Why do italians not speak latin now when the roman empire did, which really is not that long ago ?
Well, the Italian language (along with other european languages such as french, spanish, portuguese etc...) is actually derived from the latin. A language can change a great deal due to time and geography. The vast area which the roman empire covered even up to its 'downfall' probably led to there being variations in dialect. That combined with the influx of Germanic Tribes would have created many local dialects which, with time, led to different languages which all have a common 'ancestor' in the Latin language. As for how it has changed so much since the roman empire, think about the english language. The language spoken, even in Shakespearean times differs greatly from the language spoken today. The middle English in the Canterbury tales by Chaucer is another good example! Look then earlier to the Old English in use from the 5th century until around the 11th century. This is a language derived from the influx of western germanic tribes, the Anglo-Saxons. This language is barely recognisable as 'english' as we know it and is closer to its germanic origins. English has a strong latin influence from this same time also, apparent in the massive number of Latin words in use today.
Did the Romans speak Latin, or another language?
“The Romans” could mean anything from the inhabitants of the city of Rome at any given period in time, to the inhabitants of the Roman Empire at any point during its 2,000 year history… so it’s really, really difficult to give a brief answer to this.At the period of time most people would think about, say the first few Emperors, the people of the Italian peninsula would speak Latin, although Etruscan was still a living language until 50 CE. The administration of all Western provinces would also be in Latin. The locals would speak their own respective languages, and probably a smattering of Latin and Greek, as they would be important trade languages.The educated classes in Rome would, surprisingly, often speak Greek. It was a marker of class, rather like all European courts of the first half of the 18th century would speak French, with some kings even being unable to speak the language of their subjects.In all Eastern provinces, the common language was Koine Greek (contemporary spoken Greek, not the classical Greek of Homer). It would be rare to hear Latin spoken. For instance, it is very likely that Jesus and at least some of his disciples spoke Greek, but unlikely that they spoke Latin. The scene with Jesus and Pilate does not seem to include an interpreter, nor do they seem to have much difficulty communicating. Pilate would have spoken Greek, but Jesus probably did not speak Latin, so Greek is the most likely means of communication. (And this is why we get the puzzling exchange “Are you the Son of God?” - “These are your words, not mine”; what it means is that “son of God” was an idiom in Aramaic that meant “devout Jew”, but in Greek—”in Pilate’s words”—it could be taken to have a literal meaning; the Greek gods did have children with humans, but a literal interpretation would have seemed ludicrous to a Jew, as it was blatantly blasphemous.)In addition, of course, the local languages were alive and well also in the East; Jewish peasants spoke Aramaic, Egyptian peasants spoke Egyptian, Persian peasants spoke Persian, and so on.
Why did the Romans speak Latin but not Roman?
We get the name Romans from their city-state, Roma, which is modern day Rome. The region of the country from which the empire was started was actually called Lazio, or Latium (with various spellings, depending on the grammatical usage) in Latin. The language of that region eventually evolved into Latin. The name is most likely derived from the Latin word "latus", meaning "wide", expressing the idea of "flat land" (in contrast to the local Sabine high country). Because they became the dominant power for such a long time, the language had influence over a large portion of Europe, giving rise to the various Romantic languages (Spanish, French, Portuguese, Romanian, etc.), as it was used as a language of common communication over the various regions of the empire. After the fall of the empire in the 400s, the Roman Catholic Church continued to use it as a common language to conduct Masses and other religious ceremonies. It also allowed the clergy to travel just about anywhere in Europe, and still be able to communicate. Latin was used in the church until the middle part of last century, and is still used, to some extent, by doctors and scientists. It is effectively a dead language, other than that. Hope this helps!
Did the ancient Romans speak Latin or Italian?
Latin. They invented the language. This was penned into my Latin textbook: "Latin is a language, As dead as it can be, It killed the Ancient Romans, And now it's killing me!"
Did the ancient Romans speak mainly Latin, or another language?
The ancient Romans spoke only Latin. They were a very tribalistic and ethnocentric people. Learning a foreign language was out of character for them. Greek was the only foreign language that the Romans respected. However, it was spoken in Roman Italy only by Greek colonists in Calabria and Sicily and by skilled Greek slaves that the Romans brought to the country. Unfortunately, the Roman writers tell us nothing about other languages spoken in the ancient world like Pictish, Gaulish, Celtiberian, Iberian, Etruscan, Punic (Phoenecian), Thracian, Dacian, Phrygian, Galatian or Isaurian just to name a few. While the British were a lot like the Romans, they still recorded all of the native languages that they encountered in their colonies. But the Romans allowed the ones they encountered among their conquered peoples to become extinct forever unwritten.
Did Romans living in the Balkans speak Greek or Latin?
BothMany Romans, especially those living in the Italian peninsula, would learn Greek as a secondary language to Latin, as it was the language of knowledge among intellectuals and those of aristocratic standing, and within a Greek area not only would Latin be taught, but because of the ethnicity of the locals, the Greek language would be widely used in the balkans, up until you reach Macedonia, and modern Albania. Then the languages are going to be Latin and whatever local dialects from that area. That’s how the Roman Empire worked mostly, they came in, added their own things, and let the locals keep their own ways as long as they paid taxes.Hopes this helps.
When did Rome stop speaking Latin, and start speaking Italian?
By 750 CE Latin as the language of the people was extinct, though it continued on as the language of the Catholic Church. By the beginning of the 14th century, what was to become Italian was mostly developed with the writings of Dante and his intellectual contemporaries. In the 16th century, the Tuscan language, the language of Dante, would finally be recognized as the Italian language and used as the court language in the various courts of Italy, even though the lower classes for the most part still did not speak it. It is only since WW 2 that Italian has become spoken by (nearly) all Italians.What did Italians speak between 750 and the end of WW 2? Mostly regional dialects developed out of Vulgar Latin.
Why did the Romans speak Latin instead of Roman?
Rome was founded probably thousands of years after the existence of the tribe of Latins and their language which is suprise, suprise! Latin.So even before the wondrous city of Rome, there was the city of Troy. According to historians, in the 12th and 13th century, the city of Troy fell to the Greeks. Remember the Trojan Horse and the Trojan War? That's when that happened. Legend speaks of a man who fled the sacked city in defeat. His name was Aeneid and unlike Odysseus, he did much more than find his old home… He found unexplored territory and a new home for his fellow Trojans. At the end of his journey, Aeneid and friends settled in Italy and came in contact with the hostile Rutilians. To fight this fierce opponent, Aeneid joined forces with the Latins. Afterwards, the Trojans intermingled with the Latins.Many generations later, a wolf Lupa took care of Romulus and Remus, the descendants of Aeneid. While buidling a city, Romulus and Remus had a dispute ending with Remus’s murder. Romulus would name the city they founded Rome.Note that Rome was founded on April 21, 753 AD (Gratias ago, magister for engraving such a date into my head) and the fall of Troy was the 12th and 13th century BC (both historical dates)…. so Latin existed prior to Rome which would become their future capital and namesake.
Did Roman children speak Latin?
Research shows that small children in the "critical period" have an enormous capacity to learn human languages regardless of their complexity. And many children in the modern day learn languages with complex synthetic grammar similar to Latin (Lithuanian would be a good example from the Indo-European language family).The Latin language as it was actually spoken by ordinary people is usually known as Vulgar Latin, as opposed to the written Classical Latin, which is basically an acrolect (a high-status version of the language used by educated people). So the well-known written language from ~100 BCE to ~100 CE is not a very close represenation of how people actually spoke.There is tons of evidence that Latin speakers regularly said or wrote things that would be considered "mistakes" according to prescriptive grammars of Classical Latin:Many ancient Roman graffiti show spelling and grammatical mistakes (there are some fascinating examples in "What can we learn from Roman graffiti?")There are a few Classical Latin plays which include dialogue that's intended to represent colloquial speech (such as Satyricon).The Appendix Probi was written in the 3rd or 4th century and it's basically a guide to avoiding mistakes in written Latin. The examples are illuminating because they show features of the language which must have been common in colloquial speech even if they were considered incorrect according to prescriptive grammar. For example, it appears that Latin speakers in this era must have frequently dropped final /m/.You might be interested in my answer to "How were the Romans able to speak Latin fluently and quickly?", as well as the rest of the discussion of that question.
Did the Romans speak Roman, Greek, Latin, Aramaic or Hebrew?
Depends when in history we’re talking about. Latin did originate around Rome, but not until c. 500 B.C.. Before that, the Etruscans and various other languages would have been predominant. Latin, as we know it today, is the formalized version the reached its zenith in the first century BC and faded in the following century. (There was a revival of formal Latin following Charlemagne’s promotion of it c. 800 AD, that reclaimed it as the courtly language and preserved its use into the modern era.)The commonly spoken version of Latin is called”Vulgar” and changed constantly, as modern spoken languages do today, and as the imperial language faded, Vulgar Latin morphed into the basis of the Romance languages. Eventually, Romans were speaking a dialect of Italian, a broad term covering many dialects until a Florentine-based standard was adopted in the 19th century, full adoption of the Italian language has only happened in the latter half of the 20th century.