Latins
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Latin is the name of various peoples or ethnicities related to the Latium region in the Italian Peninsula, to the Latin language, or to its descendants, the Romance languages.
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[edit] Antiquity
The Latins were an ancient Italic people who migrated to the Latium region in central Italy, (Latium Vetus - Old Latium), in the 2nd millennium B.C., from Central Europe (Urnfield Culture). Although they lived in independent city-states, the Latins had a common language (Latin), common religious beliefs and a close sense of kinship, expressed in the myth that they were all descendants of Latinus, the father-in-law of Aeneas. Latinus was worshipped as Jupiter Latiaris on Mons Albanus (Monte Cavo) during an annual festival that was attended by all Latins, including Rome, one of the Latin states. The Latin cities extended common right to residence and trade to one another. Rome's territorial ambitions united the rest of the Latins against it in 341 BC, but the final victory was on Rome's side in 338 BC. 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.
Gradually, with the spread of Roman power throughout Italy and Western Europe, 'Latin' ceased to be an ethnic term and became a legal category.
[edit] Middle Ages
In the Byzantine Empire, "Latins" was a synonym to "Westerners", referring to all people of the Roman Catholic faith. Today the Byzantine cultural successors (Greece, Cyprus) also use "Latins" as a term for "Roman Catholics" in order to distinguish them from a member of the Greek Church. The term was later borrowed, in various variants, by several languages of the Middle East and southern Asia. For a similar term with a related meaning, see Franks (disambiguation).
[edit] Modern uses
[edit] Latin as Latino or Hispanic
In the United States Latin, Hispanic, and Latino (the Italian, Spanish and Portuguese form of Latin) are often used as synonyms in referring to people from Latin America (the parts of America where Latin-derived languages are spoken, and where most of the population has some (mixed or pure), Latin-European ancestry). As a shortening of the term 'Latin America', "Latin" refers to an inhabitant of Latin America and not specifically to someone of Latin-European ancestry. In this sense, the term is used as an equivalent to terms like European, African, Asian, and Middle Eastern, which makes any woman from Latin America a "Latina" or in the case of man a "Latino", even if their ancestry is non-European.
[edit] Latin as Southern European
Most commonly in Europe, as a noun, the term “Latin” is applied to people from countries where Romance languages are spoken and so Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, French,Germans and Romanians are popularly called "Latins" by other Europeans because of their distinctive Roman roots.
In Canada, French-speaking Quebec is often considered to be inhabited by the "Latins of the North", though this usage is not very common outside of Quebec or French-speaking Europe.
[edit] See also
- Latin Europe
- Latin Right
- Latin Rite
- Latin league
- Latin War
- Race and ethnicity in the United States Census
[edit] External links
bg:Латиниcs:Latini de:Latiner es:Latinos et:Latiinid fa:لاتینها fr:Latins it:Latini he:לאטינים la:Latini hu:Latinok mk:Латини nl:Latijnen ja:ラテン人 pl:Latynowie pt:Latinos ro:Latini ru:Латины sr:Латини sh:Latini sv:Latinare
