Latin

Latin (ⁱ/ˈlætᵻn/; Latin: lingua latīna, IPA: [ˈlɪŋɡʷa laˈtiːna]) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets.

Latin was originally spoken in Latium, Italy. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, initially in Italy and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Romanian. Latin and French have contributed many words to the English language. Latin – along with Greek – roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine.

By the late Roman Republic (75 BC), Old Latin had been standardized into Classical Latin. Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence.Late Latin is the written language beginning in the 3rd century AD and Medieval Latin the language used from the ninth century until the Renaissance which used Renaissance Latin. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved. Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the official language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.

Latins (Italic tribe)

The Latins (Latin: Latini), sometimes known as the Latians, were an Italic tribe which included the early inhabitants of the city of Rome. From about 1000 BC, the Latins inhabited the small region known to the Romans as Old Latium (Latium Vetus), that is, the area between the river Tiber and the promontory of Mount Circeo 100 kilometres (62 mi) SE of Rome.

The Latins were an Indo-European people who probably migrated into the Italian peninsula during the late Bronze Age (1200–900 BC). Their language, Latin, belonged to the Italic branch of Indo-European. Their material culture, known as the Latial culture, was a distinctive subset of the Iron Age Villanovan culture that appeared in parts of the Italian peninsula after 1000 BC. Although divided from an early stage into communities which mutated into several independent, and often warring, city-states, the Latins maintained close culturo-religious relations until they were definitively united politically under Rome in 338 BC, and for centuries beyond. These included common festivals and religious sanctuaries.

Dogū

Dogū (土偶)(meaning "clay figures") are small humanoid and animal figurines made during the late Jōmon period (14,000–400 BC) of prehistoric Japan. Dogū come exclusively from the Jōmon period. By the Yayoi period, which followed the Jōmon period, Dogū were no longer made. There are various styles of Dogū, depending on exhumation area and time period. According to the National Museum of Japanese History, the total number found throughout Japan is approximately 15,000. Dogū were made across all of Japan, except Okinawa. Most of the Dogū have been found in eastern Japan and it is rare to find one in western Japan. The purpose of the Dogū remains unknown and should not be confused with the clay haniwa funerary objects of the Kofun period (250 – 538).

Origins

Some scholars theorize the Dogū acted as effigies of people, that manifested some kind of sympathetic magic. For example, it may have been believed that illnesses could be transferred into the Dogū, then destroyed, clearing the illness, or any other misfortune.

Dog in Chinese mythology

Dogs are an important motif in Chinese mythology. These motifs include a particular dog which accompanies a hero, the dog as one of the twelve totem creatures for which years are named, a dog giving first provision of grain which allowed current agriculture, and claims of having a magical dog as an original ancestor in the case of certain ethnic groups.

Myth versus history

Chinese mythology is those myths found in the geographic area called China, which of course has evolved and changed throughout its history. These include myths in Chinese and other languages, as transmitted by Han Chinese as well as other ethnic groups (of which fifty-six are officially recognized by the current administration of China). (Yang 2005:4)

In the study of historical Chinese culture, many of the stories that have been told regarding characters and events which have been written or told of the distant past have a double tradition: one which tradition which presents a more historicized and one which presents a more mythological version.(Yang 2005: 12-13) This is also true of some accounts related to mythological dogs in China.

Shvan

Shvan, a Sanskrit word meaning a dog, finds repeated references in Vedic and later Hindu mythologies, and such references include the following:

References