Latin Alphabet and Romance Languages: Origins and History

The Latin Alphabet: Origins

The Latin alphabet is a variant of the Etruscan Greek alphabet. It is used today by almost everyone. It has 23 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, X, Y, Z.

The Disappearance of Spoken Latin

For centuries, Latin was the language spoken in most parts of Europe. It became increasingly differentiated into a cultured form and a common form. The common form evolved to give rise to Romance languages.

During the Middle Ages, Vulgar Latin became the language of communication between people, while cultured Latin was restricted to the Church and the courts of the Carolingian Renaissance. During the 8th to 11th centuries, Charlemagne favored the preservation of the cultural legacy, used in all centers of knowledge. In the 17th century, it remained the scientific language of Europe. Today, it is the official language of the Vatican.

Romance Languages

Romance languages are those that come from Latin, such as Castilian, Galician, Catalan, Portuguese, French, Italian, Sardinian, Romanian, Ladin, and Romansh. Due to territorial expansion, they were extended to various parts of the world.

Galician

Galician also contains elements from other peoples who settled in the Northwest Peninsula. For much of the Middle Ages, Galician and Portuguese formed an integral linguistic unit, but at the end of that period, they began to distance themselves, forming two different languages.

It is, together with Castilian, the official language spoken in Galicia and also in areas of Asturias, Leon, Zamora, and Portugal.

Castilian

Its first written records date from the 10th century. It is an official language throughout Spain. It is also spoken in many South American countries, Western Sahara, Equatorial Guinea, and the Philippines.

Ancient Greece: Geography and Historical Stages

The territory of ancient Greece, known as Hellas, covered the Greek Peninsula, the Aegean Islands, and the western coast of Asia Minor. To this area, we must add the first Greek colonies founded along the Mediterranean, especially in southern Italy (Taranto), Sicily (Agrigento, Syracuse), and France (Massilia, now Marseille). Also, in the 4th century BC, the Greeks dominated the entire ancient Persian Empire under the orders of Alexander the Great.

The original territory was inhabited since ancient times. In the sixth millennium BC, the Pelasgians occupied their land. Around 3000 BC, the Cretan or Minoan civilization developed on the island of Crete, basing its power on trade and dominion of the sea. After 1900 BC, a number of Indo-European peoples with languages of Greek ancestry entered mainland Greece. These early Greeks created the Achaean or Mycenaean civilization, which occupied Crete and reached its zenith around 1400 BC. Around 1200 or 1150 BC, the Mycenaean civilization collapsed at the hands of the Dorians, marking the beginning of the history of Greece, which can be divided into four stages.