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The Latin script originated in archaic antiquity in the Latium region in central Italy.It is generally held that the Latins, one of many ancient Italic tribes, adopted the western variant of the Greek alphabet in the 7th century BCE [1] from Cumae, a Greek colony in southern Italy – making the early Latin alphabet one among several Old Italic scripts emerging at the time.
British Latin or British Vulgar Latin was the Vulgar Latin spoken in Great Britain in the Roman and sub-Roman periods. While Britain formed part of the Roman Empire , Latin became the principal language of the elite and in the urban areas of the more romanised south and east of the island.
The blue areas show the countries where the Latin alphabet is the sole official script or most predominant writing system. By the 18th century, the standard Latin alphabet, cemented by the rise of the printing press , comprised the 26 letters we are familiar with today, albeit in Romance languages the letter w was until the 19th century very rare.
Neo-Latin, or New Latin, is applied to Latin written after the medieval period according to the standards developed in the Renaissance; it is however a modern term. [ 11 ] [ 12 ] The field of Neo Latin studies has gained momentum in the last decades, as Latin was central to European cultural and scientific development in the period.
During this time, Catholic monks mainly wrote or copied text in Latin, the prevalent medieval lingua franca in Europe. When monks occasionally wrote in the vernacular, Latin words were translated by finding suitable Old English equivalents. Often, a Germanic word was adopted and given a new shade of meaning in the process.
Today, the Latin script, the Latin alphabet spread by the Roman Empire to most of Europe, and derived from the Phoenician alphabet through an ancient form of the Greek alphabet adopted and modified by Etruscan, is the most widespread and commonly used script in the world. Spread by various colonies, trade routes, and political powers, the ...
The term Latin Europe is sometimes used in reference to European nations and regions inhabited by Romance-speaking people. [15] [16] [17] Latin America is the region of the Americas that was colonized by Latin Europeans, and came to be called so in the 19th century. [18]
The transmission of the Greek Classics to Latin Western Europe during the Middle Ages was a key factor in the development of intellectual life in Western Europe. [1] Interest in Greek texts and their availability was scarce in the Latin West during the Early Middle Ages, but as traffic to the East increased, so did Western scholarship.