Latin

Introduction

Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, and ultimately from the Phoenician alphabet. Latin is a highly inflected language, with three distinct genders, seven noun cases, four verb conjugations, four verb principal parts, six tenses, three persons, three moods, two voices, two aspects and two numbers.[1]

Linguistic Grammars of the Latin

Latin is a heavily inflected language with largely free word order.Latin word order is generally subject–object–verb. However, other word orders are common, especially in poetry. Different word orders can also be used to express subtle nuances, even in prose.[2]

In the Classical period it had six cases in the declension of nouns and adjectives (nominative, vocative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative), with traces of a locative case in some declensional classes of nouns. Except for the i-stem and consonant stem declensional classes, which it combines into one group (listed in grammar books as the third declension). The pronouns had a declension pattern of their own.

Numerals had declensions only for 1, 2, 3, 20. There were cardinal (unus), ordinal (primus), adverbial (semel) and partitive (singuli) numerals.

Latin Morphology

History Of Latin

The Latin alphabet, emerged from the Old Italic alphabets, which in turn were derived from the Greek and Phoenician scripts. Historical Latin came from the prehistoric language of the Latium region, specifically around the River Tiber, where Roman civilization first developed.The name Latin derives from the Italic tribal group named Latini that settled around the 10th century BC in Latium, and the dialect spoken by these people.The Italic languages form a centum subfamily of the Indo-European language family. These include the Romance, Germanic, Celtic, and Hellenic languages, and a number of extinct ones. [3]