Baxter Murphy

Ancient Rome Assignment

Topic
Language, numbers and the calendar.
Research Questions

What languages were spoken in Ancient Rome?

What words in the English language originated from or are words used by

Ancient Roman people?

What do Roman numerals look like and how do you read them?
What is the meaning behind the letters used for Roman numerals?
What were the months and days in the Ancient Roman calendar?
What were some of the key days of the year in Ancient Rome?
Research
What languages were spoken in Ancient Rome?

The native language of the Romans was Latin, a language the grammar of which
relies little on word order, conveying meaning through a system of affixes
attached to word stems. Its alphabet was based on the Etruscan alphabet, which
was in turn based on the Greek alphabet. Although surviving Latin literature
consists almost entirely of Classical Latin, an artificial and highly stylized and
polished literary language from the 1st century BC, the spoken language of the
Roman Empire was Vulgar Latin, which significantly differed from Classical Latin
in grammar and vocabulary, and eventually in pronunciation.
While Latin remained the main written language of the Roman Empire, Greek
came to be the language spoken by the well-educated elite, as most of the
literature studied by Romans was written in Greek. In the eastern half of the
Roman Empire, which later became the Byzantine Empire, Latin was never able
to replace Greek, and after the death of Justinian, Greek became the official
language of the Byzantine government. The expansion of the Roman Empire
spread Latin throughout Europe, and Vulgar Latin evolved into dialects in
different locations, gradually shifting into many distinct Romance languages.
Although Latin is an extinct language with very few remaining fluent speakers, it
remains in use in many ways, such as though Ecclesiastical Latin, the traditional
language of the Roman Catholic Church and the official language of the Vatican

City. Additionally, even after fading from common usage Latin maintained a role
as western Europe's lingua franca, an international language of academia and
diplomacy. Although eventually supplanted in this respect by French in the 19th
century and English in the 20th, Latin continues to see heavy use in religious,
legal, and scientific terminology - it has been estimated that 80% of all scholarly
English words derive directly or indirectly from Latin.
What words in the English language originated from or are words used by
Ancient Roman people?
English is a Germanic language,

having

grammar

and

core

vocabulary

inherited from Proto-Germanic. However, a significant portion of the English

vocabulary comes from Romance and Latinate sources. Estimates of native
words (derived from Old English) range from 20%33%, with the rest made up of
outside borrowings. A portion of these borrowings come directly from Latin, or
through one of the Romance languages, particularly Anglo-Norman and French,
but some also from Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish; or from other languages
(such as Gothic, Frankish or Greek) into Latin and then into English. The influence
of Latin in English, therefore, is primarily lexical in nature, being confined mainly
to words derived from Latin roots. Even the word language derives from the Latin
word lingua. Words of Latin origin came into the English language by way of the
French-speaking Norman invaders of 1066. But, we also use many phrases that
came into English later, typically in the 17 th and 18th centuries, and remain in
their original Latin form.
What do Roman numerals look like and how do you read them?
Today Roman numerals look just like letters from the alphabet, but most of them
have evolved from symbols which are thousands of years old. Numbers are
formed by combining various letters and finding the sum of those values. The
numerals are placed from left to right, and the order of the numerals determines
whether you add or subtract the values. If one or more letters are placed after a
letter of greater value, you add. If a letter is placed before a letter of greater
value, you subtract. For example, VI = 6 because V is higher than I. But IV = 4
because I is lower than V.
There are a number of other rules related to Roman numerals. For example, do
not use the same symbol more than three times in a row. When it comes to
subtracting amounts, only powers of 10 are subtracted, like I, X, or C, but not V

or L. For example, 95 is not VC. 95 is XCV. XC equals 100 minus 10, or 90, so XC
plus V, or 90 plus 5, equals 95.
Also, only one number can be subtracted from another. For example, 13 is not
IIXV. It's easy to see how the reasoning would be: 15 minus 1 minus 1. But
following the rule, it instead is XIII, or 10 plus 3.
You also cannot subtract a number from one that is more than 10 times greater.
You can subtract 1 from 10 (IX) but you cannot subtract 1 from 100; there is no
such number as IC. You would instead write XCIX (XC + IX, or 90+9). For larger
numbers in the thousands, a bar placed on top of the letter or string of letters
multiplies the numeral's value by 1,000.
What is the meaning behind the letters used for Roman numerals?
There are many theories on what the letters mean. Some people believe the C
stands for Century and the M stands for Millennium. Others believe that the
Roman numerals mean what is shown below.
A single line, or "I," referred to one unit or finger; the "V" represented five
fingers, specifically, the V-shape made by the thumb and forefinger. "X" equalled
two hands.
M = 1,000 Originally, the Greek letter phi represented this value. It was
sometimes represented as a C, I and backwards C, like this: CI which sort of
looks like an M. It's only a coincidence that mille is the Latin word for a thousand.
D = 500 The symbol for this number was originally I half of CI.
C = 100 The original symbol was probably theta and later became a C. It only
coincidentally also stands for centum, the Latin word for a hundred.
L = 50 This value was originally represented by a superimposed V and I, or by
the letter psi which flattened out to look like an inverted T, and then eventually
came to resemble an L.
What were the months and days in the Ancient Roman calendar?
The Romans borrowed parts of their earliest known calendar from the Greeks.
The calendar consisted of 10 months in a year of 304 days. The Romans seem to
have ignored the remaining 61 days, which fell in the middle of winter. The 10
months were named Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September,
October, November, and December. The last six names were taken from the

words for five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten. Romulus, the legendary first ruler
of Rome, is supposed to have introduced this calendar in the 700s B.C.E.
According to tradition, the Roman ruler Numa Pompilius added January and
February to the calendar. This made the Roman year 355 days long. To make the
calendar correspond approximately to the solar year, Numa also ordered the
addition every other year of a month called Mercedinus. Mercedinus was inserted
after February 23 or 24, and the last days of February were moved to the end of
Mercedinus. In years when it was inserted, Mercedinus added 22 or 23 days to
the year.
The Romans did not have weekdays in the same sense as our Monday, Tuesday,
etc., however, they did have a defined markers within each month. Originally,
the month and the markers were based on the moon.
At the time of their early kings, Roman months were of a length identical to the
lunar cycle. Each month was divided into sections that ended on the day of one
of the first three phases of the moon: new, first quarter or full. All days were
referred to in terms of one of these three moon phase names, Kalends, Nones or
Ides.
Of the three sections, Kalends was the longest it had more days than the other
two combined. Thats because it spanned more than two lunar phases, starting
from the day after full moon and continuing thru its last quarter and waning
period, then past the dark new moon until another lunar crescent was sighted.
The day of Kalends itself began a new month.
Unnamed days in the early Roman month were assigned a number by counting
down following the day of each named phase, day by day, ending with the next
of those three phases. The first numbered day in each section had the sections
highest value. Each succeeding day was one number lower than that of the day
before.
Nones (Latin nonus or ninth) was originally the day when the moon reached its
first quarter phase.
Ides, dedicated to Jupiter, was originally the time of the full moon.After Ides, the
next new moon was expected to appear in from 15 to 17 days.
When did the early Roman calendar begin?

The early Roman calendar originated as a local calendar in the city of Rome,
supposedly drawn up by Romulus some seven or eight centuries before the
Christian Era. The year began in March and consisted of 10 months, six of 30
days and four of 31 days, making a total of 304 days: it ended in December, to
be followed by what seems to have been an uncounted winter gap. Numa
Pompilius, according to tradition the second king of Rome (715?-673? B.C.E.), is
supposed to have added two extra months, January and February, to fill the gap
and to have increased the total number of days by 50, making 354. To obtain
sufficient days for his new months, he is then said to have deducted one day
from the 30-day months, thus having 56 days to divide between January and
February. But since the Romans had, or had developed, a superstitious dread of
even numbers, January was given an extra day; February was still left with an
even number of days, but as that month was given over to the infernal gods, this
was considered appropriate. The system allowed the year of 12 months to have
355 days, an uneven number.