Why did Latin become a dead language?

Answer 1

Answer

Evolution. After the fall of the Roman Empire, languages evolved into local variants of the Latin tongue, producing our modern Romance languages. (It's technically not completely extinct, since the Roman Catholic Church releases "official" updates to the language every so often.)

It's not really dead so much as...

...all the treasure on the ship has be plundered.

~ Es una desgracia porque el Latin ya no existe.. Pero si entiendes esto, o si lo traduces, ya tienes una idea que paso con Latin. Es un idioma fascinante, y el Italiano es como una nueva version de Latin.

Answer 2

Latin is not dead, exactly. It is still in use, at least within the Roman Catholic Church, both as a written and as a spoken language, and adopts new usages to express new ideas. But its grammar and vocabulary are unchanged since Mediaeval times, and unlikely to change in the future, for which reason it is not exactly a living language, either.

Correction:

Although Latin is still in use, it is technically a dead language because it has no native speakers. "Dead" does not mean that a language is not in use.

Answer 3

No-one today has Latin as a first language: no-one grows up speaking Latin, or uses it at home. As a mothertongue Latin is dead.

But many people can read and write Latin, and quite a few speak to each other in Latin on a regular basis. (A German cardinal who meets an Italian cardinal in the Vatican city would probably begin the conversation in Latin).

So as a spoken language, Latin is still very much alive.

Answer 4

Latin is an extinct language because there is no one who actually speaks Latin and uses it as their primary mode of communication. So while people can read and write it, there is no one who truly *speaks* Latin anymore.

Correction:

Latin is not extinct, it's dead. There is a difference. An extinct language is not spoken by anyone. A dead language is spoken as a second language, but not as a first language.

Answer 5

No. A dead language is one that has no native speakers, but Hebrew has more than 5 million native speakers; It's the national language of Israel.

It was a dead language from about the 2nd century BCE to the 1880s, when it was revived. Hebrew is the only known language in Human history to have been revived after being considered dead.

It is important to note, however, that Hebrew never fell out of use. It has been used continuously by Jews for religious purposes, for thousands of years.

Answer 6

Most definitely. I myself am a speaker.