Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin

By Nicholas Ostler

An in-depth biography of the Latin language from its very beginnings to the present day from the widely acclaimed author of ‘Empires of the Word’.

The Latin language has been a constant in the cultural history of the West for over two millennia. It has shaped the way we think of ourselves and of our (central) place in the world. It has formed and united us as Europeans, has been the foundation of our education for centuries and defined the way in which we express our thoughts, our faith and our knowledge of the workings of the world. And yet, Latin began life as the cumbersome dialect of a small southern Italian city-state.

Its active use lasted three times as long as Rome's Empire and its use echoes on in the law codes of half the world, in terminologies of biology and medicine, and until forty years ago in the litany of the Catholic Church, the most populous form of Christianity.

In ‘Ad Infinitum’, Nicholas Ostler examines the reasons why Latin made such a long-lasting impact on language, and how it managed to stay alive for two millennia despite the cultural superiority of Greek. He will look at how Latin's sturdy roots remained untouched while empires rose and fell, the influence of religion, war and the ways it has progressed through medieval times right up until the present day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Feb 25, 2010
• ISBN: 9780007364886

Nicholas Ostler

A scholar with a working knowledge of twenty-six languages, Nicholas Ostler has degrees from Oxford University in Greek, Latin, philosophy, and economics, and a Ph.D. in linguistics from MIT, where he studied under Noam Chomsky. He lives in Bath, England.

Reviews for Ad Infinitum

[jbd1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A good popular history of Latin, written engagingly. The images are inconsistent and poorly reproduced, which is unfortunate; if better, they would have complemented the text well.

[dcunning11235 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read all the footnotes in this book. How often can you (well, I) say that?

[drneutron_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In Ad Infinitum, Nicholas Ostler has created a biography of Latin, giving the history of the language from "birth" to present day. Along the way, he treats the interaction between the language and changes in the societies that use the language, showing the feedback loop in which events and customs change language while language guides events and customs. The discussion of the origin of Latin was the most interesting part of the history for me. I'm little more than a linguistic novice, but had very little difficulty understanding his comparisons of Latin with other concurrent languages such as Etruscan and the discussion of why Latin in particular won out over its competitors. I also really liked his description of the interplay between Greek and Latin, and correspondingly between Greek culture and Roman culture as well. Frankly, though, the second half of the book lagged for me. After the Medieval period, the world grew away from Latin, and in the process, the story of the language becomes much less interesting. My recommendation - pay attention to the first half of the book and treat the second half more lightly.