The Italian Language

The Latin languages are a branch of the Indo-European family. The totality of modern Latin languages derives from Latin and this group is sometimes called Romance (from Rome).

Latin was by no means the only Latin language, but, as Rome extended its dominion across Italy, all other languages died. It was the speech of the Latins, a member of a closely related group of invaders that came to the Italian peninsula in pre-historic times, which seems to lend some credence to the story that the Latins descended from the Trojans.

North of Rome there was that best-known of mysterious civilisations: the Etruscan. They spoke a non Indo-European language which has never been deciphered and has left no vestiges in any other of the languages of the Peninsula.

The modern region of Tuscany derives its name from Etruria, the home country of the Etruscans and there, even if it is not possible to hear Etruscan spoken, it is possible to see faces which seem to come form an ancient Etruscan statue.