Originally Latin was spoken by a small group of people who settled in Latium (west Italy) around the 1st millennium BC. Afterwards it became the spoken language of ancient Roman people. With the rise of the Roman political power the Latin language became popular. The languages that developed from Latin were called the Romance languages and were spoken in those countries that were once a part of the Roman Empire. The main Roman languages are: Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian. That’s how it got the name Romance. There were two forms of Latin: classical and the locally spoken vernacular.