Latin

Latin
lingua latīna
Latin inscription, in the Colosseum
Pronunciation	[laˈtiːna]
Native to	Latium Roman Kingdom / Republic / Empire Early modern Europe Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia (lingua franca) Vatican City
Ethnicity	Latins
Era	Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, 6th to 9th centuries; the formal language continued as the scholarly lingua franca of Catholic countries and medieval Europe and as the liturgical language of the Catholic Church.
Language family	Indo-European Italic Latino-Faliscan Latin
Writing system	Latin alphabet
Official status
Official language in	Holy See
Regulated by	Antiquity: Roman schools of grammar/rhetoric[1] Today: Pontifical Academy for Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-1	la
ISO 639-2	lat
ISO 639-3	lat
Glottolog	impe1234 lati1261
Linguasphere	51-AAB-aa to 51-AAB-ac
Map indicating the greatest extent of the Roman Empire under Emperor Trojan (c. 117 AD) and the area governed by Latin speakers (dark red). Many languages other than Latin were spoken within the empire.
Range of the Romance languages, the modern descendants of Latin, in Europe.
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Latin is an Italic language that was developed in Ancient Rome. Short Latin texts have been found from about the 5th century BC and longer texts from about the 3rd century BC.

Classical Latin was used in the 1st century BC and was the official language of the Roman Empire. It was widely used in the western part of the Mediterranean. The Romance languages developed from its spoken informal version, called Vulgar Latin.

Latin was important to Christianity for many centuries. It is still spoken today during some religious activities. It is an official language in the Vatican, where the Pope leads the Roman Catholic Church.^[2] People in the Vatican sometimes speak to one another in Latin if they have different first languages. The Mass of the Catholic Church is often done entirely in Latin. It is called is the Mass of the Roman Rite (Extraordinary Form).

1. ↑ "Schools". Britannica (1911 ed.).
2. ↑ "AskGeo - Vatican City". Archived from the original on 2009-02-25. Retrieved 2009-03-04.