What do they mean when they say that Latin isnt a spoken language? How is it just a written language?

Question

!!!And no stupid answers I need some serious answers here!!!

Answer 1

"They" mean that there are no longer any cultures that speak latin in everyday life. However, since the Romans were so prolific at writing down their language and grammar rules, we still have the ability to speak/write it should we need to do so.

Incidentally, there are some Catholic churches where you can hear mass said in latin. It's pretty cool....

Answer 2

As some people said it before Latin is not spoken anymore by people as native language. Latin was the official language of the Roman Empire and because it expanded so much, that it lost its unity. So other languages such as French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, etc appeared; all of them derived from Latin. That's why Latin became a written language, specifically all the scientific names of animals and plants or some principles derived from Roman Law are in Latin. However, Ecclesiastical Latin is one the official languages of the Vatican State (the other is Italian).

Answer 3

Latin is no longer used as a practical SPOKEN language, however, a good portion of the languages that are currently spoken are based on it. I was told by a college Professor that if one could learn to speak Latin, (which he did), that person could literally speak any language with ease. He spoke 12 languages I believe, fluently.

Answer 4

Having grown up Catholic, I can assure you that Latin **is** a spoken language. I think people say it's a written language because you can usually tell what word it is just by looking at it. Learn Latin, and you've learned English, Spanish, French, and Italian too.

Answer 5

Greece speaks Greek--modern Greek. And while that is different from ancient Greek, the language of Socrates and Sophocles, modern Greek is an evolved descendant of the ancient form. Ancient Romans spoke Latin but their modern descendants speak Italian. French and Spanish have a relation to ancient Latin----again, much evolved descendants of it. Latin was the common language of the educated part of medieval Europe, and until recent decades it was the language of the Catholic Mass. And so we have the Latin of Seneca, Ovid, Lucretius, Caesar, once spoken by actual people, but now silenced as speech. But its linguistic glory remains in the great texts. "The glory that was Greece/ And the grandeur that was Rome" (Edgar Allan Poe).

Answer 6

Latin is used by pharmacy and doctors so no one but them can copy a presciption and Latin was used for a universal language in the middle ages and a sign of being of noble decent or having an education.
but it is a dead language now no speaks it anymore (on normal terms) but most of the European languages like German and English come down from Latin

Answer 7

No one speaks Latin as a native language anymore. Thus it is a "dead" language - not changing as invariably happens when people speak a language. This makes it very handy in science, where we don't want a language to change.

Answer 8

Latin is a DEAD language. It isn't used as an official language anymore, but, it is still used, especially in classical music for it's beautiful flow of sounds.

Answer 9

It's both written and spoken; it's just not spoken anymore as an everyday language. And no, I don't know how to speak or write it.

Answer 10

I have no idea but I'll take a shot at it. When they say isn't spoken could the possibly mean body translation? I don't know. Latin's speak with their hands and maybe that's what (they, who ever they are) are referring to.