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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 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.
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.
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.
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 ...
One aspect of Roman influence seen in British life was the grant of Roman citizenship. [14] At first this was granted very selectively: to the council members of certain classes of towns, whom Roman practice made citizens; to veterans, either legionaries or soldiers in auxiliary units; and to a number of natives whose patrons obtained citizenship for them.
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.
This style of Latin is regarded as the first phase of the standardised and grammatically "Classical" Neo-Latin which continued through the 16th–19th centuries, [1] [2] [3] and was used as the language of choice for authors discussing subjects considered sufficiently important to merit an international (i.e., pan-European) audience.