• A. Greek
  • B. Latin
  • C. Etruscan
  • D. Aramaic

💡 Need help?

This language is the foundation of modern languages such as Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Romanian. It is still used today in scientific names and in the Roman Catholic Church.

✅ View the answer

The correct answer is B. Latin.

Latin was the everyday spoken language of ancient Rome and spread throughout much of Europe and the Mediterranean world alongside the Roman Empire. Government, law, and the military all operated in this language.

Greek (A) was certainly present and spoken by many scholars, but it was not the common everyday language of Rome itself. Etruscan © was spoken by a people who were influential in the region before the Romans, but fell out of use at an early stage. Aramaic (D) was an important language in the Near East, not in Rome.

📚 More background information

Latin is one of the most influential languages in history, and its impact is still felt on a daily basis. The Romance languages emerged from Latin: Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Romanian. Anyone learning one of these languages will quickly recognize shared words and grammatical patterns that trace back to the same common origin.

A distinction is often made between “Classical Latin” — the polished, written language of orators and writers — and “Vulgar Latin,” the spoken language of ordinary people. It was precisely this spoken Latin, with all its regional variations, that formed the foundation from which the modern Romance languages grew. Educational materials from Leiden University point out that Latin, while it was still a living language, was also taught as a foreign language for spoken use, much as we learn English or French today.

Greek also plays a role in this story. Many Romans from the upper classes spoke both Latin and Greek, and in the eastern part of the Empire, Greek remained the dominant language. It is understandable, then, that answer A might seem tempting — but the common everyday language of the city of Rome itself was Latin.

And Latin has never entirely disappeared. It lives on in scientific species names for plants and animals, in legal expressions, in medical terminology, and in the Roman Catholic Church, where it still holds official status.