|
Latin is a member of the broad family of Italic languages. Its alphabet, 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. How and when Latin came to be spoken by the Romans are questions that have long been debated. Various influences on Latin of Celtic dialects in northern Italy, the non-Indo-European Etruscan language in Central Italy, and the Greek of southern Italy have been detected, but when these influences entered the native Latin is not known for certain. Surviving Latin literature consists almost entirely of Classical Latin in its broadest definition. It includes a polished and sometimes highly stylized literary language sometimes termed Golden Latin, which spans the 1st century BC and the early years of the 1st century AD. However, throughout the history of ancient Rome the spoken language differed in both grammar and vocabulary from that of literature, and is referred to as Vulgar Latin. In addition to Latin, Greek was often spoken by the well-educated elite, who studied it in school and acquired Greek tutors from among the influx of enslaved educated Greek prisoners of war. In the eastern half of the Roman Empire, which became the Byzantine Empire, the Greek Koine of Hellenism remained current and was never replaced by Latin. ==Origins== (詳細はLatini that settled at some time in Latium, and the dialect spoken by these people.〔Leonard Robert Palmer - The Latin language - 372 pages (University of Oklahoma Press, 1987 ) Retrieved 2012-02-01 ISBN 0-8061-2136-X〕 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. Broadly speaking, in initial syllables the Indo-European simple vowels — ''( *a), *e, *i, *o, *u''; short and long — are usually retained in Latin. The schwa indogermanicum ('' *ə'') appears in Latin as ''a'' (cf. IE '' *pəter'' > L ''pater''). Diphthongs are also preserved in Old Latin, but in Classical Latin some tend to become monophthongs (for example ''oi'' > ''ū'' or ''oe'', and ''ei'' > ''ē'' > ''ī''). In non-initial syllables, there was more vowel reduction. The most extreme case occurs with short vowels in medial open syllables (i.e. short vowels followed by at most a single consonant, occurring neither in the first nor last syllable): All are reduced to a single vowel, which appears as ''i'' in most cases, but ''e'' (sometimes ''o'') before ''r'', and ''u'' before an ''l'' which is followed by ''o'' or ''u''. In final syllables, short ''e'' and ''o'' are usually raised to ''i'' and ''u'', respectively. Consonants are generally more stable. However, the Indo-European voiced aspirates ''bh, dh, gh, gwh'' are not maintained, becoming ''f, f, h, f'' respectively at the beginning of a word, but usually ''b, d, g, v'' elsewhere. Note that non-initial ''dh'' becomes ''b'' next to ''r'' or ''u'', e.g. '' *h₁rudh-'' "red" > ''rub-'', e.g. ''rubeō'' "to be red"; '' *werdh-'' "word" > ''verbum''. ''s'' between vowels famously becomes ''r'', e.g. ''flōs'' "flower", gen. ''flōris''; ''erō'' "I will be" vs. root ''es-''; ''aurōra'' "dawn" < *''ausōsā'' (cf. Germanic '' *aust-'' > English "east", Vedic Sanskrit ''uṣā́s'' "dawn"); ''soror'' "sister" < '' *sosor'' < '' *swesōr'' (cf. Old English ''sweostor'' "sister"). Of the original eight cases of Proto-Indo-European, Latin inherited six: nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, and ablative. The Indo-European locative survived in the declensions of some place names and a few common nouns, such as ''Roma'' "Rome" (locative ''Romae'') and ''domus'' "home" (locative ''domī'' "at home"). Vestiges of the instrumental case may remain in adverbial forms ending in ''-ē''. It is believed that the earliest known inscription is a seventh-century B.C. pin known as the ''Praenestine fibula'', which reads ''Manios med fhefhaked Numasioi'' "Manius made me for Numerius".〔Timothy J. Pulju Rice University ( .edu/~ ) Retrieved 2012-02-01〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of Latin」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|