Latin

Lat·in

L0063400 (lăt′n)n.1. a. The Indo-European language of the ancient Latins and Romans and the most important cultural language of western Europe until the end of the 17th century.b. The Latin language and literature from the end of the third century bc to the end of the second century ad.2. a. A member of a Latin people, especially a native or inhabitant of Latin America.b. A Latino or Latina.3. A native or resident of ancient Latium.adj.1. Of, relating to, or composed in Latin: a Latin scholar; Latin verse.2. a. Of or relating to ancient Rome, its people, or its culture.b. Of or relating to Latium, its people, or its culture.3. Of or relating to the languages that developed from Latin, such as Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, or to the peoples that speak them.4. a. Of or relating to the peoples, countries, or cultures of Latin America.b. Of or relating to Latinos or their culture.5. Of or relating to the Roman Catholic Church.

[Middle English, from Old French and from Old English lǣden, both from Latin Latīnus, from Latium, an ancient country of west-central Italy.]

Latin

(ˈlætɪn) n1. (Languages) the language of ancient Rome and the Roman Empire and of the educated in medieval Europe, which achieved its classical form during the 1st century bc. Having originally been the language of Latium, belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European family, it later formed the basis of the Romance group. See Late Latin, Low Latin, Medieval Latin, New Latin, Old Latin See also Romance2. (Historical Terms) the language of ancient Rome and the Roman Empire and of the educated in medieval Europe, which achieved its classical form during the 1st century bc. Having originally been the language of Latium, belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European family, it later formed the basis of the Romance group. See Late Latin, Low Latin, Medieval Latin, New Latin, Old Latin See also Romance3. (Peoples) a member of any of those peoples whose languages are derived from Latin4. (Peoples) an inhabitant of ancient Latiumadj5. (Languages) of or relating to the Latin language, the ancient Latins, or Latium6. (Peoples) characteristic of or relating to those peoples in Europe and Latin America whose languages are derived from Latin7. (Roman Catholic Church) of or relating to the Roman Catholic Church8. (Linguistics) denoting or relating to the Roman alphabet[Old English latin and læden Latin, language, from Latin Latīnus of Latium]

Lat•in

(ˈlæt n)

n. 1. the Italic language of ancient Rome, maintained through the Middle Ages and into modern times as the liturgical language of Western Christianity and an international language of learned discourse. Abbr.: L 2. a. a member of any people speaking a language descended from Latin. b. a native or inhabitant of any country in Latin America; Latin American. 3. a native or inhabitant of Latium. 4. a member of the Latin Church. adj. 5. a. Latin-American. b. of or pertaining to any of the peoples of Europe or the New World speaking languages descended from Latin. 6. of or pertaining to the Latin Church. 7. of or pertaining to Latium or its inhabitants. 8. of or pertaining to the Latin alphabet. [before 950; Middle English, Old English < Latin Latīnus. See Latium, -ine¹]

Thesaurus

Noun	1.	Latin - any dialect of the language of ancient Romeres gestae - things donehybrid, loanblend, loan-blend - a word that is composed of parts from different languages (e.g., `monolingual' has a Greek prefix and a Latin root)Italic language, Italic - a branch of the Indo-European languages of which Latin is the chief representativeOld Latin - the oldest recorded Latin (dating back at early as the 6th century B.C.)classical Latin - the language of educated people in ancient Rome; "Latin is a language as dead as dead can be. It killed the ancient Romans--and now it's killing me"Low Latin - any dialect of Latin other than the classicalBiblical Latin, Late Latin - the form of Latin written between the 3rd and 8th centuriesNeo-Latin, New Latin - Latin since the Renaissance; used for scientific nomenclatureLatinian language, Romance language, Romance - the group of languages derived from Latinnihil - (Latin) nil; nothing (as used by a sheriff after an unsuccessful effort to serve a writ); "nihil habet"annum - (Latin) year; "per annum"de novo - from the beginningA.M., ante meridiem - before noon; "let's meet at 11 A.M."P.M., post meridiem - between noon and midnight; "let's meet at 8 P.M."
	2.	Latin - an inhabitant of ancient Latiumdenizen, dweller, habitant, inhabitant, indweller - a person who inhabits a particular place
	3.	Latin - a person who is a member of those peoples whose languages derived from Latinindividual, mortal, person, somebody, someone, soul - a human being; "there was too much for one person to do"
Adj.	1.	Latin - of or relating to the ancient Latins or the Latin language; "Latin verb conjugations"
	2.	Latin - relating to people or countries speaking Romance languages; "Latin America"
	3.	Latin - relating to languages derived from Latin; "Romance languages"Romance
	4.	Latin - of or relating to the ancient region of Latium; "Latin towns"

Translations

拉丁人拉丁人的拉丁文拉丁语拉丁语的

Latin

(ˈlӕtin) noun, adjective1. (of) the language spoken in ancient Rome. We studied Latin at school; a Latin lesson. 拉丁语，拉丁语的 2. (a person) who speaks a language derived from Latin. 拉丁人，拉丁人的 Latin America the countries of Central and South America, where the official language is usually a form of either Spanish or Portuguese. 拉丁美洲Latin American noun, adjective 拉丁美洲人，拉丁美洲的

Latin

→ 拉丁文zhCN

Latin

1. the language of ancient Rome and the Roman Empire and of the educated in medieval Europe, which achieved its classical form during the 1st century bc. Having originally been the language of Latium, belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European family, it later formed the basis of the Romance group 2. a member of any of those peoples whose languages are derived from Latin 3. an inhabitant of ancient Latium 4. of or relating to the Latin language, the ancient Latins, or Latium 5. characteristic of or relating to those peoples in Europe and Latin America whose languages are derived from Latin 6. of or relating to the Roman Catholic Church

Latin

(in Latin, lingua latina), the language of the tribe of Latins, who settled ancient Latium, a region in west-central Italy with its center at the city of Rome.

Latin belongs to the Italic group of the Indo-European family of languages. In its historical development it passed through nine periods.

(1) The preliterary period came to an end about 240 B.C.

(2) The old literary period, or archaic Latin, lasted from 240 to about 100 B.C. The expansion of Rome, which began in the fourth century B.C., ended by the first century B.C. with the almost complete latinization of Italy. Examples of the archaic language, which in the third and second centuries B.C. had not yet established a normative usage, are to be found in the comedies of Plautus and Terence.

(3) During the period of the classical Golden Latin (from c. 100 B.C. to A.D. 14), grammatical standards were finally fixed. The language attained a high literary level in the prose of Caesar, Cicero, and Sallust and in the works of the Augustan poets (Vergil, Horace, Ovid), and, somewhat earlier, in the lyrics of Catullus.

(4) Silver Latin (from A.D. 14 to A.D. 200) closely followed the grammatical standards which had already been elaborated, but it departed somewhat from the rigid syntactical standards of Golden Latin (for example, in the works of Tacitus). The literary language was characterized by the penetration of elements of poetic style into prose and elements of elevated rhetoric into poetry.

(5) Late Latin (200–600) was a qualitatively new phase in the development of the Latin language. A split occurred between the literary standards and the differentially developing colloquial variant. Classical Latin ceased to function as a living language. Subsequent development occurred only in the colloquial language. Features of the colloquial language have been preserved in inscriptions, scholarly treatises, and records of business transactions, as well as in certain chapters of The Satyricon by Pe-tronius (first century A.D., in the conversations of the freedmen). The history of colloquial Latin continues until the ninth century, when it ended with the formation of the national Latin-based Romance Languages. The distinctiveness of each of these languages was determined by the dialectal splintering of colloquial Latin during the period of Rome’s military, political, cultural, and linguistic expansion in the first few centuries of the Common Era. Dialectal differentiation was also caused by the influence of local languages.

(6) During the medieval period (seventh to 14th century), Latin served as the common written language of Western European society, the language of the Catholic Church, scholarship, and, to a certain extent, of literature.

(7) The revival of the standards of Golden and Silver Latin during the period of humanism, which began in the 14th century, was not of long duration. The works of T. More, Erasmus of Rotterdam, G. Bruno, T. Campanella, and N. Copernicus, as well as certain works by Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, are representative of this period.

(8) Since the 16th century Latin has gradually been replaced by national languages, though until the 18th century it remained the language of diplomacy, and until the 20th century the language of university lectures and, to a certain extent, of scholarship. The works of the philosophers and scientists from the 16th through the 18th century—R. Descartes, P. Gassendi, F. Bacon, B. Spinoza, I. Newton, L. Euler, and many works by M. V. Lomonosov—were written in Latin.

(9) In the 20th century Latin has been used in scientific terminology and is the official language of the Catholic Church and the acts of the Vatican.

In the history of culture—especially Western European culture—the Latin language has played an enormous role. This fact is testified to by the numerous borrowings from Latin in all European languages, as well as by a large number of internationalisms.

The ancient structure of Latin has been reconstructed, for the most part, by means of the comparative-historical method, since there are very few extant sources. The lexical system of Latin is characterized by a great many archaisms, which reveal its affinity with the Indo-Iranian and Hittite languages. There are words of uncertain derivation. A number of scholars (in particular, the Italian G. Devoto) have distinguished a Mediterranean lexical stratum in Latin which preceded the Indo-European unity. Later, the principal means of enlarging the vocabulary consisted in borrowing from foreign languages, both from the related languages of the neighboring Sabine tribes and from the neighboring Etruscan language, whose origin is obscure; for example, the Latin word histrio, “actor,” is a borrowing from Etruscan. However, the most important source of borrowings for Latin over the course of many centuries was the Greek language.

The phonological system of Latin is characterized by an opposition between long and short vowels, by the presence of the diphthongs and digraphs ae and oe, and by the presence of paired voiced/unvoiced consonantal phonemes b/p, d/t, g/c[k] (s/z are variants of a single phoneme), and gu[gw]/qu[kw]. Accentuation, in the opinion of most scholars, was musical, with a strong tendency toward dynamic stress. In contrast to the vocabulary, which was considerably enriched by elements of non-Indo-European derivation, Latin morphology fully preserved the inflectional system typical of the ancient Indo-European languages. Grammatical categories include three genders—masculine, feminine, and neuter—and two numbers—singular and plural (the dual disappeared). The noun system has six cases. Verbs have three persons and six tenses that form two parallel groups from two stems—imperfect and perfect; there are three moods—indicative, imperative, and subjunctive—and two voices—active and passive. Substantive forms of the verb include four participles, six forms of the infinitive, a gerund, and a supine. Cases gradually fell into disuse in the colloquial language.

The classical syntax of simple sentences is characterized by a relatively free word order, especially in poetic language. Precision in the syntax of complex sentences is ensured by strict rules for the formal subordination of the sequence of tenses.

The ancient types of word formation, based on the gradation of vowels, the reduplication of the root (compare the word-forming systems of Ancient Greek and Sanskrit), ceased to be productive during a later period of the language. The Latin language elaborated a precise system of word formation that consisted primarily of suffixation in the noun system and prefixation in the verb system. The high degree of semantic clarity of its word formants makes Latin (as well as Greek) the most suitable medium for enlarging the international terminology of scholarship in the most diverse fields.

REFERENCES

Sobolevskii, S. I. Grammatika latinskogo iazyka, part 1, 3rd ed. Moscow, 1950. Part 2, Moscow, 1947.
Tronskii, I. M. Ocherki iz istorii latinskogo iazyka. Moscow-Leningrad, 1953.
Tronskii, I. M. Istoricheskaia grammatika latinskogo iazyka. Moscow, 1960. (With bibliography.)
Dvoretskii, I. Kh., and D. N. Korol’kov. Latinsko-russkii slovar’. Moscow, 1949.
Kupreianova, V. N., and N. M. Umnova. Kratkii slovar’ latinskikh slov, sokrashchenii i vyrazhenii. [Novosibirsk] 1971.
Devoto, G. Storia della lingua di Roma, 2nd ed. Bologna, 1944. (German translation, Geschichte der Sprache Roms. Heidelberg, 1968.)
Pisani, V. Storia della lingua latina, part 1. Turin, 1962.
Congrès international pour le latin vivant, vols. 1–3. Avignon, 1956–64.
Lateinische Grammatik, vols. 1–2, 6th ed. Munich, 1963–65. (With bibliography.)
Meillet, A. Esquisse d’une histoire de la langue latine, new ed. Paris, 1966. (With bibliography.)
Stolz, F., A. Debrunner, and W. P. Schmidt. Geschichte der lateinischen Sprache, 4th ed. Berlin, 1966.
Safarewicz, J. Łacina i jej historia. Kraków, 1968.
Thesaurus linguae latinae. Leipzig, 1900—.
Du Cange du Fresne, C. Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis. Graz, 1954.
Ernout, A., and A. Meillet. Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine, 4th ed. Paris, 1959.
Walde, A., and J. B. Hofmann. Lateinisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed. Heidelberg, 1965.
The Oxford Latin Dictionary. London, 1968—.
Cousin, J. Bibliographie de la langue latine: 1880–1948. Paris, 1951.

L. A. NAUMENKO

Latin

Lat·in

Latin

Lat•in

Latin

Latin

Latin

Latin

Latin

REFERENCES

LATIN

LATIN

Latin

Synonyms for Latin

noun any dialect of the language of ancient Rome

Related Words

noun an inhabitant of ancient Latium

Related Words

noun a person who is a member of those peoples whose languages derived from Latin

Related Words

adj relating to languages derived from Latin

Synonyms