Gifts of the Latin Language

Roman soldiers helped spread Latin by making themselves at home in the provinces of the Roman Empire.

Latin was the language that united the provinces of the Roman Empire. The Roman army, famous for mingling with native populations, deserves much of the credit for spreading Latin throughout the ancient world. In addition to the gift of Latin as the progenitor language of entire nations that speak modern-day Romance languages -- French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Romanian -- Latin has given much to the English language.

Roman Alphabet

The Latin alphabet replaced runes when St. Augustine and his monks converted Britain to Christianity in the seventh century.

One major gift to English was the Roman alphabet. The introduction of Christianity into England replaced the existing runic writing system, which had used the futhark alphabet, with the writing system we use today.

Words

English can thank the Romans for many vocabulary words, both directly from Latin -- "gymnasium," "forum" -- and via other languages that sprang from Latin. The feudal structure of the French-speaking Norman rule of Britain gave us "baron," "countess" and "nobility," among other words. The 16th-century rivalry with Spain for control of the New World imparted "armada," "galleon," "embargo" and other words. The seventh-century conversion of Britain to Christianity introduced "angel," "devil," "martyr" "mass," "altar," "hymn" and a host of other religious words, including "host."

Compounding

Latin words have been part of English for so many centuries that we do not pause to consider their origin. As an example, Latin "plicare," which means "to fold," gives us "complicated," or "folded in with," and "duplicity," akin to something folded to conceal what is within the fold. More subtly, Latin compounding inspired English to form new words from existing English components, often by literally translating elements of Latin words. For example, Latin "oppose" served as the model for the synonymous "withstand," made entirely of native English roots.

Stuffiness

Why is it unacceptable in formal circles to say "What is that for?" or "to boldly go," when English speakers have been ending sentences with prepositions and splitting infinitives since at least 1100? During the 17th and 18th centuries, grammarians used classical Latin from the first century B.C. as a model for English rules, regardless of how people had been speaking for centuries. They considered structures not found in Latin ungrammatical. Of course, Latin infinitives were impossible to split, since they were one word rather than the "to"-plus-verb constructions we have in English. And with its elaborate case system, Latin could indicate many relationships by a mere word ending rather than a preposition.

Polite Speech

Thanks to Latin, we can talk about body parts and functions without blushing. We may say that an animal has "defecated," from the Latin, on our lawn, but we dare not mention the Anglo-Saxon equivalent. So it goes at the doctor's office, where we may broach the subject of private parts with clean, scientific terms from Latin rather than words we associate with gutter speech.

References

• "University of Toronto: "The Influence of Latin on Old English"; Edward Moore; 2000
• Rice University: "Loanwords -- Major Periods of Borrowing in the History of English"; Suzanne Kemmer; 2010
• "Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language"; Walter W. Skeat, 1963
• "The Gift of Language"; Margaret Schlauch; 1955.
• "An Introduction to Language"; Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman and Nina Hyams; 2011

Resources

• Online Etymological Dictionary
• Latin-Language