Latins

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The term Latin has been used to describe several groups of people throughout history, first referring to the inhabitants of the ancient Latium region, then to Catholic Christians of the Latin rite, and most recently to Romance-speaking peoples. [1]

Contents

Ancient Latins

Map of 5th century-BC Latium (Latium Vetus) and surrounding regions in central Italy that were eventually annexed by Rome to form "New Latium". The Alban Hills, a region of early Latin settlement (from c. 1000 BC) and the site of the Latiar, the most important Latin communal festival, are located under the "U" in LATIUM. The region's two main lakes, Nemi and Albanus, are visible under the "I". The leading Latin city-states of Rome, Tibur (Tivoli), Praeneste (Palestrina), Ardea and Gabii are shown. Volsci.jpg
Map of 5th century-BC Latium (Latium Vetus) and surrounding regions in central Italy that were eventually annexed by Rome to form "New Latium". The Alban Hills, a region of early Latin settlement (from c. 1000 BC) and the site of the Latiar, the most important Latin communal festival, are located under the "U" in LATIUM. The region's two main lakes, Nemi and Albanus, are visible under the "I". The leading Latin city-states of Rome, Tibur (Tivoli), Praeneste (Palestrina), Ardea and Gabii are shown.

The Latins were an ancient Italic people of the Latium region in central Italy (Latium Vetus, "Old Latium"), in the 1st millennium BC. Although they lived in independent city-states, they spoke Latin as a common language, held common religious beliefs, and extended common rights of residence and trade to one another. [2] Collectively, these Latin states were known as the Latin League.

A rupture between Rome, one of the Latin states, and the rest of the Latin League emerged as a result of the former's territorial ambitions. The Latin League fought against Rome in the Latin War (340–338 BC), which ended in a Roman victory. Consequently, some of the Latin states were incorporated within the Roman state, and their inhabitants were given full Roman citizenship. Others became Roman allies and enjoyed certain privileges. [3] After the Social War (91–87 BC), when the rest of the Latins received full Roman citizenship, "Latin" ceased to be an ethnolinguistic term and became a purely juridical category, ius latii ("Latin rights"). [4]

The Roman Empire would go on to dominate the Mediterranean region for the next several centuries, spreading the Latin language and Roman culture. The Latin-speaking Western Roman Empire ended in AD 476, while the Greek-speaking eastern half survived on until 1453.

As a religious designation

12th century depiction of Latin Crusaders 12th century unknown painters - Crusaders - WGA19723.jpg
12th century depiction of Latin Crusaders

Middle Ages

In the Eastern Roman Empire, and the broader Greek Orthodox world, Latins was a synonym for all people who followed the Roman Catholicism [5] of Western Christianity, [6] regardless of ethnicity. [7] The term was related to the predominance of the Latin Church, which is the largest autonomous particular church within the broader Catholic Church, and took its name from its origins in the Latin-speaking world which had Rome as its center. [8]

Latin was generally a negative characterization, especially after the 1054 schism. [5] The term is still used by the Orthodox church communities, but only in a theological context. Nonetheless, it did not share this negative connotation in the West, where many self-identified with the term, such as Petrarch, when he states "Sumus enim non greci, non barbari, sed itali et latini." ("We are not Greeks or barbarians; we are Italians and Latins."). [9]

Present day

Latins are a constitutionally recognized minority in Cyprus. Hugh Foot, the last British governor of the island, revived the term in 1960 to distinguish them from the Maronite Cypriots, who are also Catholics. [10] Other Catholics under the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem have also been referred to as Latins. [11] [12] [13]

Latin peoples and regions

Latin Europe (orthographic projection).svg
Map of Latin Europe.
Roman Empire (orthographic projection).svg
Map of the Roman Empire.

As an ethnically-related designation, "Latin" is used in the present day to denote a member of the Latin peoples– including, and often specifically, Latin Americans. [1]

By the 19th century, Romance-speaking groups were being collectively classified as Latin peoples, [a] a category that was considered one of the three major ethnolinguistic groupings of Europe, along with the Germanic and Slavic peoples. [17] [18] Latin peoples include Italians, French, Spaniards, Catalans, Provençals, Romansh, Portuguese, and Walloons in Western Europe, [19] [15] and Romanians in Eastern Europe. [16] Extinct Latin populations include the Roman Africans and Romano-Britons.

Ioan-Aurel Pop describes the origin of these ethnic groups as resulting from a "double assimilation process" that began with the territorial expansion of the ancient Romans. First, pre-Roman and indigenous peoples were Romanized, and later, Romanized populations incorporated "migratory elements" during late antiquity. [18]

The "Latin" designation is also specifically present in the names of two Romance-speaking groups: the Ladin people of northern Italy and the Ladino people of Central America.

The term Latin Europe is sometimes used in reference to European countries and/or regions inhabited by Romance-speaking people. [20] [21] [22]

Latin America is the region of the Americas that was colonized by Latin Europeans; it came to be called so in the 19th century. [23] The term is usually used to refer to Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries, namely Hispanic America and Brazil. Latin Americans are called latinoamericanos andlatino-americanos in Spanish and Portuguese, respectively; the shortening of this term resulted in the name for Latinos, [24] alternatively known as Latins. [25] [26] [27]

Many of the present-day independent states of Africa have main official languages that are Romance, as a result of colonization by Romance-speaking European countries in the 19th century. [28] Barthélémy Boganda, a politician of the Central African Republic, proposed a "United States of Latin Africa" in 1957 that would serve as a federation of the Romance-speaking countries in the region of Central Africa; this never came to fruition. African-American author Richard Wright, who criticized the proposal, said that "Latin Africa" correlated with "Catholic Africa" and would create an unnecessary religious division against the English-speaking "Protestant Africa". [29]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Alternatively called the "Romance peoples" [14] or "Romanic peoples". [15] [16]

References

  1. 1 2 "Definition of LATIN". Merriam Webster. Retrieved 2025-12-11.
  2. ↑ "Ancient Rome - Latin League, Republic, Empire | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2024-04-04.
  3. ↑ "Ancient Rome - Latin League, Republic, Empire | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2024-04-04.
  4. ↑ "Latins". Oxford Reference. Retrieved 10 December 2025.
  5. 1 2 George Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State
  6. ↑ "Distinguishing the terms: Latins and Romans". Orbis Latinus . Archived from the original on 2018-07-09.
  7. ↑ "Distinguishing the terms: Latins and Romans". Orbilat.
  8. ↑ "Why So Many Rites in the Church | EWTN". EWTN Global Catholic Television Network. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
  9. ↑ "Invectiva contra eum qui maledixit Italiam - Wikisource". la.wikisource.org (in Latin). Retrieved 2022-09-11.
  10. ↑ "The Latin Community in Cyprus". Permanent Mission of the Republic of Cyprus to the United Nations. 7 September 2000. Retrieved 2025-12-11.
  11. ↑ "Gaza ceasefire. "A sign of God's faithfulness"". Communion and Liberation. 16 January 2025. Retrieved 2025-12-11.
  12. ↑ "'We lack food and medicine': Catholics in Gaza take refuge in only parish church". Catholic News Agency. 18 October 2023. Retrieved 2025-12-11.
  13. ↑ "Patriarch of Jerusalem: peace begins with a step and concrete choices". Christian Media Center. 20 January 2025.
  14. ↑ Dame, Frederick William (2001). "The Swiss Romance Peoples And Their Identity". History of Switzerland: Historical Switzerland from the Romans to Napoleon. E. Mellen Press. ISBN   978-0-7734-7386-7.
  15. 1 2 Pavlovic, Zoran (2006). "Romanic Peoples". Europe. Infobase Publishing. ISBN   978-1-4381-0455-3.
  16. 1 2 Pop, Ioan Aurel (1999). "Romanic Peoples". Romanians and Romania: A Brief History. East European Monographs. ISBN   978-0-88033-440-2.
  17. ↑ Magocsi, Paul Robert (2018-11-12). Historical Atlas of Central Europe: Third Revised and Expanded Edition. University of Toronto Press. ISBN   978-1-4875-2331-2.
  18. 1 2 Pop, Ioan Aurel (1996). Romanians and Hungarians from the 9th to the 14th Century: The Genesis of the Transylvanian Medieval State. Centrul de Studii Transilvane, Fundația Cultrală Română. ISBN   978-973-577-037-2.
  19. ↑ Bolovan, Ioan (1996). A History of Romania. East European Monographs. ISBN   978-0-88033-345-0.
  20. ↑ Friedman, Lawrence; Perez-Perdomo, Rogelio (2003). Legal Culture in the Age of Globalization: Latin America and Latin Europe. Stanford University Press. p. 1. ISBN   0-8047-6695-9.
  21. ↑ Iiams, Thomas M. (1971). "National Libraries of Latin Europe". American Libraries. 2 (10): 1081–1085. ISSN   0002-9769. JSTOR   25618521.
  22. ↑ "The History of the Romanian Language". linguistics.byu.edu. Retrieved 2023-02-25.
  23. ↑ Chasteen, John Charles (2001). Born in Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America . W. W. Norton. p.  156. ISBN   978-0-393-97613-7.
  24. ↑ Gutiérrez, Ramón A.; Almaguer, Tomás (2016). The new Latino studies reader: a twenty-first-century perspective. Oakland (Calif.): University of California press. ISBN   978-0-520-28483-8.
  25. ↑ "Definition of LATIN". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2024-03-10.
  26. ↑ Hernandez, Roger E. (16 May 1990). "Ethnic terminology is a matter of distinction". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved 2025-12-11.
  27. ↑ "Roman Latin Language". UNRV Roman History. Retrieved 2025-12-11.
  28. ↑ Reutner, Ursula, ed. (2023-12-18), Manual of Romance Languages in Africa , De Gruyter, doi:10.1515/9783110628869, ISBN   978-3-11-062886-9 , retrieved 2024-08-04
  29. ↑ R. Wright, « To French Readers », Mississippi Quarterly, 42, 4, 1989 (Automne) {1959}
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