Latin story of a world language the mother tongue of the roman empire and the lingua franca of the west for centuries after romes fall latin survives today primarily in classrooms and texts yet this dead language is unique in the influence it has exerted across centuries and continents. As romance languages spun off from their latin origins following the empires collapse shedding cases and genders along the way the ancient language retained its currency as a world language in ways that anticipated english and spanish but it ceased to evolve. Latin story of a world language by leonhardt jgen 2013 hardcover isbn kostenloser versand fur alle bucher mit versand und verkauf duch amazon. Yet to offer a brief summary latin story of a world language outlines the changing uses of the latin language from its first literary attestations to the present day after an introduction and overview of the books main themes chapter 1 the book is arranged chronologically leonhardt discusses how latin was turned into a language that could rival literary greek in all its uses which developments it underwent to be employed as an administrative language in the empire and