Antoine Meillet mentored a generation of influential twentieth-century
linguists and philologists, including Émile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil,
and André Martinet. One of the most influential comparative linguists of
his time, he recognised that language is a social phenomenon, influenced by
sociological factors. Originally published in 1933, this third edition of
his 1928 history of Latin was the last to be published during his lifetime.
In it, Meillet explores the historical context and significance of Latin.
He describes how it developed from Indo-European and evolved according to
the fluctuating fortunes of the Roman empire, imitating and borrowing from
Greek in many ways but unified by the centralising influence of Rome. As
the empire declined, the regional dialects of Latin began to develop into
the modern Romance languages, with religion, philosophy and science
ensuring the survival of Latin itself into the modern period.