Is latin hard to learn There are roughly 6500 languages that are spoken in the world and Latin is one of them. The Latin language falls in all three categories of languages including Indo-European languages, italic languages, and Latino-Faliscan languages.
History of Latin language
- The Latin language was originally called Latium. Latin is a language of ancient Rome and was spoken by some people living by the lower Tiber River. With the course of time, roman political power increased and language traveled all the way to Italy and throughout the Roman empire.
- It is to be noted that today Latin language is considered to be “■■■■” as there is no country in existence where Latin, in particular, is spoken.## Types of Latin language
Types of Latin language
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The Latin language has types depending upon its usage which includes old Latin which was before 75BC and was also known as early Latin or archaic Latin, classical Latin was used by Latin writers in their literary work and resided from 75BC to 3rd century AD, medieval Latin is basically the Latin language’s middle age and it was used from AD 600-1500AD, Renaissance Latin lasted from 15 -16 century which is the era of European renaissance.
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European renaissance is precisely the era marking the progress from the middle towards the modern age. All the work done in Latin since fifteen- hundreds is supposedly in new Latin.
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Just like its name contemporary Latin was being used for contemporary purposes for example for religious purposes, different quotes, and mottos just like the one “veritas nunquam perit” which means “truth never dies”.
| Types of the Latin Language | Era of practicing |
| Old Latin | Before 75 BC |
| Classical Latin | 75BC to 3rd century AD |
| Medieval Latin | 600-1500 AD |
| Renaissance Latin | 15 -16 Century |
Latin language these days
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The Latin language itself does not exist anymore. The Latin language was used to be spoken all over the roman empire but over time as the roman empire began to fall so does the Latin language however it became the very foundation of other languages that are spoken today and even official languages of different countries.
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These languages are fresh Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish. As it is said "Latin didn’t really stop being spoken, It continued to be spoken natively by people in Italy, Gaul, Spain and elsewhere, but like all living languages, it changed over time. So what happened here is that Latin does exist but in a sort of like other languages.
Latin relation with its derived languages
Now if you want to know whether learning Latin is easy or not, this shall raise the question of whether French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, or Portuguese is easy to learn. These all are romance languages and are evolved from the Latin language itself but still, they have got differences as the Latin language has quite changed over the centuries and has transitioned itself into the various forms of languages.
French
- One line answers a French native speaker wouldn’t be able to understand Latin at all but with some classes of how both languages relate he might be able to decode some of the texts in classic Latin language.
- In an interview, a guy was asked about how Latin and French are related and he told them about being at a university where his classmates were speaking French and he could speak Latin. He told them that with some effort, both of them would understand each other to some extent.
Spanish
- It is derived from a type of Latin language called vulgar language. The Latin language had strict grammatical rules where Spanish is a bit less of an inflective language. The Latin language was derived even from an older language script called the “Etruscan alphabet” and Spanish from Latin script hence this makes for a native Spanish speaker to understand Latin even ■■■■■■.
- A general answer to whether a native Spanish speaker can understand Latin or not is no, he cannot although he might up a few words of the same vocabulary, and some might baffling. For example, a pen in Spain is called bolígrafo or boli and a pluma in Latin
Italian
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Surprisingly it’s comparatively easier for a native Italian speaker to understand Latin as compared to those who speak other languages. The reason is the lexical similarity of 89%. This is also only possible when Latin is studied first.
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Then an Italian speaker might be able to decrypt some Latin proverbs and phrases. Another big difference between Latin and Italian is that the Latin language has three genders, masculine, feminine, and neutral whereas in Italian there are only two, masculine and feminine. Hence in Italian, a noun can either be masculine or feminine, not neutral.
Portuguese
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Talking about the percentages of how close Portuguese is to Latin, it is around 30% and well obviously major differences in pronunciation and vocab do exist.
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Let us see for ourselves, an English expression “Pass me the salt” is translated as “me passe o sal” in Portuguese and Latin as “transiet mihi salis”
| Language | Percentage of similatries |
| Spanish | 47% |
| French | 11% |
| Portuguese | 26% |
| Italian | 9% |
| Romanian | 4% |
| Catalan | 1% |
Learning Latin
The Latin language contains 23 alphabets and the language is written from left to right. In comparison with the English language, the Latin language does not contain the alphabets J, U, and W as shown below
| English | Romanian | French | Italian | Latin |
| Brother | Frate | Frere | Fratello | Frater |
| Animal | Animal | Animal | Animale | Animalis |
| Ear | Ureche | Oreille | Orecchie | Aurem |
| Calendar | Calendar | Calenderier | Calendario | Calendarium |
| Music | Muzica | Musique | Musica | Musica |
| Friend | Amic | Amie | Amico | Amicus |
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So ‘a’ can represent either a short vowel as ‘a’ or a long vowel ‘a:’ and this goes on for all the other vowels. When it comes to pronouncing Latin there is no such a fine rule as this language is now spoken nowhere in the world. Learning the Latin language means learning Latin to read.
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For pronunciation, you only need to keep in mind a few keywords concerning how to pronounce the vowels. In Latin ‘i’ and ‘e’ as pronounced as in word cliché of English language and ‘a’ is pronounced is in ‘rather’ and ‘o’ is pronounced as in ‘so’, and u as in ‘sue’.
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Learning any form of language is like solving a puzzle but with Latin is sodoku you are making conjectures easily identifiable patterns in Latin it’s not uncommon for a word to be untranslatable without the reference to every other word in the sentence Latin trains you to conceptualize one thing in the context of many things and see the connection between all of them.
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Latin is a vast language. In all aspects including vocabulary, culture, literature, romance, moods, and introducing new terms to the medical field. There are 4 moods in the Latin language. The mood of a language refers to the action performed and whether it is a command, fact, or a doubt.
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The 4 moods are infinitive(to complete the meaning of the other verb for example ‘to walk’ translated as ‘ambulare’), imperative(refers to command or request), subjunctive(what speaker wishes as in the English language “I wish I were there”), indicative(refers to the sign of indicating something or denoting a mood of verbs expressing a fact)
Uses of the Latin language
Language acquisition
It refers to mental habits to learn other skills languages are different modes of thinking. The same word in different languages will make you feel differently about that word.
Literature
The Latin language gives you a better understanding of literature and almost all the great minds of English literature have studied Latin.
Vocabulary
Latin will help you with English vocabulary. Now, why only Latin? this is because English is a hybrid language or a language with a hybrid vocabulary and there are so many words in English that are derived from Latin. For example, the Latin word ‘casa’ means ‘small house’ in English and is also called ‘casino’ in English. Studying Latin is going to grow you in a big picture and a small picture thinking and give you the dexterity to move back and forth between both.
Frequently asked Questions
How Latin is different from other languages?
All modern roman languages are evolved from the Latin language hence the native speakers while studying Latin do find some similarities in it but language is different to such an extent that it cannot be understood without studying it solo.
How long an English speaker would take to learn Latin?
At least 8 years with proper schooling, classes, teacher, and doing Latin assignments.
How long a Roman language speaker would take to learn Latin?
5years to get better in Latin as Romanians already study the Latin language for 2 years in their secondary education as a compulsory subject.
Has classic Latin changed over time?
No classic Latin has not moved in fifteen hundred years.
Why shouldn’t I learn Latin but languages derived from it
It depends on whether you are going for practical use of language or to get a deeper knowledge of literate, culture, and romance. For practical use obviously, it’s wise to go for learning Spanish, French, Italian, or roman because these are spoken these days.
Conclusion
Latin is not quite easy to learn. To learn a Roman language requires knowledge and studying that language, and learning Latin first needs to learn a Roman language. Although the Latin language gives you exposure to literature and a new form to your thinking, it is not that easy to learn Latin fluently to speak. Putting much effort and reading books based on how to learn Latin one might be able to read Latin. But nothing is impossible and there is nothing you can’t do once you put your mind to it. Any new language is hard to learn and Latin is no ■■■■■■ than any other modern language these days other than the fact that it has not been spoken around now for centuries so while learning Latin you quite not find yourself in a position where you can speak the language with others, practice and gain more knowledge about language other than from books.