For the "Old Latin" Biblical texts, see Vetus Latina.
Old Latin
Archaic Latin
The Duenos inscription, one of the earliest Old Latin texts
Native to
Latium, later the Roman Kingdom and Republic
Region
Italy
Ethnicity
Latins, Romans
Era
Attested since 7th century BC. Developed into Vulgar Latin as colloquial form, and Classical Latin as literary form, around 75 BC.
Language family
Indo-European
Italic
Latino-Faliscan
Old Latin
Early forms
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Italic
Proto-Latino-Faliscan
Writing system
Latin alphabet
Official status
Official language in
Rome
Regulated by
Schools of grammar and rhetoric
Language codes
ISO 639-3
None (mis)
Linguist List
qbb
Glottolog
oldl1238
Expansion of the Roman Republic during the 2nd century BC. Very little Latin is likely to have been spoken beyond the green area, and other languages were spoken even within it.
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
Old Latin, also known as Early Latin or Archaic Latin (Classical Latin: prīsca Latīnitās, lit. 'ancient Latinity'), was the Latin language in the period roughly before 75 BC, i.e. before the age of Classical Latin.[1] It descends from a common Proto-Italic language; Latino-Faliscan is likely a separate branch from Osco-Umbrian with possible further relation to other Italic languages and to Celtic; e.g. the Italo-Celtic hypothesis.
The use of "old", "early" and "archaic" has been standard in publications of Old Latin writings since at least the 18th century. The definition is not arbitrary, but the terms refer to spelling conventions and word forms not generally found in works written under the Roman Empire. This article presents some of the major differences.
The earliest known specimen of Latin seems to be on the Praeneste fibula. An analysis done in 2011 declared it to be genuine "beyond any reasonable doubt"[2] and dating from the Orientalizing period, in the first half of the seventh century BC.[3] Other Old Latin inscriptions dated to either the late Roman Kingdom or early Roman Republic include the Lapis Niger stone, the Duenos Inscription on a kernos vase, and the Garigliano bowl of Bucchero type.
^"Archaic Latin". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition.
^Maras, Daniele F. (Winter 2012). "Scientists declare the Fibula Praenestina and its inscription to be genuine 'beyond any reasonable doubt'" (PDF). Etruscan News. 14. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 February 2012.
^Maras, Daniele Federico. "Scientists declare the Fibula Prenestina and its inscription to be genuine 'beyond any reasonable doubt'". academia.edu. Archived from the original on 19 October 2017. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
OldLatin, also known as Early Latin or Archaic Latin (Classical Latin: prīsca Latīnitās, lit. 'ancient Latinity'), was the Latin language in the period...
symbols. The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language...
The Old English Latin alphabet generally consisted of about 24 letters, and was used for writing Old English from the 8th to the 12th centuries. Of these...
Latin (lingua Latina, Latin: [ˈlɪŋɡʷa ɫaˈtiːna], or Latinum, Latin: [ɫaˈtiːnʊ̃]) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European...
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...
It formed parallel to Vulgar Latin around 75 BC out of OldLatin, and developed by the 3rd century AD into Late Latin. In some later periods, the former...
nearly always spelt in the Latin alphabet, but further details varied from period to period. The alphabet developed from Old Italic script, which had developed...
Vetus Latina ("OldLatin" in Latin), also known as Vetus Itala ("Old Italian"), Itala ("Italian") and Old Italic, and denoted by the siglum L {\displaystyle...
Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Vulgar...
Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written...
The Latin numerals are the words used to denote numbers within the Latin language. They are essentially based on their Proto-Indo-European ancestors, and...
classical revival, Roman capitals were reintroduced by humanists making oldLatin inscriptions easily legible while many medieval manuscripts are unreadable...
Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings written in the Latin language. The beginning of formal Latin literature...
The following articles contain lists of New Testament manuscripts: List of Coptic New Testament manuscripts List of New Testament papyri List of New Testament...
Late Latin is the scholarly name for the form of Literary[citation needed] Latin of late antiquity. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date...
Latin declension is the set of patterns according to which Latin words are declined—that is, have their endings altered to show grammatical case, number...
Ecclesiastical Latin, also called Church Latin or Liturgical Latin, is a form of Latin developed to discuss Christian thought in Late antiquity and used...
level in many mottos that are still being used and even coined in Latin to this day. Old mottos like E pluribus unum, found in 1776 on the Seal of the United...
sounds in early Old Spanish, judging by the consistency with which they were spelled as ⟨b⟩ and ⟨v⟩ respectively. (/b/ derived from Latin word-initial /b/...
in reconstructing it. Three of them – Syriac, Latin, Coptic – date from the late 2nd century and are older than the surviving full Greek manuscripts of...
Renaissance Latin is a name given to the distinctive form of Literary Latin style developed during the European Renaissance of the fourteenth to fifteenth...
the influence of the Etruscan language on Latin. Afterwards, the letter 'G' was introduced in the OldLatin period as a variant of 'C' to distinguish...
Latin America is a collective region of the Americas where Romance languages—languages derived from Latin—are predominantly spoken. The term was coined...
(Latium Vetus, "Old Latium"), in the 1st millennium BC. Although they lived in independent city-states, they spoke a common language (Latin), held common...
languages some classical Indo-European languages, particularly Sanskrit and OldLatin (Mostly uncommon, archaic or literary) use in certain modern Indic languages...
including the Latin alphabet, retained certain Greek letters that the Etruscans themselves dropped at a rather early stage.[citation needed] The Old Italic alphabets...
prologues, in which Jerome clearly identified certain books of the olderOldLatinOld Testament version as apocryphal – or non-canonical – even though...
Global Information
