Is Latin spoken as a language nowadays?

Question

If so, where? And by whom?

... Or is it an ancient language?

In what situations is Latin spoken, besides the Church, or in naming new species?

What is the 'use' of learning to speak Latin in today's world, for the average person?

Answer 1

Latin can be heard at the Vatican or on Nunctii Latini.

The philosopher Anthony Kenny in his autobiography says that when he was at the Gregorian University in Rome in the 1950s, the young priests were taught in Latin - spoken Latin. In Elizabethan times - four hundred years ago - Latin was still the language of diplomacy, and thus still widely spoken by the educated. Slowly it retreated to being a written language, although fifty years ago at Oxford and Cambridge you were expected to have sufficient Latin to write your thesis - or, theoretically, to follow a lecture. This was a compulsory entrance requirement.

Some clergymen still use Latin as a means of comunication (especially at the Vatican) but their ability varies enormously. It was the official spoken language of the Second Vatican Council (1960s). Go to http://avitus.alcuinus.net/schola_latina/info1_en.php for the Vatican Latin distance learning course (the printed course books are in French and Italian).

Latin continues to be written, particularly prefaces to classical texts (the Oxford Classical Texts series, The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia come to mind). And the official texts of Vatican encyclicals are still I believe in Latin.

But these are small things. To me, the thing that shows above all other that Latin is more or less dead as a creative language is that there is no Latin-Latin dictionary in print: even the Vatican dictionary mentioned by another speaker is Italian-Latin. (There is one huge Latin-Latin dictionary, the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, but it was started in 1900 when Latin was still used academically, and even if you could find a copy of each of the nine volumes printed so far, which would cost you several thousand pounds, there are still another five yet to be published!).

The use of speaking Latin today is to allow someone wanting read Latin to have a more profound and intimate understanding of the language. If you don't want to read Latin then I must admit I can't think of any use for it at all, except for showing off!

Answer 2

Latin is the official language of the Vatican State and the Catholic Church.
It is easily understandable that an organization like that needs a common language, and Latin is spoken among the different nationalities in the hierarchy.
They publish a revised dictionary of the Church Latin every so often, the last one only 3 years ago.

Answer 3

Latin is an ancient language and is definitely spoken by people today, however, it is no one's native language; any speakers going have learned it as a second language later on in life. The Classics Dept of the university of Kentucky is at the forefront of keeping the tradition of latin as a spoken language alive. On the Catholic side of things there is the Familia Sancti Hieronymi and Rome's famous Fr Reginald Foster (originally from Milwaukee). It is also said that Cardinal Grocholevski (sp?) can speak Latin better than his native Polish. Finnish Radio regularly broadcasts news bulletins in Latin.

Uses of SPOKEN Latin for 'average' person = not much. If you are really into it though, you can get great mileage out of communicating in Latin at international gatherings of scholars or enthusiasts with everyone on an equal footing i.e. it's no one's native tongue so everyone is learner in some respect. Compare that to unfair advantage native English speakers have in international settings. The Esperanto lobby would of course say that they have a simpler solution to that difficulty than a complex ancient language like Latin.

Answer 4

Latin is considered to be a "dead" language. It's used mainly for the purposes you've stated, and is mainly a written language now, hardly spoken at all. As a matter of fact, among scholars who use it, there are disputes of how many of the words of the language should be pronounced (of course the same is true for English).

About the only people who speak the language are scholars, scientists, historians, and linguists. The use of learning Latin today would be only as a linguistic study, many of the words we use every day in English (and most other European languages) come from Latin.

My daughter is a teacher who works in a Christian school and teaches Latin. But they do it so the children can learn to read the bible in the original text.

Answer 5

Latin is a "dead" langauge, but not so much as one would think. Latin has left a legacy and is the common ancestor of many Romance langauges. For example, Portugese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Romainian, and French are just a few that share characteristics found in Latin. Learning Latin can help one learn these languages that are not only important in the European Union, but all over the world (especially in the Americas, Africa, and even a few locations in Asia).

Latin may only be spoken at the Vatican and other members of the Catholic Church, but her children langauges are spoken world wide by millions.

Answer 6

It isn't spoken as a language any more, but it's valuable because of its contributions to other languages that are still spoken and because it is an important link in etymology. French, Spanish, Portugese, Italian, Romanian and others are directly derived from Latin, but many other languages- English included- have a lot of Latin-derived words. That makes Latin somewhat of an international language- especially in science. The average person- with some knowledge of Latin- can understand medical, legal and scientific terms better.

Answer 7

There is nobody today who speaks Latin as a native language. I have heard of conferences where the people in attendance speak entirely in Latin, but that's pretty much for fun. The point of learning Latin today is that it helps you to learn where many words in English came from. You've already mentioned species names but there are many more. Also, it helps you to get a general understanding of how language works, which you can then use to analyze any language.

Answer 8

It's spoken all the time by scientists.
They also use it in movies sometimes, like Life of Brian, or that one Black Adder movie where he goes back in time.
In science Latin is spoken, for almost anything you can think of. Even in English, a lot of our words are derivatives of Latin.
If the average person were to learn Latin, they would find they could learn a lot of other languages derived from Latin. They could also name a new species, if they had such a desire to. They could also talk about people and no one would know.
The possibilities are endless.

Answer 9

It is known as a "dead" language, in that it is no longer spoken.

It is used in some religious circumstances, and it is used in the sciences (including medicine).

It is useful to learn to speak Latin if you are interested in ancient history, classical studies, etc. because you can then read original texts rather than translations (same can be said for Greek, Hebrew, etc.)

It is also useful if one is going into medicine or the sciences.

Answer 10

I have come across instances where spoken Latin proved useful, such as the time when a traveller was lost in a country where he didn't know the language and was able to ask his way from the local priest. I remember one evening when a group of us spoke Latin as our lingua franca, it being the only one which all of us knew. It was one of the most hilarious evenings ever! It used to be essential for lawyers to know Latin and indeed, even now there many Latin expressions are used in the courtrooms of Europe. It is invaluable when one is studying a Romance language in depth, as to go back to the roots of French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese (and probably Roumanian) means taking a journey back to the time when Vulgar Latin was metamorphosising into those languages. It is also a valuable tool for acquiring a rich vocabulary in English.

It is, in a sense, spoken today, inasmuch as all the Romance languages could be described as modern Latin dialects. The language which has remained closest to Latin is Italian. If you know Latin, then you are close to knowing Italian.

There is a radio station in Finland which broadcasts the news in Latin each week. Nuntii Latini - News in Latin - is a weekly review of world news in Classical Latin, the only international broadcast of its kind in the world, produced by YLE, the Finnish Broadcasting Company.

Nuntii Latini is heard around the world on short or medium wave and via satellite on Radio Finland, the external service of the company. Nuntii Latini is now also available on the Internet, on RealAudio, at http://www.yleradio1.fi/nuntii. In Finland it is broadcast on the national FM network YLE Radio 1.

Launched in September 1989 by producer Hannu Taanila at the Finnish Broadcasting Company, Nuntii Latini is edited by Professor Emeritus Tuomo Pekkanen and Docent Reijo Pitkäranta of Helsinki University. For thirteen years they have taken it in turns to put together the five-minute weekly bulletin, which consists of the main international news headlines of the week and includes Finnish news of international interest, and arts, science and sports topics as appropriate.