Biography of latin
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Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin
A comprehensive account of Latin history. Gives equal measures to Antiquity, early and late, and above all its sista stages in 1700-1800. It fryst vatten a must have for anyone interested in Latin.. 4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book with some caveats Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 October 2008. To add the following enhancements to your purchase, choose a different seller.. Latin quickly became the language of Europe from England in the north to Romania in the east. It did not do so well in the Middle East and North Africa because Greek was still the language of culture in those areas. In fact early Latin writers still looked up to and borrowed from Greek literature. Ostler speaks of Latin's inferiority complex in relation to Greek in the early years. However, after the annexation of the Greek peninsula and the influx of Greek refugees, many Greek words started appearing in Latin. The Roman government even required that children's schooling begin w
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Book Review – Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin and the World it Created.
By Nicholas Ostler
Latin is a language dead as dead could be;
first it killed the Romans and now it’s killing me.
So we used to chant as schoolboys, though actually I loved Latin even then. What people do not realise is that Latin was not confined to the Ancient Romans but remained, in many different ways, a living language up until modern times. Even today, though its use has greatly declined, it is still learned, enjoyed and seems to have a place in the formation of the human mind.
Ostler, in this fascinating book, shows us some of the roots of Latin not only in Greek but in Etruscan and some the other languages of the people of Italy. Greek, of course, was hugely influential on Latin in helping Latin to develop literary and poetic forms. Ostler gives some attention to the classical period of Latin but then traces the different trajectories as Latin morphed into the Romance languages: French
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Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin
An in-depth biography of the Latin language from its very beginnings to the present day from the widely acclaimed author of ‘Empires of the Word’.
The Latin language has been a constant in the cultural history of the West for over two millennia. It has shaped the way we think of ourselves and of our (central) place in the world. It has formed and united us as Europeans, has been the foundation of our education for centuries and defined the way in which we express our thoughts, our faith and our knowledge of the workings of the world. And yet, Latin began life as the cumbersome dialect of a small southern Italian city-state.
Its active use lasted three times as long as Rome's Empire and its use echoes on in the law codes of half the world, in terminologies of biology and medicine, and until forty years ago in the litany of the Catholic Church, the most populous form of Christianity.
In ‘Ad Infinitum’, Nicholas Ostler examines the reasons why Lat