The ethnical affinities which have been here briefly stated, and which may be considered as satisfactorily established by the investigations of Niebuhr, Müller, Lepsius, Donaldson, and others, are a guide to the affinities of the Latin language, and point out the elements of which it is composed. These elements, then, are Umbrian, Oscan, Etruscan, Sabine, and Pelasgian; but, as has been stated, the Etruscan language was a compound of Oscan and Pelasgian, and the Sabine was the link between the Umbrian and Oscan, therefore the elements of the Latin are reduced to three, namely, Umbrian, Oscan and Pelasgian. These may again be classified under two heads, the one which has, the other which has not, a resemblance to the Greek. All Latin words which resemble Greek are Pelasgian,[[20]] all which do not are Oscan and Umbrian. From the first of these classes must of course be excepted those words—such, for example, as Triclinium, &c.,—which are directly derived from the Greek, the origin of which dates partly from the time when Rome began to have intercourse with the Greek colonies of Magna Græcia, partly since Greek exercised an influence on Roman literature. It is clear from the testimony of Horace that the enriching of the language by the adoption of such foreign words was defended and encouraged by the literary men of the Augustan age:—
—— Si forte necesse est
Indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum
Fingere cinctutis non exaudita Cethegis
Continget; dabiturque licentia sumta pudenter,
Et nova fictaque nuper habebunt verba fidem, si
Græco fonte cadant, parce detorta.
Hor. Ep. ad Pis. 48.