Joinery Manufacturing Latin is a member of the Italic languages
and its alphabet is based on the Old Italic alphabet, derived from the
Greek alphabet. In the 9th or 8th century BC Latin was brought to the Italian
peninsula by the migrating Latins who settled in Latium, around the River
Tiber, where Roman civilization would develop. During those early years
Latin came under the influence of the non-Indo-European Etruscan language
of northern Italy .
Although surviving Roman literature consists almost entirely of Classical
Latin, the actual spoken language of the Western Roman Empire
was Vulgar Latin, which differed from Classical Latin in grammar,
vocabulary,
and
(eventually) pronunciation. Although Latin long remained the legal
and governmental language of the Roman Empire, Greek became the
dominant language
of the well-educated elite, as much of the literature and philosophy
studied by upper-class Romans had been produced by Greek (usually
Athenian) authors.
In the eastern half of the Roman Empire, which would become the
Byzantine Empire after the final split of the Eastern and Western
Roman Empires
in 395, Greek eventually supplanted Latin as the legal and governmental
language;
and it had long been the spoken language of most Eastern citizens
(of all classes).
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