Welcome to the History of English Podcast, a podcast about the history of the English

language. This is episode 16, The Rise of Rome, and Latin. In this episode, we're going

to look at the emergence of Rome from a small city near the western coast of Italy to

the dominant political and military power of the Mediterranean. And this will set the

stage for the expansion of Latin throughout the western world. In this episode, I'm going

to provide a brief overview of the rise of Rome. There have been millions of words written

about this subject, and there's some great podcast out there that deal exclusively with

the history of the Roman Empire. But for our purposes, I think it's important to understand

the basic events which led to the rise of Roman power and the spread of the Roman language

throughout Western Europe. And along the way, we can look at some of the Latin words

which have passed into English. And again, since Latin has had such a tremendous influence

on English, I'm only going to look at a few of the modern English words which originated

during this period. In fact, from this point forward in the story of English, I'll be introducing

more and more Latin words. Because from this point on, the Latin words are constantly

filtering into English. They come in during the late Roman period when the Romans encountered

the Germanic tribes. They come in when the Romans conquered southern Britain. They come

in with the spread of the church into Britain. And they come in with the Norman French.

And they come in during and after the Renaissance in a variety of academic and scientific and legal

borrowings. So Latin is going to be a constant part of the story of English as we move forward.

And the fact that Latin is so pervasive is itself a testament to the overall power and

influence of the Romans. We live with the Roman legacy every day in the words we use and

the alphabet we use to write those words. So let's pick up the story where we left off

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