Egyptian, Greek, and Latin—Who hasn’t heard of them? These are some of the best known ancient languages, and all of them have had a huge impact on modern languages.

     Egypt was one of the first civilizations known to have a written language. They were also one of the first civilizations to develop astronomy, and they made detailed calculations about the seasons and the size of the earth. Their civilization dates back to 4,600 B.C., but only when the Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799 did historical linguists begin to crack their hieroglyph code. We don’t really know what the ancient Egyptian language would have sounded like, but now we can understand the strange symbols carved so many centuries ago.

     Greek has been in existence for over 3,400 years, the longest of any European language, and it is still spoken, in an evolved form, by millions of people today. Greek was the language of the birthplace of democracy. Greek civilization made many great achievements in government, philosophy, architecture, poetry, and drama. Plato and Aristotle were two very important philosophers from this time. Before the twentieth century the study of Ancient Greek was considered necessary in any classical education.

     Latin is as important as Greek and has been in existence almost as long. Latin is an unusual language. It is considered “dead” because it is no longer a spoken language; however, it is taught extensively in classical schools and its written form has changed little throughout the centuries. During the middle ages and Renaissance times, Latin was the “lingua franca” * of Europe. All scientific or medical writings had to be in Latin if the author wanted his work respected.

     Even though we call Latin a dead language, it never really died! All it did was evolve into our familiar Romance languages, such as Spanish, Italian, French, Romanian, and English as well as others. Today, Latin is used in scientific names of the plants and animals as well being used in mottos, such as Semper Fidelis, (the Marine’s motto which means Always Faithful.) Almost two-thirds of English words have Latin roots.

  *A Lingua Franca is the language that traders who speak different languages use to communicate with each other.

Sources:

“History and Overview”.  Language Studio. Accessed 04 February 2009. <http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Latin/Latin.html>

“The Rosetta Stone”. The British Museum. Accessed 04 February 2009. <http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight                                                       _objects/aes/t/the_rosetta_stone.aspx>

“Greek Language”. Encyclopedia Brittanica. Accessed 04 February 2009. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/244595/Greek-                                         language/74650/Ancient-Greek#ref=ref603471>