Why did Latin die out as a spoken language (when it was so widely used in ancient times)? When did it "die"?

Answer 1

I think it never really died, it simply changed into Italian, Spanish, French and all the other European languages with largely Latin roots. Languages do change all the time, after all. What kept Latin 'alive' as a 'dead language' was largely the Roman Church, since all it's documents and the Bible were written in Latin. Because, through the Church, everyone (in Christendom) knew Latin, it became a universal language in it's 'dead' form.

Greek and Hebrew and Sanskrit have also been preserved in the same way - they are used for religious texts but not spoken by the common people (though modern Hebrew is closer to biblical Hebrew than the other languages because it was revived).

Answer 2

Latin actually didn't 'die out' as a spoken language--it turned into French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian...
As to when, upon the death of Charlemagne there were the Strasbourg oaths, where the three sons of Charlemagne swore not to attack each other. They were written down in the vernacular--early French, early German and some other language which I forgot, so that the people listening would be able to understand. During Charlemagne's reign it was noticed that the people no longer spoke the same way that the priest did in church and that it became harder and harder for the people to understand. Alcuin tried to 'fix' the bad Latin; there were Latin schools started and the carolingian script was developed which was easier to read, but, alas (or yippee, depending on your point of view), the change was inevitable. (Just as we no longer speak the English of Alfred the Great, Chaucer, Shakespeare or even that of Charles Dickens. We can still just barely comprehend Shakespeare with the help of footnotes, a good actor or a good teacher. Old English has 'died out' in the same way Latin did.)

Answer 3

I would say Chinese, because unlike the Eygptians, Babylonians, and the Latin language, it's the only ancient culture that has survived since it's inception more or less intact, whereas the other languages either died with the times or split into multiple modern languages. Chinese also had relatively few major external influences, whereas European and Arab languages adapted to new rulers, invaders, religions, etc. People can clearly trace the form of the written language back to the original hieroglyphs. Chinese literature and writing from 3000+ years back can still be interpreted without too much extra learning (like Shakespearean English :D). And by most measures, Mandarin Chinese is the most spoken modern language in the world (800+ million people). Even though there are hundreds of dialects, the fact that Chinese has a unified written form allowed it to survive.

Answer 4

Latin didn't actually "die" but it was declared to be a "dead language" by the Catholic Church. "Dead", in this instance did not mean ceased to be but merely that it was "sealed" and could no longer evolve as a language because the Church needed a language that could be used as a common language by all the different language speaking Priests around the world. If it continued to evolve, it would no longer be a 'pure' language because of colloquialisms and slang that would creep into it.

In other words, no matter what country you come from or what your culture is, if you are a Priest you can go to Rome and communicate with people in the Vatican. In fact, all arguments used during the Conclaves or when electing a new Pope or conducting church business between theirselves, Latin is the "Official Language" of the Vatican.

Latin is, of course, the basis for the "Romance" languages which is why they share so many words.

Answer 5

It didn't really "Die" You're kinda.. Sorta.. Speaking it now!

After the Roman Empire fell around 600 Europe kind of shut down socially speaking. Not much travel, small villages and nobody went anywhere. People still spoke Latin, but not a whole lot of literacy.

Well just like in the U.S. where people from Georgia have a very different accent than the people from Maine... And remember "Ebonics." The language started to change... People living in Italy started to speak differently And people in France started to speak differently from them... Probably started as different accents but over a few hundred years it got to the point where they couldn't understand each other. And nobody spoke anything that would be recognized as "Latin"

We call these decendants of Latin the "Romance Languages" Which is a romantic way of saying "Mutant Latin"

English is not a romance language, it had other sources, but a lot of Latin worked its way into English. A suprising amount of English is Latin.

Answer 6

Latin did NOT die out as a spoken language. It is still spoken today. We just call it by different names now--French, Spanish, Italian, Neapolitan, Sicilian, Romanian, Portuguese, Catalan, Provencal, Sardinian, Romansch, Friulian, Ladin. Over time Latin changed into different regional dialects and these regional dialects over times changed enough to become separate languages. Latin did NOT DIE. It is still spoken today by millions and millions of people who speak the languages that Latin changed into.

Answer 7

Of course, latin never died. It evolved, just like English in the US evolved in the years in a different language than UK English.

Of course, nowadays international relations and mass media ensure the language remains quite similar. In case of latin, it started evolving since very early times. If you read a text from the roman Kings times (ex. Erodotus, who lived in the 4th century bc) and compare to an imperial text (Tacitus), you will already find very different language... the rules are similar, but vocabulary and even syntax are at times different. Sentences are much longer, more complex, more build up.

In the same way, after the break-up of the empire and once communications where not anymore kept up, each area in Italy and in the Empire started building its own dialect. All areas of Europe had differentiented dialects, only much later aggregated in regional dialects, then eventually (in the last 2 centuries only) in national languages.

Answer 8

Latin was the official language of the Roman Empire, so it's usage began to dissipate with their downfall. However, every major language is derived from Latin - even English - and it's still the main language in Vatican City. Check out the link below for more history.

Answer 9

it did not die, it evolved.

almost every Phoenician language used today is an adaptation of Latin.

the reason they changed was because they became widespread, and as contact broke, the languages became more and more segregated, and took on their own "slang" and definitions, eventually becoming very different in their own rights.

but they all have roots in the mother language.

this is why many words in certain languages are very similar, or even identical to the same word in other languages.

Answer 10

Well I took Latin for 2 years, and it kind of got scattered into many different languages, it is used in German, English, French, and Spanish, so eventually it probably died off once those languages became more popular