Latin
Latin was historically the language of the Roman Empire, but spread through Europe and beyond, thanks partially to its role in the Roman Catholic Church and in higher register.
Feature films and broadcasting have been conducted in Latin. Two notable examples include 1976's Sebastiane by Derek Jarman and Paul Humfress, and Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (which also contains long sections in Aramaic.) Harry Potter has even been translated into Latin and ancient Greek.
Somewhat like Sanskrit, Hebrew, Maori and Manx, Latin has never been entirely out of view, and has always had some speakers, but a lack of native speakers.
Read more about this topic: List Of Revived Languages
Famous quotes containing the word latin:
“OUR Latin books in motly row,
Invite us to our task—
Gay Horace, stately Cicero:
Yet there’s one verb, when once we know,
No higher skill we ask:
This ranks all other lore above—
We’ve learned “’Amare’ means ‘to love’!””
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“But these young scholars, who invade our hills,
Bold as the engineer who fells the wood,
And travelling often in the cut he makes,
Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not
And all their botany is Latin names.
The old men studied magic in the flowers.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. There are no reliable words.... Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and, above all, against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)