Editing Classical Latin (section)

=== Foreign influences ===
Varro's approach could be explicated by his preference on attributing Latin words to Latin rather than Greek origins.<ref name=":4" /> In Roman times, the influence of Greek on Latin was debated. As Greek was the [[Diglossia|language of philosophy and high culture]], not only were educated Romans fluent in Greek, but they also developed sort of Greek xenophilia, such that it was custom that children only spoke Greek for a long time before learning Latin.<ref name=":5">{{Cite web |date=2015-12-22 |title=Book 1 - Chapter 1: Quintilian's Institutes of Oratory |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222230542/http://eserver.org/rhetoric/quintilian/1/chapter1.html |access-date=2025-03-29 |website=web.archive.org}}</ref> Romans admired Greek loanwords more, e.g. using κυρταύχενα while deriding ''incurvicervicum.''<ref name=":2" />  The Greek language also influenced Latin’s orthography by importing letters such as k and x,<ref name=":1" /> as well as [[Digraph (orthography)|diagraphs]] such as ''“ei”'', as a non-standard spelling of ''“ī”'', which was criticized by Quintilianus.<ref name=":0" /> Nonetheless, he advocated that children should learn Greek first, because children would learn Latin eventually anyway and because he considered Latin to be derived from Greek. He did not neglect Latin either, advocating that it be learned shortly after children started learning Greek, because he intended to avoid the contamination of Latin’s [[Linguistic purism|purity]] by Greek accent and [[Idiom|idioms]].<ref name=":5" /> 

Besides Greek, due to the vast expanse of the Empire, numerous [[Loanword|loanwords]] entered Latin and became imprescindible part of the language, as Gallic words like ''rheda'' (chariot) and ''petorritum'' (four-wheeled carriage) were used even by [[Cicero]] and [[Horace|Horatius]].<ref name=":2" />

These loanwords originated from various nations that the Romans contacted, such as:

* ''Mappa'' (napkin) from Carthagine
* ''Gurdus'' (slang for foolish) from Spain
* ''Casnar'' (parasite) from Gallia
* ''Mastruca'' (shaggy garment) from Sardinia<ref name=":2" />

These loanwords have become so nativized, that Romans combined different loanwords or loan [[Morpheme|morphemes]] to form compound words in Latin, e.g. the Latin word ''epirhedium'' was formed from the Greek prefix ''epi-'' and the Gallic word ''rheda''.<ref name=":2" />