My History Presentation

History Presentation- Rome's language

  I'm Rachell Lim. I am going to tell you about Rome's language. The native language of the Romans was Latin, an Italic language in the Indo- European family. Several forms of Latin existed, and the language evolved over time, finally becoming the Romance language spoken today. The Latin alphabet is based on the old Italic alphabet, which is turn derived from the Greek alphabet.
  Initially, older forms of Latin rely little on word orders. But like other Indo- European languages, Latin acquired the arranged word orders.
  Although, surviving Latin literature consists almost entirely of Classical Latin, an artificial and polished literary language from the 1st century BC, the actual spoken language of Roman Empire was Vulgar Latin, which differed from Classical Latin in grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation.
  Also, although Latin remained the main written language of the Roman Empire, Greek came to be the language spoken by the well- educated elite. In the eastern half of the Roman Empire, which became the Byzantine Empire, Greek was the main lingua franca as it had been since the time of Alexander the Great, while the Roman goverment and its soldiers mostly used Latin. Eventually, Latin and Greek were both the official written and spoken language of Eastern Roman Empire, while the various dialects of Vulgar Latin used in western Roman Empire evolved into the modern Romance Languages still used today.
  Over time, Vulgar Latin evolved and dialectized in different locations, gradually shifting into a number of distinct Romance languages beginning in around the 9th centry. These languages include French, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish.
  When William the conqueror invaded England from Normandy in 1066, he brought with him a number of people who spoke Anglo- Norman French, a Romance language derived from Latin. And the number of Latinate words increased in English through borrowing during this Middle English period. The revival of interest in classical culture led to a great deal of adaptation of words from Classical Latin authors into English. Latin continues to see heavy use in religious, legal, scientific language, and in learning. 

Source
-A Roman Historiacal Compilation
by Jerry L. Aultz   p.52~54