implied, however roughly, in the See also:process just described, and (b) of the close association in time of the change of o to a with the earlier stages of the " sound-shifting " (of the Indo-European See also:plosives and aspirates) in German; see Kretschmer, Einleit. p. 1i6, and the authorities he cites. (iv.) Accentuation.—One marked innovation See also:common to the western groups as compared with what Greek and Sanskrit show to have been an earlier feature of the Indo-European parent speech was the development of a strong expiratory (sometimes called stress) accent upon the first syllable of all words. This appears See also:early in the history of Italic, Celtic, Lettish (probably, and at a still later period) in Germanic, though at a period later than the beginning of the " sound-shifting." This extinguished the complex See also:system of Indo-European accentuation, which is directly reflected in Sanskrit, and was itself replaced in Latin and Oscan by another system already mentioned, but not in Latin till it had produced marked effects upon the language (e.g. the degradation of the vowels in compounds as in confecio from See also:con facio, inclicdo from in-claudo). This curious See also:wave of accentual change (first pointed out by Dieterich, See also:Kuhn's Zeitschrift, i., and later by Thurneysen, Revue celtique, vi. 312, Rheinisches Museum, xliii. 349) needs and deserves to be more closely investigated from a chronological standpoint. At See also:present it is not clear how far it was a really connected process in all the languages. (See further Kretschmer, op. cit. p. 115, K. Brugmann, Kurze vergleichende Grammatik (1902-1904), p. 57, and their citations, especially See also:Meyer-Lubke, Die Betonung See also:im Gallischen (i9oi).) To these larger affinities may be added some important points in which the Italic group shows marked resemblances to other groups. 5. Italic and Celtic.—It is now universally admitted that the Celtic languages stand in a much closer relation than any other group to the Italic. It may even be doubted whether there was any real frontier-See also:line at all between the two groups before the Etruscan invasion of Italy (see ETRURIA: Language; LIGuRIA). The number of morphological innovations on the Indo-European system which the two groups See also:share, and which are almost if not wholly See also:peculiar to them, is particularly striking. Of these the See also:chief are the following. (i.) Extension of the abstract-noun stems in -ti- (like Greek ¢aril with See also:Attic flaois, &c.) by an -n- suffix, as in Lat. mentio (See also:stem mention-) = Ir. (er-)mitiu (stem miti-n-), contrasted with the same word without the n-suffix in Sans. mati-, Lat. mens, Ind.-Eur. *mn-ti-. A similar extension (shared also by Gothic) appears in Lat. iuventu-t-, 0. Ir. oitiu (stem oitiict-) beside the See also:simple -tu- in nouns like sena,tus. (ii.) Superlative formation in -is-mmo- as in Lat. aegerrimus for *aegr-isrpmos, Gallic Ot4ioaun the name of a See also:town meaning " the highest. (iii.) Genitive singular of the o-stems (second declension) in -i Lat. agri, O. Ir .(Ogam inscriptions) magi, " of a son." (iv.) Passive and deponent formation in -r, Lat. sequitur=Ir. sechedar," he follows." The originally active meaning of this curious -r suffix was first pointed out by Zimmer (Kuhn's Zeitschrift, 1888,See also:xxx. 224), who thus explained the use of the See also:accusative pronouns with these " passive " forms in Celtic; Ir. -m-See also:berar, " I am carried," literally " folk carry me "; Umb. pir ferar, literally ignem feratur, though as pir is a neuter word (= Gr. aup) this example was not so convincing. But within a twelvemonth of the See also:appearance of Zimmer's article, an Oscan inscription (See also:Conway, Camb. Philol. Society's Proceedings, 1890, p. i6, and Italic Dialects, p. 113) was discovered containing the phrase ultiumam (iiivilam) sakrafir, "ultimam (imaginem) consecraverint " (or " ultima consecretur ") which demonstrated the nature of the suffix in Italic also. This originally active meaning of the -r form (in the third See also:person singular passive) is the cause of the remarkable fondness for the " impersonal " use of the passive in Latin (e.g., itur in antiquam silvam, instead of eunt), which was naturally extended to all tenses of the passive (ventum est, &c.), so soon as its origin was forgotten. See also:Fuller details of the development will be found in Conway, op. cit. p. 561, and the authorities there cited (very little isadded by K. Brugmann, Kurze vergl. Gramm. 1904, p. 596). (v.) Formation of the perfect passive from the -to- past participle, Lat. monitus (est), &c., Ir. leic-the, " he was left," iv-laced, " he has been left." In Latin the participle maintains its distinct adjectival character; in Irish (J. See also:Strachan, Old Irish Paradigms, 1905, p. 50) it has sunk into a purely verbal form, just as the perfect participles in -us in Umbrian have been absorbed into the future perfect in -ust (entelust, " intenderit "; benust, " venerit ") with its impersonal passive or third plural active -us(s)so (probably See also:standing for -ussor) as in benuso, " ventum erit " (or " venerint "). To these must be further added some striking peculiarities in phonology. (vi.) Assimilation of p to a Of in a following syllable as in Lat. quinque = Jr. See also:colic, compared with Sans. pdnca, Gr. rr~em, Eng. five, Ind.-Eur. *penqe. (vii.) Finally—and perhaps this See also:parallelism is the most important of all from the historical standpoint—both Italic and Celtic are divided into two sub-families which differ, and differ in the same way, in their treatment of the Ind.-Eur. velar See also:tennis g. In both halves of each group it was labialized to some extent; in one See also:half of each group it was labialized so far as to become p. This is the great line of cleavage (i.) between Latinian (Lat. quod, quando, quinque; Falisc. cuando) and Osco-Umbrian, better called Safine (Osc. pod, Umb. panic- [for *pandd] Osc.-Umb. pompe-, " five," in Osc. pumperias " nonae," Umb. pumpedia-, " fifth See also:day of the See also:month "); and (ii.) between Goidelic (Gaelic)Ir. coic, " five," maq, " son " See also:modern Irish and Scotch Mac as in See also:MacPherson) and Brythonic (Britannic) (Welsh See also:pump, " five," Ap for See also:map, as in Powel for Ap Howel). The same distinction appears elsewhere; Germanic belongs, broadly described, to the q-grou and Greek, broadly described, to the p-group. The ethnological bearing of the distinction within Italy is considered in the articles SABINI and VoLscI; but the wider questions which the facts suggest have as yet been only scantily discussed; see the references for the " Sequanian " dialect of Gallic (in the inscription of See also:Coligny, whose language preserves q) in the article CELTS: Language. From these See also:primitive affinities we must clearly distinguish the numerous words taken into Latin from the Celts of north Italy within the historic period; for these see especially an interesting study by J. Zwicker, De vocabulis et See also:rebus Gallicis sive Transpadanis dpud Vergilium (See also:Leipzig dissertation, 1905). 6. Greek and Italic.—We have seen above (§ 4, i., ii., iii.) certain broad characteristics which the Greek and the Italic groups of language have in common. The old question of the degree of their See also:affinity may be briefly noticed. There are deep-seated differences in morphology, phonology and vocabulary between the two languages—such as (a) the loss of the forms of the See also:ablative in Greek and of the See also:middle voice in Latin; (b) the decay of the fricatives (s, v, i) in Greek and the See also:cavalier treatment of the aspirates in Latin; and (c) the almost See also:total discrepancy of the vocabularies of See also:law and See also:religion in the two languages—which altogether forbid the See also:assumption that the two groups can ever have been completely identical after their first See also:dialectic separation from the parent language. On the other hand, in the first early periods of that dialectic development in the Indo-European family, the precursors of Greek and Italic cannot have been separated by any very wide boundary. To this primitive neighbourhood may be referred such peculiarities as (a) the genitive plural feminine ending in -asom (Gr. -awv, later in various dialects -Ewv, -wv, -av; cf. Osc. egmazum " rerum "; Lat. mensarum, with -r- from-s-), (b) the feminine gender of many nouns of the -o- declension, cf. Gr. i] 6Bos, Lat. haec fdgus; and some important and ancient syntactical features, especially in the uses of the cases (e.g. (c) the genitive of See also:price) of the (d) See also:infinitive and of the (e) participles passive (though in each case the forms differ widely in the two groups), and perhaps (f) of the dependent moods (though here again the forms have been vigorously reshaped in Italic). These syntactic See also:parallels, which are hardly noticed by Kretschmer in his otherwise careful discussion (Einteit. p. 155 seq.), serve to confirm his general conclusion which has been here adopted; because syntactic peculiarities have a long See also:life and may survive not merely complete revolutions in morphology, but even a complete change in the See also:speaker's language, e.g. such Celticisms in Irish-See also:English as " What are you after doing?" for " What have you done?" or in Welsh-English as " whatever " for " anyhow." A few isolated correspondences in vocabulary, as in remus from *See also:ret-s-mo-, with iperµbs and in a few plant-names (e.g. 7rpao-ov and porrum), cannot disturb the general conclusion, though no doubt they have some historical significance, if it could be determined. 7. Indo-Iranian and Italo-Celtic.—Only a brief reference can here be made to the strik°..g See also:list of resemblances between the Indo-Iranian and Ita)10-Celtic groups, especially in vocabulary, which Kretschmer has collected (ibid. pp. 126-144). The most striking of these are rex, O. Ir. rig-, Sans. raj-, and the See also:political meaning of the same See also:root in the corresponding verb in both languages (contrast regere with the merely See also:physical meaning of Gr. opeyvviu); Lat. See also:flamen (for *See also:flag-men) exactly= Sans. See also:brahman- (neuter), meaning probably " sacrificing," " See also:worship-ping," and then " priesthood," " See also:priest," from the Ind.-Eur. root *bhelgh-, " See also:blaze," " make to blaze "; re's, rem exactly = Sans. refs, See also:ram in declension and especially in meaning; and Ario-, " See also:noble," in Gallic Ariomanus, &c., = Sans. efrya-, " noble " (whence "See also:Aryan "). So argentum exactly= Sans. rajata-, Zend erezata-; contrast the different (though morphologically kindred) suffix in Gr. apyvpos. Some See also:forty-two other Latin or Celtic words (among then credere, caesaries, See also:probus, castus (cf. Osc. kasit, Lat. caret, Sans. 3"ista-), Volcanus, Neptunus, ensis, erus, pruina, rus, novacula) have precise Sanskrit or Iranian equivalents, and none so near in any other of the eight groups of languages. Finally the use of an -r suffix in the third plural is common to both Italo-Celtic (see above) and Indo-Iranian. These things clearly point to a fairly close, and probably in See also:part political, intercourse between the two communities of speakers at some early epoch. A shorter, but interesting, list of correspondences in vocabulary with 13alto-Slavonic (e.g. the words mentiri, See also:ros, ignis have close equivalents in Balto-Slavonic) suggests that at the same period the precursor of this dialect too was a not remote See also:neighbour. 8. Date of the Separation of the Italic Group.— The date at which the Italic group of languages began to have (so far as it had at all) a separate development of its own is at present only a See also:matter of conjecture. But the See also:combination of archaeological and linguistic See also:research which has already begun can have no more interesting See also:object than the approximate determination of this date (or group of See also:dates); for it will give us a point of See also:cardinal importance in the early history of See also:Europe. The only See also:consideration which can here be offered as a starting-point for the inquiry is the chronological relation of the Etruscan invasion, which is probably referable to the 12th century B.C. (see ETRURIA), to the two strata of Indo-European See also:population—the -CO- folk (Falisci, Marruci, Volsci, See also:Hernici and others), to whom the Tuscan invaders owe the names Etrusci and Tusci, and the -NO- folk, who, on the West coast, in the centre and south of Italy, appear at a distinctly later epoch, in some places (as in the Bruttian peninsula, see See also:BRUTTII) only at the beginning of our historical record. If the view of Latin as mainly the tongue of the -CO- folk prove to be correct (see RoME: History; ITALY: Ancient Languages and Peoples; SABINI; VOLSCI) we must regard it (a) as the See also:southern or earlier half of the Italic group, firmly rooted in Italy in the I2th century B.C., but (b) by no means yet isolated from contact with the See also:northern or later half; such is at least the See also:suggestion of the striking peculiarities in morphology which it shares with not merely Oscan and Umbrian, but also, as we have seen, with Celtic. The progress in time of this See also:isolation ought before long to be traced with some approach to certainty. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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