67-608: The Ravenna Cosmography ( Latin : Ravennatis Anonymi Cosmographia , lit. "The Cosmography of the Unknown Ravennese ") is a list of place-names covering the world from India to Ireland , compiled by an anonymous cleric in Ravenna around 700 AD. Textual evidence indicates that the author frequently used maps as his source. There are three extant copies of the Cosmography. The Vatican Library holds
134-597: A 14th-century copy, there is a 13th-century copy in Paris at the Bibliothèque Nationale , and the library at Basle University has another 14th-century copy. The Vatican copy was used as the source for the first publication of the manuscript in 1688 by Porcheron. The German scholar Joseph Schnetz published the text in 1940, basing it on the Vatican and Paris editions, which he believed to be more reliable than
201-743: A few in German , Dutch , Norwegian , Danish and Swedish . Latin is still spoken in Vatican City, a city-state situated in Rome that is the seat of the Catholic Church . The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part, in substantial works or in fragments to be analyzed in philology . They are in part the subject matter of the field of classics . Their works were published in manuscript form before
268-408: A few. " The suggestion that he was using maps is bolstered by phrases such as "next to" which occur frequently, and at one point he states: " where that same Britain is seen to be narrowest from Ocean to Ocean. " Richmond and Crawford were the first to argue that rather than being random, the named places are often clustered around a central point, or spread out along a single road. For most of England,
335-617: A lecturer in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History. In 1930, he returned to Rome as Director of the British School. On leaving Rome in 1935, he became a lecturer in Roman-British studies at Durham University 's King's College, Newcastle upon Tyne . He was promoted to Reader in 1943 and to professor in 1950. He was Public Orator for Durham University from 1949 to 1951. In 1956, he was invited to fill
402-562: A new Classical Latin arose, a conscious creation of the orators, poets, historians and other literate men, who wrote the great works of classical literature , which were taught in grammar and rhetoric schools. Today's instructional grammars trace their roots to such schools , which served as a sort of informal language academy dedicated to maintaining and perpetuating educated speech. Philological analysis of Archaic Latin works, such as those of Plautus , which contain fragments of everyday speech, gives evidence of an informal register of
469-476: A remarkable unity in phonological forms and developments, bolstered by the stabilising influence of their common Christian (Roman Catholic) culture. It was not until the Muslim conquest of Spain in 711, cutting off communications between the major Romance regions, that the languages began to diverge seriously. The spoken Latin that would later become Romanian diverged somewhat more from the other varieties, as it
536-709: A small number of Latin services held in the Anglican church. These include an annual service in Oxford, delivered with a Latin sermon; a relic from the period when Latin was the normal spoken language of the university. In the Western world, many organizations, governments and schools use Latin for their mottos due to its association with formality, tradition, and the roots of Western culture . Canada's motto A mari usque ad mare ("from sea to sea") and most provincial mottos are also in Latin. The Canadian Victoria Cross
603-402: A stop. A small number of the words have been abbreviated. The Paris manuscript also uses two columns, capitalisation and stops, but has many more abbreviations than either of the other two. The text is divided into sections by paragraph marks. The Basle manuscript only has a single column, and is more difficult to read than the others. It has more abbreviations than the Vatican copy, but fewer than
670-411: Is Veritas ("truth"). Veritas was the goddess of truth, a daughter of Saturn, and the mother of Virtue. Switzerland has adopted the country's Latin short name Helvetia on coins and stamps, since there is no room to use all of the nation's four official languages . For a similar reason, it adopted the international vehicle and internet code CH , which stands for Confoederatio Helvetica ,
737-420: Is a kind of written Latin used in the 3rd to 6th centuries. This began to diverge from Classical forms at a faster pace. It is characterised by greater use of prepositions, and word order that is closer to modern Romance languages, for example, while grammatically retaining more or less the same formal rules as Classical Latin. Ultimately, Latin diverged into a distinct written form, where the commonly spoken form
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#1732764947846804-640: Is a reversal of the original phrase Non terrae plus ultra ("No land further beyond", "No further!"). According to legend , this phrase was inscribed as a warning on the Pillars of Hercules , the rocks on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar and the western end of the known, Mediterranean world. Charles adopted the motto following the discovery of the New World by Columbus, and it also has metaphorical suggestions of taking risks and striving for excellence. In
871-660: Is highly fusional , with classes of inflections for case , number , person , gender , tense , mood , voice , and aspect . The Latin alphabet is directly derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets . Latin remains the official language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church at the Vatican City . The church continues to adapt concepts from modern languages to Ecclesiastical Latin of
938-689: Is modelled after the British Victoria Cross which has the inscription "For Valour". Because Canada is officially bilingual, the Canadian medal has replaced the English inscription with the Latin Pro Valore . Spain's motto Plus ultra , meaning "even further", or figuratively "Further!", is also Latin in origin. It is taken from the personal motto of Charles V , Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain (as Charles I), and
1005-1011: Is taught at many high schools, especially in Europe and the Americas. It is most common in British public schools and grammar schools, the Italian liceo classico and liceo scientifico , the German Humanistisches Gymnasium and the Dutch gymnasium . Occasionally, some media outlets, targeting enthusiasts, broadcast in Latin. Notable examples include Radio Bremen in Germany, YLE radio in Finland (the Nuntii Latini broadcast from 1989 until it
1072-543: The Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL). Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same: volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance and relevant information. The reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy . About 270,000 inscriptions are known. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. In
1139-789: The Hod Hill Iron Age hillfort where he elucidated the Roman fort that was inserted into one corner, and then at Inchtuthil near Perth in Scotland, the legionary fortress occupied during Agricola 's advance into Scotland. He also wrote a highly successful book on Roman Britain for the Penguin series. On 25 April 1944, he was appointed a member of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland . He
1206-528: The Holy See , the primary language of its public journal , the Acta Apostolicae Sedis , and the working language of the Roman Rota . Vatican City is also home to the world's only automatic teller machine that gives instructions in Latin. In the pontifical universities postgraduate courses of Canon law are taught in Latin, and papers are written in the same language. There are
1273-502: The Late Latin period, language changes reflecting spoken (non-classical) norms tend to be found in greater quantities in texts. As it was free to develop on its own, there is no reason to suppose that the speech was uniform either diachronically or geographically. On the contrary, Romanised European populations developed their own dialects of the language, which eventually led to the differentiation of Romance languages . Late Latin
1340-607: The Middle Ages as a working and literary language from the 9th century to the Renaissance , which then developed a classicizing form, called Renaissance Latin . This was the basis for Neo-Latin which evolved during the early modern period . In these periods Latin was used productively and generally taught to be written and spoken, at least until the late seventeenth century, when spoken skills began to erode. It then became increasingly taught only to be read. Latin grammar
1407-574: The Middle Ages , borrowing from Latin occurred from ecclesiastical usage established by Saint Augustine of Canterbury in the 6th century or indirectly after the Norman Conquest , through the Anglo-Norman language . From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed " inkhorn terms ", as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by
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#17327649478461474-775: The University Church of St Mary the Virgin , Oxford. Richmond was a devout Anglican . In 1938, he married Isabel Little. Together they had two children; one son, Hugh, and one daughter, Helen. Richmond was elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA) in 1931 and Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) in 1947. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1958. He
1541-407: The common language of international communication , science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the early 19th century, by which time modern languages had supplanted it in common academic and political usage. Late Latin is the literary language from the 3rd century AD onward. No longer spoken as a native language, Medieval Latin was used across Western and Catholic Europe during
1608-572: The Basle edition. Parts of the text, notably that covering Britain, have been published by others, including Richmond and Crawford in 1949, but their document showed little regard for which of the manuscripts provided the information. However, it contained photographs of the relevant sections from all three manuscripts, which enabled Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews to reconstruct the text from scratch in 2013 (revised in 2020) for his reassessment of its importance for British geography. The work by Schnetz covered
1675-637: The British Crown. The motto is featured on all presently minted coinage and has been featured in most coinage throughout the nation's history. Several states of the United States have Latin mottos , such as: Many military organizations today have Latin mottos, such as: Some law governing bodies in the Philippines have Latin mottos, such as: Some colleges and universities have adopted Latin mottos, for example Harvard University 's motto
1742-703: The Germanic and Slavic nations. It became useful for international communication between the member states of the Holy Roman Empire and its allies. Without the institutions of the Roman Empire that had supported its uniformity, Medieval Latin was much more liberal in its linguistic cohesion: for example, in classical Latin sum and eram are used as auxiliary verbs in the perfect and pluperfect passive, which are compound tenses. Medieval Latin might use fui and fueram instead. Furthermore,
1809-599: The Grinch Stole Christmas! , The Cat in the Hat , and a book of fairy tales, " fabulae mirabiles ", are intended to garner popular interest in the language. Additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissner's Latin Phrasebook . Some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series,
1876-630: The Latin language. Contemporary Latin is more often studied to be read rather than spoken or actively used. Latin has greatly influenced the English language , along with a large number of others, and historically contributed many words to the English lexicon , particularly after the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons and the Norman Conquest . Latin and Ancient Greek roots are heavily used in English vocabulary in theology ,
1943-410: The Paris copy. There is some evidence that the author has tried to correct or clarify words which were not clear in the original, and there are no stops to separate the place names in the lists, but there are underlined headings to divide up the sections. As an indication of the problems of dealing with the text, there are a total of 315 names in the section covering Britain. All three manuscripts agree on
2010-467: The United States the unofficial national motto until 1956 was E pluribus unum meaning "Out of many, one". The motto continues to be featured on the Great Seal . It also appears on the flags and seals of both houses of congress and the flags of the states of Michigan, North Dakota, New York, and Wisconsin. The motto's 13 letters symbolically represent the original Thirteen Colonies which revolted from
2077-563: The University of Kentucky, the University of Oxford and also Princeton University. There are many websites and forums maintained in Latin by enthusiasts. The Latin Misplaced Pages has more than 130,000 articles. Italian , French , Portuguese , Spanish , Romanian , Catalan , Romansh , Sardinian and other Romance languages are direct descendants of Latin. There are also many Latin borrowings in English and Albanian , as well as
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2144-528: The author and then forgotten, but some useful ones survived, such as 'imbibe' and 'extrapolate'. Many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French . Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and Dutch vocabularies. Those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Sir Ian Richmond Sir Ian Archibald Richmond , CBE , FSA , FBA (10 May 1902 – 5 October 1965)
2211-463: The author failing to understand his sources, or not appreciating the purpose for which they were written. His original sources may have been of poor quality, resulting in many curious-looking names appearing in the lists. Equally, there are some obvious omissions, although the author was not attempting to produce a complete list of places, as his introduction states: " In that Britain we read that there were many civitates and forts, of which we wish to name
2278-535: The beginning of the Renaissance . Petrarch for example saw Latin as a literary version of the spoken language. Medieval Latin is the written Latin in use during that portion of the post-classical period when no corresponding Latin vernacular existed, that is from around 700 to 1500 AD. The spoken language had developed into the various Romance languages; however, in the educated and official world, Latin continued without its natural spoken base. Moreover, this Latin spread into lands that had never spoken Latin, such as
2345-425: The benefit of those who do not understand Latin. There are also songs written with Latin lyrics . The libretto for the opera-oratorio Oedipus rex by Igor Stravinsky is in Latin. Parts of Carl Orff 's Carmina Burana are written in Latin. Enya has recorded several tracks with Latin lyrics. The continued instruction of Latin is seen by some as a highly valuable component of a liberal arts education. Latin
2412-430: The comic playwrights Plautus and Terence and the author Petronius . While often called a "dead language" , Latin did not undergo language death . By the 6th to 9th centuries, natural language change eventually resulted in Latin as a vernacular language evolving into distinct Romance languages in the large areas where it had come to be natively spoken. However, even after the fall of Western Rome , Latin remained
2479-465: The country's full Latin name. Some film and television in ancient settings, such as Sebastiane , The Passion of the Christ and Barbarians (2020 TV series) , have been made with dialogue in Latin. Occasionally, Latin dialogue is used because of its association with religion or philosophy, in such film/television series as The Exorcist and Lost (" Jughead "). Subtitles are usually shown for
2546-503: The decline in written Latin output. Despite having no native speakers, Latin is still used for a variety of purposes in the contemporary world. The largest organisation that retains Latin in official and quasi-official contexts is the Catholic Church . The Catholic Church required that Mass be carried out in Latin until the Second Vatican Council of 1962–1965 , which permitted the use of the vernacular . Latin remains
2613-568: The development of European culture, religion and science. The vast majority of written Latin belongs to this period, but its full extent is unknown. The Renaissance reinforced the position of Latin as a spoken and written language by the scholarship by the Renaissance humanists . Petrarch and others began to change their usage of Latin as they explored the texts of the Classical Latin world. Skills of textual criticism evolved to create much more accurate versions of extant texts through
2680-413: The earliest extant Latin literary works, such as the comedies of Plautus and Terence . The Latin alphabet was devised from the Etruscan alphabet . The writing later changed from what was initially either a right-to-left or a boustrophedon script to what ultimately became a strictly left-to-right script. During the late republic and into the first years of the empire, from about 75 BC to AD 200,
2747-445: The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and some important texts were rediscovered. Comprehensive versions of authors' works were published by Isaac Casaubon , Joseph Scaliger and others. Nevertheless, despite the careful work of Petrarch, Politian and others, first the demand for manuscripts, and then the rush to bring works into print, led to the circulation of inaccurate copies for several centuries following. Neo-Latin literature
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2814-546: The history of Latin, and the kind of informal Latin that had begun to move away from the written language significantly in the post-Imperial period, that led ultimately to the Romance languages . During the Classical period, informal language was rarely written, so philologists have been left with only individual words and phrases cited by classical authors, inscriptions such as Curse tablets and those found as graffiti . In
2881-703: The invention of printing and are now published in carefully annotated printed editions, such as the Loeb Classical Library , published by Harvard University Press , or the Oxford Classical Texts , published by Oxford University Press . Latin translations of modern literature such as: The Hobbit , Treasure Island , Robinson Crusoe , Paddington Bear , Winnie the Pooh , The Adventures of Tintin , Asterix , Harry Potter , Le Petit Prince , Max and Moritz , How
2948-704: The language of the Roman Rite . The Tridentine Mass (also known as the Extraordinary Form or Traditional Latin Mass) is celebrated in Latin. Although the Mass of Paul VI (also known as the Ordinary Form or the Novus Ordo) is usually celebrated in the local vernacular language, it can be and often is said in Latin, in part or in whole, especially at multilingual gatherings. It is the official language of
3015-405: The language, Vulgar Latin (termed sermo vulgi , "the speech of the masses", by Cicero ). Some linguists, particularly in the nineteenth century, believed this to be a separate language, existing more or less in parallel with the literary or educated Latin, but this is now widely dismissed. The term 'Vulgar Latin' remains difficult to define, referring both to informal speech at any time within
3082-617: The lower Tiber area around Rome , Italy. Through the expansion of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian Peninsula and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire . By the late Roman Republic , Old Latin had evolved into standardized Classical Latin . Vulgar Latin refers to the less prestigious colloquial registers , attested in inscriptions and some literary works such as those of
3149-431: The meanings of many words were changed and new words were introduced, often under influence from the vernacular. Identifiable individual styles of classically incorrect Latin prevail. Renaissance Latin, 1300 to 1500, and the classicised Latin that followed through to the present are often grouped together as Neo-Latin , or New Latin, which have in recent decades become a focus of renewed study , given their importance for
3216-424: The mid-19th century. Archaeological investigations were uncovering sites that had evidence of occupation in the Roman period, and this correlation became important. The Antonine Itinerary and Richard of Cirencester 's de Situ Britanniae were increasingly used to corroborate entries, until Richard's work was found to be an 18th-century hoax by Charles Bertram . The Cosmography remained relatively impenetrable until
3283-424: The mid-20th century. In 1949, Sir Ian Richmond and O G S Crawford published a paper they had originally submitted to Archaeologia , which suggested that the sources for the document had included maps or road books, and that many place names described geographical features. The book was seen as a significant advance in the study both of the document and of Romano-British placenames. Louis Dillemann's work, which
3350-603: The new chair of the Archaeology of the Roman Empire at Oxford. He was a prolific excavator of Romano-British sites, specialising in small-scale excavations, often just a single trench placed at a crucial point in a Roman fort which thereby established both the date and purpose of the fort. He excavated at Segontium in Caernarfon, Chester, South Shields, Lancaster, Bath, Silchester , Inveresk Roman Fort and Chedworth Roman villa . However his two major projects were at
3417-655: The order seems to follow a series of zig-zags, but this arrangement is less obvious for the south-west and for Scotland. Latin language Latin ( lingua Latina , pronounced [ˈlɪŋɡʷa ɫaˈtiːna] , or Latinum [ɫaˈtiːnʊ̃] ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages . Latin was originally spoken by the Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio ),
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#17327649478463484-422: The ordering of the lists of placenames being haphazard. However, there are more entries in the Cosmography than in the other documents, and so it has been studied more recently. The antiquary Roger Gale , writing in 1709, was the first to attempt to use it as a source for Romano-British place names, but early attempts relied on the similarity between ancient and modern names, and this method was seen to be suspect by
3551-609: The original author claimed to have used works by three others, Athanarid, Heldebald and Marcomir, in the compilation of his own work. Stolte, writing in 1956, argued that the cosmography was finished around 732. The naming of places in Roman Britain has traditionally relied on Ptolemy’s Geography , the Antonine Itinerary and the Peutinger Table , as the Cosmography was seen as full of corruptions, with
3618-421: The sciences , medicine , and law . A number of phases of the language have been recognized, each distinguished by subtle differences in vocabulary, usage, spelling, and syntax. There are no hard and fast rules of classification; different scholars emphasize different features. As a result, the list has variants, as well as alternative names. In addition to the historical phases, Ecclesiastical Latin refers to
3685-426: The spelling of 200 of these. The Basle and Vatican documents agree on the spelling of a further 50, there are 33 more common to the Basle and Paris documents, and 17 more which appear in the Paris and Vatican documents. There are 8 names for which there is no agreement between the three sources, and 7 names missing from the Paris copy where the other two agree. In a paper by Franz Staab, published in 1976, he noted that
3752-578: The styles used by the writers of the Roman Catholic Church from late antiquity onward, as well as by Protestant scholars. The earliest known form of Latin is Old Latin, also called Archaic or Early Latin, which was spoken from the Roman Kingdom , traditionally founded in 753 BC, through the later part of the Roman Republic , up to 75 BC, i.e. before the age of Classical Latin . It is attested both in inscriptions and in some of
3819-469: The whole document, and was republished in 1990. In addition to the three main manuscripts, the Vatican Library also holds a document containing excerpts from the Cosmography made by Riccobaldus Ferrariensis, and there is a copy of the Paris manuscript held in Leiden. The surviving texts are quite challenging. They consist of commentary and lists of names. The Vatican manuscript presents the text in two columns, with placenames being capitalised and terminated by
3886-422: The written form of Latin was increasingly standardized into a fixed form, the spoken forms began to diverge more greatly. Currently, the five most widely spoken Romance languages by number of native speakers are Spanish , Portuguese , French , Italian , and Romanian . Despite dialectal variation, which is found in any widespread language, the languages of Spain, France, Portugal, and Italy have retained
3953-428: Was also appointed a member of the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England on 2 April 1946. He was a Commissioner until his death, making an important contribution to their study and record of Roman monuments. Having experienced two years of minor heart troubles, Richmond died at his home in Oxford on 5 October 1965. He was 63 at the time of his sudden death. His funeral was held on 8 October 1965 at
4020-730: Was also used as a convenient medium for translations of important works first written in a vernacular, such as those of Descartes . Latin education underwent a process of reform to classicise written and spoken Latin. Schooling remained largely Latin medium until approximately 1700. Until the end of the 17th century, the majority of books and almost all diplomatic documents were written in Latin. Afterwards, most diplomatic documents were written in French (a Romance language ) and later native or other languages. Education methods gradually shifted towards written Latin, and eventually concentrating solely on reading skills. The decline of Latin education took several centuries and proceeded much more slowly than
4087-475: Was an English archaeologist and academic. He was Professor of the Archaeology of the Roman Empire at the University of Oxford . In addition, he was Director of the British School at Rome from 1930 to 1932, President of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies from 1958 to 1961, and Director of the Society of Antiquaries of London from 1959 to 1964. Richmond was born on 10 May 1902 in Rochdale , Lancashire, England, alongside his twin brother. He
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#17327649478464154-439: Was educated at Ruthin School , a public school in Ruthin , Denbighshire, Wales. In 1920, he began the study of classics at Corpus Christi College , Oxford. He achieved a third class in Mods in 1922 and a second class in Greats in 1924 of his Literae Humaniores degree. He spent the next two years studying at the British School at Rome . In 1926, following his studies, Richmond joined Queen's University Belfast as
4221-491: Was extensive and prolific, but less well known or understood today. Works covered poetry, prose stories and early novels, occasional pieces and collections of letters, to name a few. Famous and well regarded writers included Petrarch, Erasmus, Salutati , Celtis , George Buchanan and Thomas More . Non fiction works were long produced in many subjects, including the sciences, law, philosophy, historiography and theology. Famous examples include Isaac Newton 's Principia . Latin
4288-450: Was largely separated from the unifying influences in the western part of the Empire. Spoken Latin began to diverge into distinct languages by the 9th century at the latest, when the earliest extant Romance writings begin to appear. They were, throughout the period, confined to everyday speech, as Medieval Latin was used for writing. For many Italians using Latin, though, there was no complete separation between Italian and Latin, even into
4355-403: Was perceived as a separate language, for instance early French or Italian dialects, that could be transcribed differently. It took some time for these to be viewed as wholly different from Latin however. After the Western Roman Empire fell in 476 and Germanic kingdoms took its place, the Germanic people adopted Latin as a language more suitable for legal and other, more formal uses. While
4422-431: Was shut down in June 2019), and Vatican Radio & Television, all of which broadcast news segments and other material in Latin. A variety of organisations, as well as informal Latin 'circuli' ('circles'), have been founded in more recent times to support the use of spoken Latin. Moreover, a number of university classics departments have begun incorporating communicative pedagogies in their Latin courses. These include
4489-406: Was translated by Professor Colin Smith and published in Archaeologia in 1979, was the first time that the theories of J Schnetz had been summarised for an English-speaking audience, while A. L. F. Rivet and Colin Smith used their study of the document to publish The Place-Names of Roman Britain in the same year. Part of the difficulty with the text is its corruption, which probably results from
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