Көне Рим және латындықтар мұрасы

People related to ancient Rome and its legacyThe term Latin has been used to refer to various groups of people across various historical periods who have been, in some form or another, connected to ancient Rome and its ethnic, cultural, and/or religious legacy. The term originally referred to the Latins, an ancient Italic tribe from Latium in the central Italian peninsula. Among them were the Romans, who united the Latins through conquest and built an empire which expanded not only to the entire Italian peninsula but to the rest of the Mediterranean region. Since then, "Latin" has been an ethnically related or religious designation implying an ultimate origin from Roman civilization.

The Latins were an ancient Italic people of the Latium region in central Italy (Latium Vetus, "Old Latium"), in the 1st millennium BC. Although they lived in independent city states, they spoke a common language (Latin), held common religious beliefs, and extended common rights of residence and trade to one another. Collectively, these Latin states were known as the Latin League. A rupture between Rome, 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 the Latin 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 full Roman citizenship. Others became Roman allies and enjoyed certain privileges. The Roman Empire would go on to dominate the Mediterranean region for the next several centuries, spreading the Latin language and Roman culture. The Latin speaking Western Roman Empire ended in AD 476, while the Greek speaking eastern half survived on until 1453.

In the Eastern Roman Empire, and the broader Greek Orthodox world, Latins was a synonym for all people who followed the Roman Catholicism of Western Christianity, regardless of ethnicity. The term was related to the predominance of the Latin Church, which is the largest autonomous particular church within the broader Catholic Church, and took its name from its origins in the Latin speaking world which had Rome as its center. Latin was generally a negative characterization, especially after the 1054 schism.

The various Romance speaking ethnic groups, usually those of Latin Europe and Latin America, have sometimes been collectively referred to as "Latin peoples". Other synonymous terms are "Romance peoples" or "Romanic peoples". The designation has also specifically survived in the names of two Romance speaking groups: the Ladin people (of northern Italy) and the Ladino people (of Central America). Likewise, the Romance languages themselves are sometimes referred to as the Latin or Neo Latin languages. The term Latin Europe is sometimes used in reference to European nations and regions inhabited by Romance speaking people. Latin America is the region of the Americas that was colonized by Latin Europeans, and came to be called so in the 19th century. The term is usually used to refer to Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries, namely Hispanic America and Brazil. Latin Americans are called latinoamericanos and latino americanos in Spanish and Portuguese, respectively; the shortening of this term resulted in the name for Latinos, who are themselves sometimes just called "Latin".

The central Italian region, the birthplace of Latin civilization, still preserves its Latin identity in the modern name Lazio, which evolved from ancient Latium. The Valle Latina (Latin Valley) is a region in Lazio corresponding to the eastern area of ancient Roman Latium (Southern Province of Rome and Province of Frosinone). People from Lazio are called "Lazians" (Italian: Laziali).