The conquest by Latin of the languages of the world is
almost as interesting and important a story as the conquest by Rome of the
nations of the world. At the beginning of Latin in Roman history Latin was the
speech of only the Italy people of Latium. Beyond the limits of Latium Latin
came into contact with the many different languages spoken in early Italy. Some
of them, such as Greek and Etruscan, soon disappeared from Italy after Roman
expansion, but those used by native Italian peoples showed more power of
resistance. It was not until the last century B.C. that Latin was thoroughly
established in the central and southern parts of the peninsula. After the
Social War the Italian peoples became citizens of Rome, and with Roman
citizenship went the use of the Latin tongue.
LATIN IN THE WESTERN PROVINCES
The Romans carried their language to the barbarian peoples
of the West, as they had carried it to Italy. Their missionaries were colonists,
merchants, soldiers, and public officials. The Latin spoken by them was eagerly
taken up by the rude, unlettered natives, who tried to make themselves as Roman
as possible in dress, customs, and speech. This provincial Latin was not simply
the language of the upper classes; the common people themselves used it freely,
as we know from thousands of inscriptions found in western and central Europe.
In the countries which now make up Spain, France, Switzerland, southern
Austria, England, and North Africa, the old national tongues were abandoned for
the Latin of Rome.
ROMANCE LANGUAGES
The decline of the Roman Empire did not bring about the
downfall of the Latin language in the West. It became the basis of the
so-called Romance languages—French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and
Rumanian—which arose in the Middle Ages out of the spoken Latin of the common
people. Even our English language, which comes to us from the speech of the
Germanic invaders of Britain, contains so many words of Latin origin that we can
scarcely utter a sentence without using some of them. The rule of Rome has
passed away; the language of Rome still remains to enrich the intellectual life
of mankind.