When did the ablative originate? Additionally, I’d like to know which case was used before the ablative for adverbials. I think it replaced the dative, as I also study Ancient Greek. In that language, the dative is used.
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2Welcome to the site! I hope you will stay around and get all of those questions asked; we are really into getting a lot of questions about Latin. While you wait for someone to explain the origins of the ablative, please consider taking a look at our tour and browsing questions already asked. (I will make small polishing edits on your question. Feel free to edit again or undo my edit if you want to.)– Joonas Ilmavirta ♦Commented Jul 6, 2017 at 19:41
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1@JoonasIlmavirta Thanks. I’ve been checking this site weekly for a while now, and I know how the concept works from sites like Superuser, where I’m active on too. And also important: everyone here is very kind :)– TooMuchRAMCommented Jul 7, 2017 at 12:03
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@Thijs365 I'm glad to hear you like it here. Although some user edits have streamlined your question to focus more on the actual question, the words aimed at the community have not been ignored. If you prefer some earlier version of the question, you can click the "edited X time ago" link and roll back to a good old version; the wording is ultimately your choice.– Joonas Ilmavirta ♦Commented Jul 7, 2017 at 19:29
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2 Answers
The Latin ablative case represents a merger of three earlier Proto-Indo European (PIE) cases: the ablative (sometimes referred to as the 'from' case, because it was used to express ideas of source, separation, etc. – ideas where English often can use the preposition 'from'), the sociative-instrumental ('with' case), and the locative ('in'/'on' case). Of these, the ablative was retained and kept its name, and the functions of the sociative-instrumental and locative cases were folded into it – mostly: the locative also continued to exist for some words in Latin. In Greek, on the other hand, all three of those PIE cases were dropped, their functions being divided between the dative and genitive cases.
So the ablative was already one of the cases in PIE, the parent language of both Latin and Greek. It wasn't developed in Latin as a brand-new case, though it did evolve in distinct ways in that language.
This is a very abbreviated answer, which I will intend to expand on in the future (unless others get in there before me). The short answer is that the ablative didn't replace any earlier case - it dates back to at least late Proto-Indo-European (PIE), which developed a complex system of cases (including the ablative) best preserved (in general) in Sanskrit. Greek represents a simplification of the earlier, more complex, system, where the ablative function was taken up by the Greek Dative and Genitive cases. (So, in this respect at least, Latin is more archaic than Greek)
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2I marked the other answer because it was longer and explained more, but this answer is a very good summary from what I’ve read about in the other answer. Commented Jul 7, 2017 at 5:51