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Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian region and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. Latin ( lingua Latīna, or Latīnum, ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages.
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For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Range of the Romance languages, the modern descendants of Latin, in Europe.
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