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The termLatins has been used throughout history to refer to various peoples, ethnicities and religious groups usingLatin or the Latin-derivedRomance languages, as part of thelegacy of the Roman Empire. In theAncient World, it referred to thepeople of ancient Latium, including theRomans. Following the spread ofChristianity, it came to indicate theCatholics of theLatin Church, especially those followingWestern liturgical rites. Currently, it defines the peoples using the Romance languages in Europe and the Americas.[1]
The Latins were anancient Italic people of theLatium region incentral Italy (Latium Vetus, "Old Latium"), in the 1st millennium BC. Although they lived in independent city-states, they spoke a common language (Latin), held commonreligious beliefs, and extended common rights of residence and trade to one another.[2] Collectively, these Latin states were known as theLatin League.
A rupture betweenRome, one of the Latin states, and the rest of the Latin League emerged as a result of the former's territorial ambitions. The Latin League fought against Rome in theLatin War (340-338 BC), which ended in a Roman victory. Consequently, some of the Latin states were incorporated within the Roman state, and their inhabitants were given fullRoman citizenship. Others became Roman allies and enjoyed certain privileges.[3]
TheRoman Empire would go on to dominate theMediterranean region for the next several centuries, spreading the Latin language and Roman culture. The Latin-speakingWestern Roman Empire ended in AD 476, whilethe Greek-speaking eastern half survived on until 1453.
In theEastern Roman Empire, and the broader Greek-Orthodox world,Latins was a synonym for all people who followed theRoman Catholicism[4] ofWestern Christianity,[5] regardless of ethnicity.[6] The term was related to the predominance of theLatin Church, which is the largest autonomousparticular church within the broaderCatholic Church, and took its name from its origins in the Latin-speaking world which had Rome as its center.[7]
Latin was generally a negative characterization, especially after the1054 schism.[4] The term is still used by theOrthodox church communities, but only in a theological context. Nonetheless, it did not share this negative connotation in the West, where many self-identified with the term, such asPetrarch, when he states"Sumus enim non greci, non barbari, sed itali et latini." ("We are not Greeks or barbarians; we are Italians and Latins.").[8]
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The variousRomance-speaking groups of the present day, usually those of Latin Europe andLatin America, have sometimes been collectively referred to as "Latin peoples".[9][10] Other synonymous terms are "Romance peoples"[11] or "Romanic peoples".[12] Likewise, the Romance languages themselves are sometimes referred to as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages.[13][14] The designation also specifically survived in the names of two Romance-speaking groups: theLadin people ofnorthern Italy and theLadino people ofCentral America.
The termLatin Europe is sometimes used in reference to European nations and regions inhabited by Romance-speaking people.[15][16][17]
Latin America is the region ofthe Americas that wascolonized by Latin Europeans, and came to be called so in the 19th century.[18] The term is usually used to refer toSpanish- andPortuguese-speaking countries, namelyHispanic America andBrazil. Latin Americans are calledlatinoamericanos andlatino-americanos in Spanish and Portuguese, respectively; the shortening of this term resulted in the name forLatinos,[19] who are themselves sometimes just called "Latin".[20][21][22][23]
Many of the present-day independent states ofAfrica have main official languages that are Romance, as a result of colonization by Romance-speaking European nations in the 19th century.[24]Barthélémy Boganda, a politician of theCentral African Republic, proposed a "United States of Latin Africa" in 1957 that would serve as a federation of the Romance-speaking countries inthe region of Central Africa, which never came into fruition.African-American authorRichard Wright, who criticized the proposal, said that "Latin Africa" correlated with "Catholic Africa" and would create an unnecessary religious division against theEnglish-speaking "Protestant Africa".[25]