Latin History

Latin was originally spoken in the area around Rome, known as Latium. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language in Italy, and subsequently throughout the western Roman Empire. Latin has contributed many words to the English language.

Latin is a member of the broad family of Italic languages. Its alphabet, the Latin alphabet, emerged from the Old Italic alphabets, which in turn were derived from the Greek and Phoenician scripts. Historical Latin came from the prehistoric language of the Latium region, specifically around the River Tiber, where Roman civilization first developed. How and when Latin came to be spoken by the Romans are questions that have long been debated. Various influences on Latin of Celtic dialects in northern Italy, the non-Indo-European Etruscan language in Central Italy, and the Greek of southern Italy have been detected, but when these influences entered the native Latin is not known for certain.

Latin's most important legacy is the Romance languages. Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian and Romanian are all Romance languages. They are so-called because they all have their roots in Latin, the language of the Romans.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_(language)#:~:text=Latin%20has%20contributed%20many%20words%20to%20the%20English,Old%20Latin%20had%20been%20standardised%20into%20Classical%20Latin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Latin