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New West Charter High School

d Prlpsine Lingu Latn:


rd Temporum Latn ab Occs Rm
usque ad Cnstittinem Ecclsi Recentis

(A Discourse about the Decline of the Latin Language:

A Chronology of the Latin language from the Fall of Rome

until the Establishment of the Modern Church)

Nicholas Alexi Guymon

Honors World History

Mr. Estanislao

17 May 2016

Although not a single language is destined to die, languages never remain still and it is

inevitable that [a]ll languages change over time (Pulju 1:51-1:53). Indeed, this was the case of
the Latin language, which was once a prosperous language that had a vital and resounding

influence in the courts, the church, and the daily lives of artisans and laymen alike. In fact, Latin

still has a vital, but underlying influence in societys consciousness and in the English language.

So, what happened? Why is Latin considered a dead language in contemporary society even

though Latin is the syntactic, phonetic, and morphemic basis for many of the spoken European

languages extant today? Publications such as The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark

Ages 400-1000, in which the author discusses the adverse effects of the Barbaric Invasions on

Roman colonies in the Western Roman Empire, Brand Luther, in which the author emphasizes

the centrality of the printing press as a means to rapidly spread secular works in the vernacular

throughout the Protest Reformation, and Latin Alive: The Survival of Latin in English and the

Romance Languages, in which the author describes the resonance of Latin morphologies in

Romance languages and Latin prefixes in the English language, demonstrate how the Latin

language steadily lost its influence as a spoken language. The Latin language declined

throughout the millennia since its Golden Age primarily because the Western Roman Empire

collapsed and the Romance languages formed. It also declined because the members of the

Catholic Church advocated the use of common vernaculars in church liturgy as opposed to the

use of the Latin language.

Approximately 200 years after Rome was established in 753 B.C.E, the Romans

overthrew their Etruscan rulers and became a republic. Around the early third century B.C.E., the

Romans had conquered most of the Italian Peninsula, and they continued to expand their

territories at an unprecedented rate throughout the subsequent centuries. As the Roman Empire

extended its influence throughout Europe, northern Africa, and what is now modern day Turkey

and northwestern Saudi Arabia, the Latin language flourished, and its Golden Age of literature
began. This period of Latin literature spanned throughout the late first century B.C.E and lasted

until the early first century C.E. While Latin flourished as a written and spoken vernacular

during this age of territorial expansion, a large influx of Roman authors and poets produced the

literary paragons of Classical Latin such as Ciceros orations, Virgils Aeneid, recognized as the

greatest work of Latin literature, Horaces Odes and Satires, and Ovids Metamorphoses

(Rowell 106). Each of these pieces of literature formed a cornerstone of Classical Latin because

they all emphasized the formalities and grammatical conventions of the time. Thus, the literary

remnants of this era profoundly impacted many scholars understanding of Latin grammar and

syntax from the Middle Ages to modern times contemporary eras.

Nearly three centuries after the culmination of Latins Golden Age, the Roman Empire

began to waver as it spiraled into a chaotic state, threatened by external and internal problems.

The foremost external issue stemmed from the invasions by the barbarians, starting around the

fifth century C.E., who encroached upon Roman boundaries by invading Roman colonies. Since

the Western Roman Empire could not effectively govern their conquered provinces, they were

not able to fend off the inundation of invading Germanic tribes. Internally, the massive extent of

the Roman Empires territories, the instability within the Roman government, and corruption of

Roman political leaders splintered the once indomitable empire. In turn, these external and

internal problems were the catalyst of the fragmentation of the Western Roman Empire, the

emergence of the Romance languages, and ultimately the decline of Latin.

When the Visigothic, Gothic, Ostrogothic, Anglo-Saxon, Frankish, Vandalic, and Hunnic

tribes invaded the Roman Empire throughout the early first millennium, Romes formerly

colonized inhabitants formed provinces throughout countries such as Britain, Gaul, and Spain.

According to The Inheritance of Rome, written by Chris Wickham, a professor of Medieval


History at the University of Oxford, provincialization had grown throughout the Western Roman

Empire as a consequence and a cause of the collapse of Romes political infrastructure

(Wickham 90). These newly-formed provinces resulted in isolated communities which became

more localized in terms of their economies (Wickham 95). Evidently, these economic

simplifications suggest that formerly Western Roman societies, now liberated from Roman rule,

began to diverge from the lineaments and influences of Rome. Additionally, the localization of

these exchanges and foreign trade brought upon an isolation from other countries, which resulted

in the establishment of individual cultural identities and languages.

During their imperialistic expansion in the early centuries of the first millennium, the

Romans spread a colloquialized form of Latin known as the sermo vulgaris, or Vulgar Latin,

throughout each province they conquered. Each province adapted Vulgar Latin to reflect words

or features of pronunciation from the [native] language of the conquered country (Hall 397).

After centuries of societal fragmentation, isolation, and geographical separation in countries such

as Gaul, Spain, Italy, and modern day Romania, the French, Spanish and Portuguese, Italian, and

Romanian languages emerged as regional products of Vulgar Latin. As the Western Roman

Empire continued to decline, these languages, collectively known as the Romance languages,

became more prominent and distinct throughout Europe. They generally replaced Latin as the

vernacular. In fact, as early as the Carolingian Renaissance that spanned from the late eighth

century until the beginning of the tenth century in Europe, European authors saw French as a

distinguishable and separate language for the the first time (Wickham 413).

Unlike countries such as Gaul, Spain, and Italy, Latin hardly retained any of its influence

in the country of Britain after the Angles and the Saxons displaced the Roman population during

the fifth century. Although the Romans once had an overwhelming presence throughout Britain,
when the Barbaric Invasions isolated Britain from the rest of the Roman Empire, Germanic

cultures and languages flourished on the island and replaced the Latin language almost entirely.

According to Latin Alive: The Survival of Latin in English and the Romance Languages, the

author, Joseph Solodow, a professor of the Classics at the University of Yale, attributes the

success of these Germanic tribes to the Germans who had settled earlier on the island, [and]

partly to an epidemic in the sixth century, which may have wiped out many Latin speakers

(Solodow 32-33). Similarly, Latin also declined in Africa and Spain when the Arab conquests

began during the seventh century and displaced Roman colonies. According to Professor

Solodow, most traces of the Latin language in central in western north Africa were wiped out

[in the] conquest. The [thoroughly Romanized and Christianized] native population, however. . .

did retain a number of words they adopted from Latin into their Berber language (Solodow 51).

For example, akartassu cork (< Latin corticea bark), akiker chickpea (< cicer), asentil

rye (< centenum), grana frog (< rana), imik crumb (< mica) were a few of the many

words that the Arabs incorporated into their language (Solodow 51). Nevertheless, around the

eighth century, Latin had effectively become an esoteric language predominantly restricted to the

liturgies and masses of the Catholic Church, universities, and the literate aristocratic lites of

European society.

Nearly a millennium after the Western Roman Empire collapsed, circa 1450, Latin

continued to be the most widely used language in the highest echelon of European society and in

the Catholic Church. This remained true until the beginning of the sixteenth century and the

advent of the Protestant Reformation. When Johannes Gutenberg invented his revolutionary

printing press during the middle of the fifteenth century, Latin was the predominant language of

printed literature in European circulation. Nevertheless, as the printing industry steadily


developed throughout the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, printers began to promote

the use of vernaculars in their publications, which, in turn, increased the dissemination of

literature throughout European society. According to Virginia Cox, a professor of Italian

literature at New York University, as the cost of printing came down and print-runs increased,

books began to become accessible to the ever-larger segments of the public. . . [and] the

vernacular grew in status as a viable and dignified alternative to Latin (Cox 31).

Unquestionably, printers produced more literature in the popular European vernaculars to appeal

to more Europeans so that they could generate more revenue. However, in doing so, they also

indirectly diminished Latins influence in the literature of the late Renaissance. More

importantly, as the Renaissance came to a close, the contention brewing in European society,

particularly between Germans and the Catholic Church, grew as a result of the Catholic Churchs

sale of Indulgences which were Catholic forms of atonement that reduced a persons penance and

their time spent in Purgatory in return for a monetary fee. Several groups of northern Europeans

also resented the taxes they had to pay to the Church. Paired with the humanist ideologies of

Renaissance, the printing press propagated secular works which challenged the authority of the

Catholic Church and served as the basis of the Protestant Reformation.

The Protestant Reformation began on October 31st, 1517 when Martin Luther, a Catholic

monk, affixed his Ninety-Five Theses on the front door of a Catholic Church in Wittenberg,

Germany. Martin Luther created his Ninety-Five Theses as a protestation against the corruption

of the clergy and the Pope, who condoned the sale of Indulgences. Although the Catholic Church

endorsed the sale of Indulgences as a way to finance the construction [of] St. Peters Basilica

located in Rome, many people found the sale of Indulgences inexcusable, and they condemned

the Catholic Church for exploiting the desperation of its lay members who sought repentance
(Bishop 5). Many citizens across Europe, including Martin Luther, believed that the Catholic

Church generated an immense profit from its immoral participation in selling Indulgences. Thus,

many Europeans began to question the authority of the clergy and the Pope, who was the final

and infallible interpreter of Scripture (Pettegree 126). In addition, many urged for the

reformation of the Catholic Church.

At the beginning of the Reformation, from about 1517 to 1520, Latin had maintained a

large presence in Europe and in the Catholic Church, but this presence within European society

heavily decreased from 1521 to 1526. During this time period, the vernacular steadily replaced

Latin in printed literature throughout Europe, and it assumed a more prominent role in the

Catholic Church. One of the core ideologies of the Protestant Reformation was a each persons

right to a private judgement, which meant that an individual could interpret and judge the

Scripture for himself (Burkle 735). Since the Catholic Church functioned in Latin, many

members of the Church could not comprehend the liturgy, and they could not interpret the Bible

for themselves. Since many could not understand the Vulgate, many Europeans advocated the

use of a common vernacular within the Catholic Church. In an effort to make the Catholic laity

more independent from the papal and clerical interpretations of the Bible, Martin Luther

translated the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Bible, into German during the Protestant

Reformation. By doing so, the majority of the lay audience could interpret the Bible for

themselves.

Before the Protestant Reformation, Latin was a centralized part of Catholicism which

[maintained] unity in the [Catholic Church] and a uniformity in her services (Moorman 52).

However, after the Protestant Reformation ended in 1648, the Roman Catholic Church divided

and the Protestant branch of Christianity emerged. Although the Roman Catholic Church
maintained the use of Latin in its liturgies, the Protestant religion incorporated the vernacular

into its liturgies and Latin lost its influence in the newly formed branch of Catholicism.

Since the the Roman Catholic Church continued to use the Latin language in its liturgies

after the end of the Protestant Reformation in 1648, many members of the Church were still

unable to fully understand its liturgies and actively participate in mass. More recently, Peter

Schineller, a Jesuit priest, described his discomfort during a Tridentine Mass as follows: [e]ven

though I was very familiar with the Tridentine Mass from my childhood, it seemed remote and

distant. The Mass seemed to focus on the priest whose words for the most part could not be heard

(they were in Latin anyway!) and who rarely faced the people (Schineller). In many ways,

citizens around the world empathized with Schinellers sentiments in the nineteenth century, and

urged the Catholic Church to modify the outdated Tridentine Mass and create a modernized and

more inclusive mass.

On October 20th, 1958, a group of cardinals who formed a papal conclave convened and

elected Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli as the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. Nearly three

months after Angelo Roncalli became the Pope under the name of John XXIII on October 28th,

1958, he astonished the world. On January 25th, 1959, Pope John XXIII called for the creation of

a second Vatican Council roughly ninety years after the First Vatican Council ended. By calling

this council, the Pope hoped to reform the Catholic Church in order to make make the message

of faith more relevant to people in the twentieth century and he hoped that the Vatican Council

would eventually pave the way for Christian unity (Vatican II). When the Second Vatican

Council began on October 11th, 1962, the council began to resolve the problems of the outdated

Tridentine Mass. After approximately three years, the Second Vatican Council modified the

Tridentine Mass and helped shape the modern Catholic Church today.
The legacy of the Second Vatican Council profoundly affected the Latin language as the

ecclesiastic vernacular. Before the Second Vatican Council first convened on October 11th, 1962,

the Catholic Church used Latin as the vernacular in its masses and liturgies. However, in the

decades after the Second Vatican ended on December 8th, 1965, although Latin still was the

official language of the Catholic Church, Catholic churches around the world began to use the

vernacular of their society in place of Latin. This is partially because the council members

authorized the use of the vernacular, or mother-tongue, not only for parts of the Mass but also

for the administration of every sacrament and sacramental, and because the Council stipulated

that, . . . in individual cases, where Latin is an obstacle, bishops and other superiors may

authorize the recitation of the Office in the vernacular (The Second Vatican Ecumenical

Council). In turn, Latin . . . essentially dropped everywhere, completely and not just in the

liturgy. The collapse was so complete in fact that [in Autumn of 2014], Italian replaced Latin as

the official language of Synod on the family (Barone 15:23-15:43).

Throughout the ages, it is inevitable that change will occur and interrupt the status quo.

Undoubtedly, a language which has existed for over 2,500 years will not be identical to the same

language roughly 2,500 years later; although Latin had been the most widely used vernacular of

the Catholic Church, Latin also underwent many provincial changes throughout its lifespan

which formed the Romance languages. In addition, as the European society drastically changed

during the Middle Ages, the Latin language declined as a vernacular in European society and in

the Catholic Church. In spite of this, Latin still maintained a fundamental role in Catholicism.

Today, what can be said about Latins influence and its prominence in the future? Will Latin still

exist in five hundred years? The answer is yes. As long as the Catholic Church upholds the use of

the Latin language, educational institutions continue to teach Latin as a discipline, and Latin is
used in medicine, astronomy, and law, Latin will continue to survive as a language, an underlying

and vital force in the living languages of today and tomorrow.

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