Curated category
Forms of Latin
- Medieval LatinMedieval Latin emerged as the dominant written language across Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. It served as the administrative tongue…
- LatinThe earliest known form of Latin is Old Latin, also called Archaic or Early Latin. It was spoken from the Roman Kingdom, traditionally founded in 753 BC…
- Vulgar LatinIn the nineteenth century, French linguist François-Just-Marie Raynouard proposed that Romance languages descended from a single ancestor distinct from…
- Renaissance LatinIn 1359, Petrarch published his Epistolæ familiares, a collection of letters that signaled the start of a deliberate break from medieval Latin traditions.
- Classical LatinAround 75 BC, a specific form of Latin emerged from the chaotic mix of Old Latin dialects. Writers in the late Roman Republic began treating this new…
- Neo-LatinIn 1304, a young man named Francesco Petrarca was born in Italy. He would later become known as Petrarch and lead the movement to restore Latin to its…