Latin

An Indo-European language of the Italic family; its closest relatives were Umbric and Etruscan, which are both now extinct. Latin was the language of the Roman Empire, from which all the Romance languages are derived. These languages include Spanish, Romanian, Portugese, and Italian.

Latin grammar is marked by an extensive system of noun cases and verbal inflection. Noun cases are organized along nominative-accusative lines, with several other oblique cases also used. Verbal morphology distinguishes both case and aspect. Phonologically, Latin is generally similar to other western languages of the Indo-European family. However, Latin was innovative because it had a whole series of ejective stops. Interestingly, these consonants neither existed in Italic nor survived into the Romance daughter languages.