In addition to grammatical and phonetic developments, there have been many cases where verbs have been merged, as complex subtleties in Latin have been reduced to simplified verbs in Romance. A classic example of this is verbs that express the concept of « going. » Consider three specific verbs in classical Latin that express the concepts of « go »: ire, vadere, and *ambitare. In Spanish and Portuguese, ire and vadere have merged into the verb ir, which derives some conjugated forms of ire and others of vadere. Andar has been preserved as a distinct verb derived from ambitare. Latin numerals originally appear in many English words. Here are the most important examples. The key elements are those that appear most often in English words. These meanings are useful for understanding unknown words that contain these elements. (Note that the months of the year were named if the calendar contained only ten months.) The number unus, una (one) provides the indefinite article in all cases (it is also a semantic development common to all Europe).
This is anticipated in classical Latin; Cicero wrote uno gladiatore nequissimo (« with a most immoral gladiator »). This suggests that Unus began to move Quidam in the sense of « certainly » or « some » in the 1st century BC. [doubtful – discuss] Despite the increase in case mergers, the nominative and accusative forms seem to have remained separated much longer, as they are rarely confused in inscriptions. [37] Although 7th century Gallic texts rarely confuse the two forms, it is thought that the two cases began to merge at the end of the empire in Africa and a little later in parts of Italy and the Iberian Peninsula. [37] Today, Romanian maintains a two-case system, while Old French and Old Occitan had a two-case oblique system. Vulgar Latin, also known as Vernacular or Colloquial Latin, is the series of informal registers of Latin spoken since the end of the Roman Republic. [1] Over time, Vulgar Latin developed into many Romance languages. Its literary counterpart was either a form of classical Latin or a late Latin, depending on the period. Most of the books found in the Oxford library were in Latin or Greek until the 16th century, 500 years after the university was founded. A long shift in the Latin language occurred from the early Middle Ages to the Renaissance.
Latin was the common language used for all literature in Western Europe. The Church was primarily responsible for the conversation of Latin as the language of the written people. The nobility and clergy of the time were all taught in Latin. During this period, a large amount of liturgical texts were written or copied, but clerical literature slowly opened up to the digitization of ancient texts. In 800 AD, Charlemagne, then emperor of most of Western Europe (including France, Belgium, Switzerland, northern Italy, and present-day western Germany), decided to reform Latin. The syntax is then simplified and many neologisms are adopted in the Latin language. After centuries of Christian obscurantism in Europe, a new era has come: art, reason and science take precedence over religion. It was the Renaissance. The movement, which began in Italy at the end of the 13th century, did not reach England until the end of the 15th century. Latin, the language of science, once the lingua franca of the Western world, a language shaped by culture and spread by conquest, is now considered a « dead language ». It is no longer spoken as the mother tongue of a group or culture, but is left to classical philologists who study the world of classical antiquity. The rise and spread of Latin had a profound impact on the world, which can still be felt today in the form of Romance languages and Latin terminology in medicine, law, and religion.
Research into its history shows how and why it had such an impact. The following is a list of Latin terms that are still used (to varying degrees) in English. In less formal language, reconstructed forms suggest that inherited Latin demonstratives were reinforced by the association with ecce (originally an interjection: « behold! »), which also gave rise to Italian ecco through eccum, a contracted form of ecce eum. This is the origin of the Old French cil (*ecce ille), cist (*ecce iste) and ici (*ecce hic); Italian questo (*eccum istum), quello (*eccum illum) and (now mainly Tuscan) codesto (*eccum tibi istum), as well as qui (*eccu hic), qua (*eccum hac); Spanish and Occitan aquel and Portuguese aquele (*eccum ille); Spanish and Portuguese acá (*eccum hac); Spanish and Portuguese aquí aqui (*eccum hic); Portuguese acolá (*eccum illac) and aquém (*eccum india); Romanian Acest (*ecce iste) and acela (*ecce ille) and many other forms. Vulgar Latin began to emerge in the 9th century at the latest. The oldest surviving novels appear as the oldest surviving novel writings. They were confined to everyday language throughout the period, as medieval Latin was used for writing. [14] [15] The copula (i.e. the verb meaning « to be ») of classical Latin was esse. This evolved into *essere in Vulgar Latin by adding the common infinitive suffix -re to the classical infinitive; This gave rise to the Italian essere and French being through the proto-Gallo-Romance *essre and the Old French estre, as well as the Spanish and Portuguese ser (Romanian a fi is derived from fieri, meaning « to become »).
In the Philippines and the Western world, many organizations, governments, and schools use Latin as their motto because it is associated with the formality, tradition, and roots of Western culture. [23] According to Pei, Latin was gradually replaced in spoken form between 400 and 700 (78). Changes in pitch, vowel quality, loss of distinction, and shortening of unstressed vowels are the most important clues to the initial process of change that gradually leads from a Latin vowel structure to a Romance vowel (78-79).