Latin Tongues.— When the Roman. Em pire broke up it left its various domains in possession of the Latin tongue, modified greatly it is true, in the popular speech in different districts by all-compelling local conditions, yet still essentially Latin in its vocabulary, idiom atic expressions and grammatical structure. Out of this inheritance of the Latin language sprang a whole family of new tongues which are now known as the Romance languages. These differ very considerably from one another; yet their general Latin characteristics are so strong that the mastery of one Romance tongue is the key to the facile acquirement of all the others. The term Romance is expressive of the dose rela tionship of these languages to one another. The Latin language was primarily the language of Rome. But, as we have seen, the language of the Roman Empire, in so far as the vast body of the people constituting its populace was concerned, had been enriched and materi ally strengthened by an extensive vocabulary borrowed from all the dialects. of the Latin-Fal iscan group of Italic languages. During the Middle Ages the name Romania IA as applied to the Roman Empire, and its speech was called the Roman tongue, a term used sometimes to designate Classical Latin, and, at others, to signify the more popular and somewhat cor rupted speech of the Roman populace, more especially in Gaul. A knowledge, therefore, of the relation of the various members of the modern Latin or Romance group of languages to one another, demands complete familiarity with the origin, growth and external and inter nal influences brought to bear on each member of the group from the earliest days of the con tact of Latin and aboriginal cultures in the region bounding each of the other members of this sub-group of closely related tongues. This Romanic tongue welded into a more or less homogeneous mass in the city of Rome itself, had become the speech of the masses of the Imperial city and gradually that of the Roman army and of the colonies. Thus there was, from the very beginning of the Roman colonial policy, some difference between Classical Latin and popular Latin. Already there had begun the disregard of unaccented syllables and the contraction of the longer and more sonorous words of the classical tongues. This process of contraction continued and extended to the in flection of Latin itself. The disappearance of most of the latter called for a pronounced analytical construction which found its most rigid form in French.
All these changes were encouraged, hastened and intensified by the influences brought to bear on the Roman or popular tongue after it be gan to extend from Italy into the surrounding country, with the success of Roman arms and the extension of the dominion of Rome. Even within the confines of Italy itself it was sub ject to similar influences, the effects of which are seen to-day in the dialectic and phonic dif ference existing between the spoken tongue of southern, central and northern Italy. These home changes were due to native dialects and Greek and Carthagenian influences at an early stage in the history of the peninsula and to Germanic and ebb& influences itt a latter peitiodi But in the colonies still other influences,wereat work. Before noting these it is necessary to take a glance at the lingnistic conditions. pro
duced • by the dissolution of the. Roman Em pire. This event broke up the Latin or Roman tongue into nine or.ten distinct languages gem' erally designated as Rumanian, Rim:to-Romanic, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalin (Proven cal), French, Daknatian and Sardinian. 'Of these, Dalmatian disappeared at an early period, in the history of these languages, owing to the fact that it had practically no native literature and that it was overrun by the Slays, and the Roman tongue and culture were practically wiped out.
Southern Italy, under Greek influence, de veloped a distinct form of the Latin speech which was still further modified by other in fluences. The Rumanian tongue also strongly subjected to Greek influence, has' developed along similar lines to that of southern' Italy. France or Gaul, whose populace was prin cipally Celtic, witnessed a terrific onslaught on the unaccented syllables of the Latin languages and a general shortening of the words of the vocabulary, coupled with a radical reconstruc tion of the construction of the Latin sentence, and the Introduction into the common Speech of many Celtic words. This was followed by a strong Germanic influence in the formation of the vocabulary of French in many of the offices of life.
Oscan-Umbrian.—The 'Umbrian tongue was spoken throughout central Italy; .here too was the ancient habitat of the Picentes, Vestinians, Marrucinians, Paeligniarts Marsians, Sabines, Volscians and others, all ' with their own peculiar dialects, of which greater or less re mains are extant in the form of inscriptions.
Umbrian.— Of the great Umbrian tongue there has come down to us more extensive re mains than those of any other Italic tongue out side of Latin. The greater part of this body irf linguistic remains is contained in the Iguvinian tablets, found at Gubbio, the ancient Iguvium, in the year 1444. The tablets average about 19 X 12 inches in size; they were originally nine in number, but in the 16th century two were lost while in transit to Venice and have since been lost to view. Seven of the tablets are inscribed on both sides, and the complete vocabulary has a range of almost 5,000 words. Two alphabets were employed: the Latin and the epichoric, a derivative of the Greek, through the medium of the Etruscan. The tablets very, probably date back to the second century The contents consist of the acts of a certain guild or corporation, self-styled the Atiedian Brothers, and like the 'Acta Arvaiiiun,' of a similar Roman brotherhood, the Fratres vales, made up of precepts for sacrifice, purifi cation, taking of auspices, etc. The Umbrian dialect, while sharing in the special character istics of the Oscan-Umbrian group, shows marry secondary developments, some . of which are paralleled by those witnessed in Latin within historical, times. Such are the teduction of diphthongs to monophthongs and the loss of final d. Characteristic of Umbrian are further assibilation of k before light vowels 'as in' fasia fakiind, Latin ,faciat: the change of intervocalic d a sound ,represented iAtift by. rs, in the epichoric IS+ a *dal transcribed d or r, as in piri, pirsi =n 1Z (Latin quid + i).