Classical language

In the context of traditional European classical studies, the "classical languages" refer to Greek and Latin, which were the literary languages of the Mediterranean world in classical antiquity.

Greek was the language of Homer and of classical Athenian, Hellenistic and Byzantine historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to the vocabulary of English and many other European languages, and has been a standard subject of study in Western educational institutions since the Renaissance. Latinized forms of Ancient Greek roots are used in many of the scientific names of species and in other scientific terminology. Koine Greek, which served as a lingua franca in the Eastern Roman Empire, remains in use today as a sacred language in some Eastern Orthodox churches. Eventually Koine Greek gave rise to Medieval Greek and then Modern Greek.

Latin became the lingua franca of the early Roman Empire and later of the Western Roman Empire. Despite the decline of the Western Roman Empire, the Latin language continued to flourish in the very different social and economic environment of the Middle Ages, not least because it became the official language of the Roman Catholic Church.

In Western and Central Europe and in parts of northern Africa, Latin retained its elevated status as the main vehicle of communication for the learned classes throughout the Middle Ages and subsequently in the Early modern period. In the 21st century, Latin is still taught in the United States, mostly in elite private schools.^[2]

Until the end of the 17th century, the majority of books and almost all diplomatic documents were written in Latin.^[3] Some of the last major international treaties to be written in Latin include the Treaty of Vienna in 1738 and the Treaty of Belgrade in 1739; after the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48) international diplomacy was conducted predominantly in French. French (itself a Romance language, a language that evolved from Latin) replaced Latin as the prestige language of politics, trade, education, diplomacy, military and international relations (lingua franca)^[4][5] It retained this role until approximately the middle of the 20th century, when it was replaced by English (a Germanic language).^[6][7] Like French, Spanish also evolved from Latin. Around 75% of modern Spanish vocabulary is Latin in origin, including Latin borrowings from Ancient Greek.^[8]

Latin was not supplanted for scientific purposes until the 18th century, and for formal descriptions in zoology as well as botany it survived to the later 20th century. The modern international binomial nomenclature holds to this day: taxonomists assign a Latin or Latinized name as the scientific name of each species.

Vulgar Latin, the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward, is the ancestor of the Romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, Catalan, etc.). The Romance languages spread throughout the world owing to the period of European colonialism beginning in the 15th century. There are more than 900 million native speakers of Neo-Latin languages found worldwide, mainly in the Americas, Europe, and parts of Africa. French, Spanish, and Portuguese also have many non-native speakers; they are widely used as lingua francas.^[9]

In terms of worldwide cultural importance, Edward Sapir in his 1921 book Language extends the list to include classical Chinese, Sanskrit and Arabic:

When we realize that an educated Japanese can hardly frame a single literary sentence without the use of Chinese resources, that to this day Siamese and Burmese and Cambodgian bear the unmistakable imprint of the Sanskrit and Pali that came in with Hindu Buddhism centuries ago, or that whether we argue for or against the teaching of Latin and Greek [in schools,] our argument is sure to be studded with words that have come to us from Rome and Athens, we get some indication of what early Chinese culture and Buddhism, and classical Mediterranean civilization have meant in the world's history. There are just five languages that have had an overwhelming significance as carriers of culture. They are classical Chinese, Sanskrit, Arabic, Greek, and Latin. In comparison with these, even such culturally important languages as Hebrew and French sink into a secondary position.^[10]

In this sense, a classical language is a language that has a broad influence over an extended period of time, even after it is no longer a colloquial mother tongue in its original form. If one language uses roots from another language to coin words (in the way that many European languages use Greek and Latin roots to devise new words such as "telephone", etc.), this is an indication that the second language is a classical language.^{[citation needed]}

In comparison, living languages with a large sphere of influence are known as world languages.

The use of Classical Chinese in writing remained nearly universal until the late 19th century, culminating with the widespread adoption of written vernacular Chinese with the May Fourth Movement beginning in 1919. Spoken Chinese evolved faster than the written form. The vernacular Old Chinese eventually give rise to Middle Chinese in the Middle Ages. Middle Chinese give origin to local Chinese language varieties forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family, many of which are not mutually intelligible. The varieties are typically classified into several groups: Mandarin, Wu, Min, Xiang, Gan, Jin, Hakka and Yue, though some varieties remain unclassified. Modern Standard Chinese is based in Mandarin and is the national lingua franca of China, one of the official languages of the United Nations and of Singapore, and one of the national languages of Taiwan.

Outside the learned sphere of written Classical Sanskrit, vernacular colloquial dialects (Prakrits) continued to evolve. Sanskrit co-existed with numerous other Prakrit languages of ancient India. The oldest attested Prakrits are the Buddhist and Jain canonical languages Pali and Ardhamagadhi Prakrit, respectively. By medieval times, the Prakrits had diversified into various Middle Indo-Aryan languages. Apabhraṃśa is the conventional cover term for transitional dialects connecting late Middle Indo-Aryan with early modern Indo-Aryan, spanning roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. The largest languages that formed from Apabhraṃśa were Bengali, Bhojpuri, Hindustani, Assamese, Sindhi, Gujarati, Odia, Marathi, and Punjabi. Hindustani, spoken in North India and Pakistan is the lingua franca of the region and have two standard registers, known as Hindi (Prakritised and Sanskritised register written in the Brahmic script) and Urdu (Persianised and Arabised register written in the Perso-Arabic script), which serve as official languages of the governments of India and Pakistan, respectively.

Classical Arabic is the register of the Arabic language on which Modern Standard Arabic is based. Modern Standard Arabic is its direct descendant used today throughout the Arab world in writing and in formal speaking, for example prepared speeches, some radio and television broadcasts and non-entertainment content. In the Arab world little distinction is made between Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic and both are normally called al-fuṣḥā (الفصحى) in Arabic, meaning 'the most eloquent'. Geographically, modern Arabic varieties are classified into five groups: Maghrebi (including the Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian, Libyan, Hassaniya and Saharan dialects), Egyptian (including Egyptian and Sudanese), Mesopotamian, Levantine and Peninsular Arabic (including Gulf, Emirati, Kuwaiti, Hejazi, Najdi, Yemeni, Omani, etc)^[11][12] Speakers from distant areas, across national borders, within countries and even between cities and villages, can struggle to understand each other's dialects.^[13].

The following languages are generally taken to have a "classical" stage. Such a stage is limited in time and is considered "classical" if it comes to be regarded as a literary "golden age" retrospectively.^{[citation needed]} Thus, Classical Greek is the language of 5th to 4th century BC Athens and, as such, only a small subset of the varieties of the Greek language as a whole. A "classical" period usually corresponds to a flowering of literature following an "archaic" period, such as Classical Latin succeeding Old Latin, Classical Sumerian succeeding Archaic Sumerian, Tamil for its continuous literature, Classical Sanskrit succeeding Vedic Sanskrit, Classical Persian succeeding Old Persian. This is partly a matter of terminology, and for example Old Chinese is taken to include rather than precede Classical Chinese. In some cases, such as those of Persian, the "classical" stage corresponds to the earliest attested literary variant.^[14]

• Ancient language
• Aureation, an aspect of the influence of a classical language on a later language
• Classical languages of India
• Classicism
• Classics
• Golden age (metaphor)
• Lingua franca
• List of lingua francas
• List of languages by first written accounts
• Literary language
• Sacred language
• Official language
• Standard language
• World language