When did the Latin language die out to become dead?

5 Comments

1. Golden Phoenix888 says:

   November 18, 2009 at 2:03 am

   The Latin language is not actually dead but it is frail and weak and is trying to exist in this world although only a few people specifically priests and those in Rome are the only ones who know of and is practicing this language. A language, like civilization only dies when no one is using it or practicing it such that it will be forgotten.
2. Dr Chadderlee says:

   November 18, 2009 at 2:03 am

   latin didn’t die it morphed.all the romance languages are forms of vulgar latin.this is common or street latin .with out the case ending.the spanish softened corpus=cuerpo.the romanians shortined ie corp.the french intonated the letters different (go figure) the italians stressed t’s and o’s.
3. RwandanHoops says:

   November 18, 2009 at 2:03 am

   It is used in the Vatican and is the basis of Italian. Also Romanian is mainly Latin.
4. SUE says:

   November 18, 2009 at 2:03 am

   When people began speaking in the vernaculars more, as Latin evolved into other languages.

   A huge influence was the Reformation, as the Church had long been the central political force in Europe. When the Catholic Church began to lose its central power, the vernaculars began to rise in use.
5. Timothy says:

   November 18, 2009 at 2:03 am

   This is an interesting question, only because as you see above, there are different perspectives of whether or not Latin is truely dead or not. In reality, it’s not alive, but it’s not dead in the traditionally way, so instead it’s something inbetween, well say Undead. So how is this language undead? Wellllllllll, in the various regions that the Romans had once occupied, the language had evolved, and taken on attributes of the languages around them. We also have to remember that the Latin that came into these regions was not pure Latin, but rather a dialectual form, called Vulgar Latin. Vulgar Latin was very different from the Literary tradition. French took influence from the Franks, Spanish and Portuguese from the Moors and other native Iberians, and Romanians from the Slavs.
   But Latin was pasted down in the Literary, Scientific, and Religious Texts, even after Rome was gone. It became the Lingua Franca through Europe until the Industrial days, when French became bigger, and then English eventually.