[AzSteven]

Italy, Spain and to an extent France and Portugal are sometimes called the Latin Nations becuase of cultural and language ties to the old Roman Empire and the Latin language. Those nations (particularly Spain) colonized much of Central and South America, and the cultural tagging stuck there too.

Interesting trivia - scholars who specialize in language studies beleive the form of Spanish spoken in central and eastern Spain is quite close to the later forms of Latin spoken thoughout the Western Roman Empire. Apparently those areas retained a lot of Roman culture fom the fall of the Empire up until the Moorish Conquest. There are Arabic influences in Spanish, but the scholars feel the vocabulary and pronunciation in those areas is close to the late Empire more so than the Italian langauge is.

[dead]

Thank you too. Interesting stuff. (from the latin "stuvius")