Ostler has yet again (I also highly recommend Empires of the Word) produced an amazing book on historical linguistics. This time, he writes a much more specialized book on the history of the Latin Language. He starts with a general discussion on early Latin and its interactions as one dialect of Italy, with close cousins Oscan and Umbrian, as well as its unrelated neighbor Etruscan. He then discusses the evolution of the tongue, its literature and grammar and uses. Then with the Roman Empire, comes the use of Latin as a language of administration and then its continued use by the Catholic Church and as a common language across Europe. Latin's subsequent development into the modern Romance languages is also well-discussed and explained.
He then shows the decline in Latin use and teaching after the Reformation and Enlightenment, and to our current era, where Latin is little used and studied. Yet, he shows that Latin is still used in certain scientific areas, and that Finland, for example, continues to publish a news program in it.
My only criticism of the book is that the first chapter on the "prehistory" of Latin could have been a little more detailed. While probably of little interest to the non-linguist reader, and maybe asking for too much in an introduction of this type, I think that at least a few pages on Latin's evolution from Proto Indo-European and later Italic would have been interesting and informative.
I highly recommend this book to all who are interested in Historical Linguistics, the Classics, Latin/Roman Empire, as well as those who are deeply interested in the history of any of the Romance languages.
Well done again Ostler! |
Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin Books In Print, Audio Books.