# Latin America - why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 14, 2000, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-america-why/33166 "2000-09-14T11:06:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Gary\_Kumquat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gary\_Kumquat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Kumquat)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2000, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-america-why/33166/1 "2000-09-14T11:06:58Z")
This is probably general knowledge, but the question on the Latin Emmys had me thinking. Why is Latin used as an adjective for countries which have more roots in Spain than Italy? Is it something to do with being predominatly Roman Catholic? ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2000, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-america-why/33166/2 "2000-09-14T11:35:32Z")
IIRC, “Latin” applied to languages (and by extension, to the people that spoke them) derived from Classic Latin: Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and French. As to Latin America: this defines the part of the American continents south of the United States in which Spanish, Portuguese, or French is officially spoken. (The “south of the United States” is thrown in so that Quebec isn’t considered part of Latin America.😃 ) Further, immigrants from south of the US are called Latinos. It’s not really associated with being Roman Catholic. The two groups just happen to overlap a great deal. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Kumquat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gary\_Kumquat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Kumquat)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2000, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-america-why/33166/3 "2000-09-14T12:19:56Z")
Isn’t that a hard distinction to make when most modern european languages (English included) have latin in their roots? ---
**Author:** ![pothole2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/db5fbb/32.png) [@pothole2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pothole2)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2000, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-america-why/33166/4 "2000-09-14T12:26:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Gary Kumquat \* > \*\*Isn’t that a hard distinction to make when most modern european languages (English included) have latin in their roots? \*\* You hit your own nail on the head there. English HAS Latin in it’s roots but not much, and nowhere near as much as the so-called Latin languages ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Kumquat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gary\_Kumquat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Kumquat)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2000, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-america-why/33166/5 "2000-09-14T13:19:28Z")
Oh. OK. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2000, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-america-why/33166/6 "2000-09-14T16:57:34Z")
Two of the definitions from the OED of “Latin” might apply here > [@](#): > > 1. Designating or pertaining to the branch of the Christian church which once used Latin in all its rites; Roman Catholic > 2. Pertaining to or characteristic of the European and American peoples speaking languages developed from Latin. English is not a Latin or Romance language, despite the large number of words in English derived from Latin. The guts of the language is composed of words from Germanic roots. Of the 1,000 commonest English words, only about 10-15% are ultimately of Latin origin, mostly through French. Over 80% of the 1,000 commonest words are of Germanic origin. However, if you went through a dictionary, you would find well over half of all the words are of Latin origin. But most of these are rarely used compared to the Germanic words.