Latin for travellers
Photo: Wolfgang Sauber, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Latin (lingua latīna), the language of ancient Rome, has greatly influenced many languages. The Romance languages (chiefly French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Catalan and Romanian) are direct descendants of Latin, and Latin has had some influence on all the other modern European languages. Most European languages use the Latin alphabet, and even those that don't have inherited some Latin words.
UnderstandLatin was the sole liturgical language in the Roman Catholic Church until the second half of the 20th century and is still sometimes used.
GrammarSuffixes (called declensions) are used extensively to specify the grammatical use of nouns, pronouns and adjectives, and others (called conjugations) show the grammatical use of verbs.
Pronunciation and spellingAfter the fall of the Roman Empire, Latin was mostly a written language of people who acquired it in adulthood or schooling. This led to it developing local pronunciations in school and ordinary usage.
Phrase listLatin is commonly used on inscriptions at historic sites, tombstones and pre-modern monuments, especially in the West, and also in many churches and sacred works of Christian art. Common Latin expressions include:
Names of organismsTaxonomy (Ancient Greek for "method of arrangement") is the science of naming and grouping biological organisms, traditionally written in Latin but using a lot of Greek terms; the study of these, from sources such as…
See also
Sources and licences
- Guide text adapted from the Wikivoyage article "Latin for travellers" by its contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikivoyage · Contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Photo: Wolfgang Sauber, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons