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by ajb on June 23rd, 2009

ajb

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If latin is a dead language, who were the last people or nation to use it, and why did they decide to stop? I'm studying medical terms, and the question just hit me:)

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  • by Twisted Taco on June 23rd, 2009

    Twisted Taco

    The people of Latin America, according to Dan Quayle during his visit that continent during his Vice Presidency

    "I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regrest I have was that I didn't study Latin in school so I could converse with those people."

    So, let that be a lesson to you. Don't make the same mistake as our illustrious ex-veep

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  • by Banana Breath plays the piano on June 23rd, 2009

    Banana Breath plays the piano

    Latin was spoken throughout Europe under the Roman empire. It mutated as it was learned, spoken and "mispronounced" by local populations and merged with their local languages and became French, Italian, Romanian, Spanish, and Portuguese. All of these are recognizable as Latin; and someone fluent in Latin could passably understand any of these. Other than the church, recognizable Latin was last used as a language for casual social speech in the Latin quarter of Paris from the middle ages through the 1800's. As a rule, people stop using a language when another better suits their needs; in Paris, it was more convenient to speak French.

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  • by Im Alec has abandoned this account on June 23rd, 2009

    Im Alec has abandoned this account

    Latin didn't die, it evolved and fragmented. The church and formal diplomacy hung on to an official version of Latin, but the language people spoke everyday evolved away from it. You can see the same happening to English, a bit: the language used to write laws and contracts is not the same as the language we use everyday. Latin evolved into Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Rumanian. Nobody stopped speaking Latin one day and started speaking these new languages the next, they just moved gently away from the language of Caesar and of formal Church writing (and from each other). The French of the year 1000 would have understood both Latin and their Italian neighbours much better than the French of the year 2000.

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  • by Aquatic Eagle on June 23rd, 2009

    Aquatic Eagle

    Latin was still popular in Medieval Europe but new languages were being introduced and evolving away from Latin. Latin is still the official language of the Holy See and the Vatican City-State. Latin is now used in scientific and law terminology because it no longer changes.

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  • by tplautus on March 31st, 2010

    tplautus

    in a sense people are still using Latin, in the form of the Romance languages. All living languages are in a constant state of natural change; a language is dead when nobody uses it as their first language - nobody decides to stop.

    What people normally think of as Latin is Classical Latin, which was really just the written form of the language. The spoken form is called vulgar Latin, and it is vulgar Latin that changed into the Romance languages.

    This excellent and well-written book gives a good introductory account for non-linguistics:
    http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521734189

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