Would Latin be an "alive(?)" language?

[Montie_Claunch]

I was just wondering. Because the Church uses latin all the time. epecially in the Vatican city, wouldn’t that mean that Latin is not a dead lanuage, becuase a country has it as its officail lanuage?

 

[AnAtheist]

tam beata est, eam etiam vivam esse cupio

The problem with Latin is, one learns it by written translations only and not by speaking and listening. And that is a shame. It is such a beautiful language.

 

[DavidFilmer]

Montie Claunch:

Because the Church uses Latin all the time. epecially in the Vatican city, wouldn’t that mean that Latin is not a dead lanuage, becuase a country has it as its officail lanuage?

Although Vatican City is a sovereign state, it is not a “country” in the ordinary sense of the word. There are few (if any) “regular households” (families). It is comprised of folks from all over the globe - but nobody who lives there speaks Latin as a first language - it is only used among people who share no other common language. Latin does not naturally change, develop, or grow (as do “living” languages such as English or German).

I do not know of anyone on earth for whom Latin is their first language.

 

[Nekic]

DavidFilmer:

I do not know of anyone on earth for whom Latin is their first language.

That is because none exist. Latin is classified as a dead language because of two reasons:
(1) It no longer naturally evolves (as stated above), and
(2) No-one speaks it as a native language. It is always learned on top of someones native language.

You know what…
If i ever end up having children, i will teach my firstborn to speak latin first, instead of english, just to make things complicated, and just to get rid of one of the hurdles. I will limit his/her exposure to english… ohhh, it will be fun…