Latin

Lingva latina

Indo-European > Italic > Latino-Faliscan

Spoken by: Dead language according to

Official in: The Holy See

Spoken primarily in: Catholic churches and university institutions for classic studies

Latin was the language of Latium, a small area surrounding the city of Rome, before it was spread with the Roman Empire to big parts of southern Europe, and later developed into what would be called the Romance languages, including Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, French, Italian and Romanian. Latin continued, even after having developed in the new Romance language, to be used by the Catholic church, and was also used as the scientific language in most of Europe far into the 18th century. The scientific names for flowers and animals are still in Latin, and much new terminology in scientific fields are based on Latin.