There are written documents in Latin from the 7th century BC to our own time. The earliest inscriptions were made at a time when Latin was just one of many languages spoken in what is now central Italy. Later on, however, the little Indo-European dialect from the area around the Tiber was the language in which the enormous Roman Empire was administered and which became the language spoken in the vast areas conquered by the Romans. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire at the end of the 5th c. AD, Latin continued to be spoken in the areas conquered by various Germanic tribes, who eventually abandoned their own languages in favour of Latin, or rather proto-Romance, which Latin had by then developed into.

During the Carolingian renaissance around 800, increasing attention was paid to the difference between the spoken Proto-Romance language and the written language of the ancient Romans. This period also marks the birth of a renewed interest in the literary heritage of the Romans. During the Middle Ages Latin diffused across vast areas outside the former Roman territory through the Catholic Church. Medieval Latin is in different ways influenced by various forms of Latin from Late Antiquity, for instance by the Latin written by the fathers of the church from the 4th and 5th centuries AD.

Around 1500, however, it became fashionable to imitate the Latin of the Roman classics and the so-called Neo-Latin was born. Latin functioned as the means of communication in the church, at the universities and in the international diplomacy until the 18th century. It was, however, gradually abandoned in favour of the modern languages. It was not definitely abandoned in the Scandinavian universities until the early 19th century and it is still the official language of the Catholic Church.

There are a lot of texts from this long period. We have documents which are contemporary with the text found in it: these are often, especially in the earlier periods, inscriptions on stone, clay or metal. The literary texts are, however, mostly preserved in manuscripts, which in most cases are considerably later than the texts themselves. Latin is one of the best documented early languages and it is one of few languages in the world which are documented during a very long period of time. The history of the Latin language therefore gives us an excellent picture of how a language can change over time, which is important to the general linguist. To the Latinist the history of the language is of importance for the correct understanding of the texts but also for a correct understanding of the mistakes in the manuscripts in which most older Latin texts are preserved.