Learn to Read and Write Latin Part I: A How-To Guide

This is the first in a multi-part guide on how to read and write Latin. Latin is the perfect language to learn with a text-only basis, since it is spoken as a secondary language by only a small group of people today. Its importance is in its collected written works which span the last two millennia. Countless numbers of books and articles have been written in Latin. The language also graces a large number of monuments and public buildings. Before we begin to explore Latin, let’s learn a little background about the language.

Where did Latin come from? Why should I learn it?

Pre-Roman Italy was ruled by a large number of small tribes. One tribe was called the Latins. They resided in a region called Latium, in which the city of Rome came to be founded. Another tribe was called the Etruscans. Many aspects of later Roman life came to be based around Etruscan customs, including the alphabet. The Latin alphabet was based on the Etruscan alphabet, which in turn was based on the Greek alphabet. The Latin alphabet later was used to form the basis for several modern written languages, including English. Compared to the English alphabet, there are few differences.

Latin: ABCDEFGHI KLMNOPQRST V XYZ

English: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

As you can see, the alphabets are very similar. Classical Latin did not have a “J”. They usually used “I” when we would use “J”. The “J” was added in the middle ages. Also, Latin did not have a “U” or “W”. “V” was used in place of both of these letters. Just like “J”, “U” and “W” were added to the alphabet in the middle ages. For the purposes of our lessons, we will replace “V” with “U” when necessary.

Latin during the time of the Romans was split into two categories. Classical Latin was the Latin written by poets and politicians. It is the Latin we see in old texts and on monuments. Vulgar Latin was the Latin most commonly spoken by the people. The two began to differ more and more as the Empire spread. Eventually the dialects of Vulgar Latin split and developed into many of the Romance Languages spoken today.

Although English is considered a Germanic language and not a Romance Language, over 60% of English words come from Latin. Also, Latin words are used frequently in the scientific and medical communities. So, learning Latin is not only helpful because it allows you to read countless numbers of important works written in the past, but it can also help you become more proficient in English. Have a large Latin vocabulary will help you recognize English words you may not be familiar with. It can also be used as a springboard to start learning a Romance Language, as much of the vocabulary and sentence structure will be more familiar to you.

In the next lesson we will go over basic Latin sentence structure.