SECTION E LATIN LANGUAGE 



(Hall 9, September 23, 10 a. m.) 



CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR MAURICE HUTTON, University of Toronto. 

 SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR E. A. SONNENSCHEIN, University of Birmingham. 



PROFESSOR WILLIAM G. HALE, University of Chicago. 

 SECRETARY: PROFESSOR F. W. SHIPLEY, Washington University. 



THE RELATIONS OF LATIN 



BY EDWARD ADOLF SONNENSCHEIN 



[Edward Adolf Sonnenschein, Professor of Latin and Greek, University of Bir- 

 mingham, England, b. London, 1851. M.A. Oxford, 1878'; D.Litt. 1901; M.A. 

 Birmingham, 1901. Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Birmingham, 1901 ; Assistant 

 Professor of Humanity, University of Glasgow, 1877-81; Professor of Greek 

 and Latin, Mason College, Birmingham, 1883-90. Examiner Classics, University 

 of Wales, University of Edinburgh, 1899-1902; Examiner in Greek to the Cen- 

 tral Welsh Board, 1905; Hon. Sec. of the Classical Association of England and 

 Wales, 1904. Editor of Plautus's Captivi, Mostellaria, Rudens. Author of Latin 

 and Greek Grammars in the Parallel Grammar Series (of which he is editor in 

 chief) ; Ideals of Culture; Ora Maritima; Pro Patria, etc.] 



I HAVE decided to treat the subject entrusted to me to-day not 

 from the purely linguistic point of view, though this would have 

 supplied me with a fruitful theme, but rather from a point of view 

 which would, I suppose, in Germany be called " kulturhistorisch. " 

 What I propose to discuss is not the relation of Latin to other lan- 

 guages as languages, but rather the place of Latin in the history of 

 civilization, and the work that it has done in the world as a vehicle 

 of culture. The subject thus opened up is of course far too great to 

 be embraced in a brief paper; nor do I pretend to be able to deal com- 

 petently with all its aspects: but it is, perhaps, not inappropriate in 

 scope and magnitude to the present occasion. 



The history of the Latin language, regarded as an organ of culture, 

 may be divided into three great periods: (1) the period in which it is 

 the organ of a culture moulded mainly by Greece; this period extends 

 from long before the third century B.C. to the latter part of the 

 second century A.D.: (2) the period in which Latin becomes the 

 organ of the Christian Church, from the end of the second century 

 to the end of the fifth century A.D. : (3) the period vaguely spoken of 

 as the "Middle Ages," from the sixth to the end of the thirteenth 

 century of our era. 



It was a favorite idea of ancient writers to represent the course 

 of history as a succession of cycles, each of which was more or less 

 coincident with its predecessor. That history repeats itself, even 



