Which languages descended from latin

For our present purposes, it is not important to know the details of this complex system, provided we grasp the basic principles and understand the relative positions of Greek, Latin, and English within the vast language family.

Suffice it to say that English is at least distantly related to all these languages. These four branches or subfamilies developed, over many centuries, from four prehistoric proto-languages, which themselves had evolved from the common Indo-European tongue. There has often been contact among the subfamilies, and none of them has been immune to external influence.

Still, this does not change the fact that English is a Germanic language, whereas Latin and French are Italic. It will be more graphic to present this information as a kind of genealogical chart though the biological analogy may somewhat misrepresent the continuous nature of linguistic evolution :. There is one important point that should be immediately apparent.

Please notice that Greek, Latin, and English all belong to different language subfamilies. This means, in effect, that Greek vocabulary did not evolve into Latin, nor did Latin evolve into English. This is simply because English is a Germanic language, and its native words are Anglo-Saxon in origin. Cognate words, such as mother and mater , are more like cousins, descended as they are from some remote common ancestor.

Japanese, on the other hand, is put in a language family on its own, as it doesn't appear to be related in any obvious way to other languages of east Asia, or indeed anywhere else. It has borrowed from Mandarin Chinese very heavily, so for that reason shares numerous superficial features with it. Japanese must have developed from some earlier language s , of course, and since Japan is an archipelago the ancestral language s would presumably have been brought from the mainland of east Asia when the islands were first populated.

For further information see Ethnologue www. Watt, York, England Latin is the origin of some European languages e. French, Italian, Spanish etc the Romance languages. However, Latin is closely related to other Indo European Languages and shares many words with the majority of present-day languages.

It is likely that separate languages arise from proximity, have you ever heard engineers discuss sprockets and shims? Derry, Cork, Ireland Latin is not "the origin of most languages. These are called Romance languages because they derive from the Roman language, i. Cultural influxes and population shifts generally account for the formation of new languages. Latin grew out of the clash between the Osco-Umbrian invaders and the indigenous Etruscans in what we now call Italy.

You might, with some justification, call English a "new" language, for the Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain spoke a language that you would not recognise, but they called it English or maybe Anglisch - the tongue of the Angles. We call this group Germanic languages. I know little or nothing of such oriental languages as Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc.

Many European languages have a strong Latin base simply because the Romans ruled Europe for hundreds of years - languages such as French, and Spanish are called 'Romance' languages for this reason. Most European languages are related, having originally derived from ancient Indian languages.

Lane Blume, Marrickville, Australia The origin of most languages is most definitely NOT Latin, and it is not the origin of English, which comes via German and a lot of other influences including Latin and a lot of French from the Indo-European language group, so your language is related to languages from south Asia, notably Sanskit.

Latin can be said to be the origin of the romance languages, Italian obviously , French, Portuguese, Spanish and some less wide-spread languages all based in Europe. Not all European languages are strongly influenced by Latin, notably Basque, Magyar and the Baltic languages. The natives of Papua New Guinea speak thousands of different languages, none of which owes any debt of origin in Latin, as is the case with all Asian languages, as you have guessed.

In fact it is probably the other way round, Latin evolved from a language developed in Pakistan, on the banks of the Indus River. All societies of people develop languages.

If they are in contact with other cultures, they borrow from each other, but if they are isolated, as some Amazon tribes have been until recently, they invent their own unique language. I hope you study languages, and in English, look at a dictionary when a word interests you, and see where it came from.

Latin is the ancestor of a small group of Indo-European languages - the Romantic group, of which Spanish is the major member. The Germanic group, of which English is part, is descended from Gothic. The Slavic, Turkic, Indo-Iranian, and Semitic groups are also examples of language families which are not descended from Latin. All are part of the Indo-European group, which are thought to have descended from a common language which pre-existed Latin, Hebrew, Gothic and Sanskrit. Today, although some regional dialects still exist, Italians by in large speak standard Italian.

Along with the myriad of other regions invaded and conquered by the Roman Empire, so was the area that we now know as Romania. This group of languages split from the Western Romance category between the 5th and 8th centuries AD. Today, roughly 26 million people speak Romanian, most of whom live in Romania and Moldova. The history of Romance languages is a good example of how one language can give birth to a multitude of others. But Latin is even more widespread than that.

In fact, Latin words and phrases can be found in languages throughout the globe, proving that the Roman Empire continues to influence the world even today, centuries after it came to an end. Terms and Conditions - Privacy Policy. English English. Portuguese When the Roman Empire expanded into the Iberian Peninsula, Latin quickly replaced other languages spoken by locals. Italian Thanks to the conquering Romans, Latin was spoken widely throughout a vast region for hundreds of years.