Latin

Where it was spoken

Latin began as the dialect of Latium, the small region around Rome, and spread with the Roman Republic and Empire across the entire Mediterranean basin and much of Europe. Classical Latin remained the language of the educated elite and of the Catholic Church for centuries after the Western Empire collapsed, while the spoken vernacular fragmented into the Romance family.

What it sounded like

A heavily inflected language with five declensions, four conjugations, and free word order driven by case endings. No definite article. Vowel length was phonemic in classical Latin.

How it’s written

The Latin alphabet — itself the source for most of the world’s modern writing systems — used capital letters only in inscriptions; lowercase forms developed in medieval scriptoria. Latin remains an official language of Vatican City.