The intonations are appealing to the Powers That Be. The words sound musical and lend to the cadence of rhyme and the Iambic Pentameter. The words themselves are also ancient, thereby making themselves known more easily to the Powers.

Also, many of the old spells were written in Latin, performed in Latin and introduced to the Powers in Latin. Therefore it makes sense that they would be stronger and more direct when spoken, written and worked in this ancient tongue.

Latin was the language of scholars in its later development. But it is very hard to write a short description of Latin, because of the huge massive of history and information about it. But in short the facts are the following:

Latino-Faliscan subgroup of Italic languages occupied lands on the left bank of the Tiber river in the 10th or 9th century BC. At this time Latinians did not know writing yet, and were under the influence of Etruscans. Only in the late 8th century the Greek alphabet was modified to make the Latin one, and since then the historical development of Latin began. The earliest inscription found in Latin shows the archaic stage of the language similar to Oscan and Venetic languages. At this time, when Rome was found, Latin already had its structure with all complex verb forms and noun declension.

The Classical Latin language took birth in the 6th century BC and gradually disappeared in the 4th and 5th century AD, becoming Popular Latin. In this period of time, Latin was flourishing and spreading all over Europe, was spoken in Asia and northern Africa. It assimilated other Italic languages, other Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages of Italy, France, Alps, Thracia, Illyria, many other ancient tongues. The list of languages Latin caused to disappear is very long. But it all was leaving deep traces in Latin itself. And in the new era the language of Romans began to suffer much simplification, changes and mutations, being restructured in Popular Latin. And as the Classical language remained as an official tongue of medieval Europe, Latin as a living language became extinct, used only in Pope's office in Vatican even now.

Classical Latin had a stereotype Indo-European phonetic system, with long and short vowels, numerous diphthongs, no aspirated or sibilant consonants and two labiovelars - qu and gu. Phonetics is very complicated for its plenty of vowel and consonant interchanges and mutations: assimilations, dissimilations, rotacism, syncope, metathesa, ablauts. But in whole Latin sounds remained simple. Note that Latin in Ancient Rome didn't have a [ts] sound, like in Graecia, and c was always pronounced as [k] before all vowels; it's a later change done in Medieval Europe. Latin had all eight Indo-European noun cases but they all had different ending only in singular of o-stems masculine. Five noun declensions were typical Italic (as the 5th one was added in Common Italic), adjectives had 3 declensions the same as corresponding nouns. All pronouns were also declined, some of them like adjectives. Numerals had declensions only for "1", "2", "3", "20"; also ordinal (primus), adverbial (semel) and partitive (singuli) numerals were in use. The Latin verb had three infect tenses and corresponding perfect tenses, and also subjunctive and imperative moods. Verbal substantives were of great importance: there were 3 kinds of participles, 6 infinitives, 2 supines which were really necessary in the language, the gerund and the gerundive. Two systems of verb endings were used for infect and perfect tenses. Latin verbal prefixes were quite productive, and a great plenty of modern terms of law, technology and science are just derivatives from Latin prefixed verbs (constitution < con-statuere; intervention < inter-venire; reconstruction < re-con-struere).

Latin had prepositions with ablative and accusative nouns, several postpositions were used with genitive nouns. It is very difficult to learn all Latin conjunctions for there is a great number of them really, and they all look like each other. Particles are also interesting with their archaic forms (emphatic and demonstrative particles which are lost in majority of modern Indo-European languages).

Latin used a syntax system seen even now in Romance tongues: the adjective follows its noun, sequence of tenses is widely used, etc. In fact, Latin is an excellent example of an Indo-European language in its best and most wonderful shape.

Latin Language Sites :.

Major Link Pages :.

American Classical League

http://www.umich.edu/~acleague/

Ancient/Classical History

http://ancienthistory.about.com/

Ancient World Web

http://www.julen.net/aw/

Armarium Labyrinthi: Labyrinth Latin Bookcase

http://www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/library/latin/latin-lib.html - An extensive collection of texts in Latin from the Labyrinth project at Georgetown.

Classics: A Guide to Internet Resources

http://www2.lib.udel.edu/subj/lanc/internet.htm - Maintained by the University of Delaware Library

Classics at Oxford

http://www.classics.ox.ac.uk/resources.html - An excellent starting point for finding resources for classical languages.

Classics Home Page

http://rome.classics.lsa.umich.edu/welcome.html - Maintained by the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan.

Electronic Resources for Classicists

http://www.tlg.uci.edu/index/about.html

FLTEACH Latin WWW

http://www.cortland.edu/www/flteach/flteach-res.html#latin

Forum Romanum

http://www.geocities.com/~stilicho/

Greek and Latin Language Resources

http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/OM/grk-lat.html....University of Tennessee-Knoxville link page

The Internet Classics Archive

http://classics.mit.edu/

Latin Online

http://eleaston.com/latin.html

Library of Congress Greek and Classical and Medieval History

http://www.loc.gov/rr/main/alcove9/classics.html

Little Venture's Latin Pages

http://www.compassnet.com/mrex/index.html

UCLA Department of Classics

http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/classics/home.html

Other Latin Links :.

Advanced Placement (AP) Latin Exam

http://www.collegeboard.com/ap/students/latin/index.html

AP Latin Internet Links

http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/aplinks.html

AP Latin Related Materials

\http://www.txclassics.org/aplatin.htm

The Bryn Mawr Classical Review

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/

Bullfinch's Mythology

http://www.bulfinch.org/

Catullus on the Web

http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/rcardona/poetry/catullus/catullus.html

Classical Resources

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~flng_info/Classics/Links/links.html

Classics 203: Introduction to Medieval Latin

http://www.georgetown.edu/irvinemj/classics203/domus.html

Classics Dept. at University of Texas

http://www.utexas.edu/depts/classics/

The Classics Page at Ad Fontes Academy

http://patriot.net/~lillard/cp/

Corpus Humanum

http://www.geocities.com/~stilicho/corpus.html - Latin terms for the parts of the body

Cursus Vivae Latinitatis

http://www.urich.edu/~wstevens/latviv.htm

Didaskalia: Ancient Theater Today

http://didaskalia.berkeley.edu/.... Greek and Roman drama, dance, and music as they are performed today

Forum Romanum Video Programs

http://nle.aclclassics.org/forum.html

Jenney's First and Second Year Latin

http://12.16.74.10/~tburgess/firstyrlatin.html

Latin Dictionaries (bibliography)

http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/medieval/latdic.html

Latin-L

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Styx/1790/ - Information and subscription form for this forum for people interested in Latin

The Latin Page

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/3773/

Latin Phrases, Mottos and Quotations

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6946/phrases.html

Latin Teacher Tips (especially for new teachers)

http://www.txclassics.org/newteacher.htm

Latin Teaching Materials

http://www.slu.edu/colleges/AS/languages/classical/latin/tchmat/tchmat.html

Latin Wordlist

http://kufacts.cc.ukans.edu/ftp/pub/history/Europe/Medieval/aids/latwords.aid....About 5000 words with meanings.

National Latin Exam Web Site

http://nle.aclclassics.org/

Nuntii Latini radio broadcasts

http://www.yle.fi/fbc/latini/summary.html - Radio Finland's *Nuntii Latini

Perseus Digital Library

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/

Roman Law on the WWW

http://www.jura.uni-sb.de/Rechtsgeschichte/Ius.Romanum/english.html

SAT Latin Exam

http://www.collegeboard.com/sat/center2/latin/latin.html

Texas Classical Association

http://www.txclassics.org/aplatin.htm

Traditio

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/traditio/traditio.html....History, thought, and culture of antiquity and the middle ages

University of Virginia Electronic Text Center

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/latin.html

The Vergil Project

http://vergil.classics.upenn.edu/

Why your kids should study Latin

http://ancienthistory.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa031798.htm?terms=latin&COB=home

Worlds of Late Antiquity

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/wola.html

Grammar :.

Allen and Greenough's New Latin Grammar online

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0001&layout=&loc=&query=toc

Latin Dictionary and Grammar Aid

http://www.nd.edu/~archives/latgramm.htm

Software :.

Software Directory for the Classics

http://www.centaursystems.com/soft_dir.html