Romance languages are so called because they are derived from Latin which was the language spoken in ancient Rome. About 80 percent of the entries in any English dictionary are borrowed, mainly from Latin. Over 60 percent of all English words have Greek or Latin roots. French is not a Germanic language, but rather, a Latin or a Romance language that has been influenced by both Celtic languages like Gaelic, Germanic languages like Frankish and even Arabic, other Romance languages such as Spanish and Italian or more recently, English.
Although approximately ten percent of Modern French words are derived from Frankish, Frankish was not the only source of Germanic words in French. In modern language terms, Spanish was recognized first around the 9th century.
Modern French emerged from the Francien dialect around the 14th century. Latin was invented first. But the days of its global pomp, when it was the language of international diplomacy and spoken by much of the global elite, are long gone. English and most other Western-European languages adopted many words from Latin and Greek throughout history, because especially Latin was the Lingua Franca all through Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and later.
Latin has influenced the English language tremendously. Their language, not suprisingly, influenced English. Since their language French was a Romance language descended from Latin, this gave Latin an indirect influence on English. In fact, English is considered a Germanic language, putting it in the same family as German, Dutch, and Afrikaans languages. English is a Germanic language, with a grammar and a core vocabulary inherited from Proto-Germanic. The influence of Latin in English, therefore, is primarily lexical in nature, being confined mainly to words derived from Latin roots.
To oversimplify the matter, Latin began to die out in the 6th century shortly after the fall of Rome in A. The fall of Rome precipitated the fragmentation of the empire, which allowed distinct local Latin dialects to develop, dialects which eventually transformed into the modern Romance languages.
Spanish and Romanian use unusual manipulations with the vowels. What is that? All of this goes back to herba. This type of lingual shift happens to every word in the language.
Very few words in any of these languages trace back to Latin in anything like an unbroken form. A Latin speaker who listened to any of them would be baffled. If they could get any of it, they would think that something had gone terribly wrong.
None of the people who speak these five languages could make their way in Latin. These are brand-new languages. Latin evolved from the Etruscan, Greek, and Phoenician alphabets. It was widely spoken throughout the Roman Empire.
Italy became a unified nation in , but only a small portion of the population spoke Italian. Citizens mostly spoke local dialects. Latin is a valuable language to learn because many widely spoken languages including English, Italian, and Spanish, contain Latin words and root words. Therefore, Latin can enable you to learn a new language or expand your vocabulary.
By John McWhorter, Ph. D , Columbia University Recent research has shown that all languages may be able to trace their roots back to a common tongue spoken thousands of years ago. But how does the process of language creation take place? It can be clearly illustrated by taking a look at Latin and its daughters: The Romance languages. Watch it now, Wondrium The Roman Empire was relatively unique in that as the Romans spread and conquered beyond their original boundaries, they imposed their language on other people—a relatively new concept at the time.
Q: How did Latin become a dead language? Q: What did Latin evolve from? Today Portuguese is spoken in countries around the world, including several in Africa and Asia. At that time, the inhabitants of that land spoke a Celtic language called Gaulish. That quickly changed when the Romans brought their native Latin to that region.
Over the years, and after the fall of the Roman Empire, the language slowly evolved: from Old French into Middle French and finally into the French language we know today. It is spoken, after all, in a total of 84 countries around the globe, including France, Canada, Belgium, western Switzerland, Monaco, and a host of others. It is also the official language of 29 countries. Thanks to the conquering Romans, Latin was spoken widely throughout a vast region for hundreds of years.
But after the fall of the Roman Empire, and during the same time that other Romance languages began to form all over Europe, the Italian language also began to take shape — initially as different regional dialects. These distinct dialects continued to be spoken up and down the Italian peninsula until the unification of Italy in Finally, in the 20th century, with the onset of radio, mass media and World War II, not only was Italy unified but their language was as well. Today, although some regional dialects still exist, Italians by in large speak standard Italian.
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