A language is called a dead language when it is no longer spoken by people as their main language. In contrast to extinct languages that cease to have any speakers, dead languages may continue to be used in legal, scientific and religious fields. Besides Latin, Sanskrit, Biblical Hebrew, Coptic, Avestan and Old Church Slavonic among others are dead languages which are largely used for religious functions.
An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers or that is no longer in current use. Extinct languages are sometimes contrasted with dead languages, which are still known and used in special contexts in written form, but not as ordinary spoken languages for everyday communication. However, language extinction and language death are often equated.
Institutions such as the education system, as well as different forms of media such as the Internet, television, and print media play a significant role in the process of language loss. For example, immigrants from one country come to another, their kids go to school in the country, and the schools may teach them in the language in the official language of the country rather than their native language.
Latin is an ancient Indo-European language that was the language of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. The conquests of the Roman Empire spread the Latin language all around the Mediterranean and the large part of Europe in both its forms: the poet’s Classical and the people’s Vulgar.
After living and developing over the course of at least 2,200 years, Latin language began its slow death around the 1600s. By the 1500s, it was hardly modified; by the 1700s, it was hardly spoken; and in the 2000s, it is hardly remembered except by scholars. But Vulgar Latin never died: rather, after the fall of the Roman Empire it split into several regional dialects, which by the 800s had become the ancestors of today’s Romance languages. These languages were primarily influenced by Roman culture and include French, Spanish, Romanian, Portuguese and Italian languages. Thereafter Latin retained its use as a church language and stopped being used as an everyday language but the Latin alphabet still remains the most widely used in the world. In addition, English derives 60% of its words from Latin: largely indirectly through French, but partly through direct borrowings made especially during the 1600s in England.
What are aspects associated with professional translators?