Latin
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Lingua Latina "lingua mortua" est qua in Roma prisca locutum est. Linguae vivae multae, insigniter Italiana, Gallica, Hispanica, Lusitana, Catalana, Sarda et Rhaetica, ortae ab Latina sunt. Quod? Anglica? O, certe.
Latin is a "dead language" that was used in ancient Rome. Many modern living languages are descended from Latin, notably Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Sardinian and Romanian. And even though English isn't descended from Latin, it has a considerable number of Latin loanwords in it, either coming from it directly, or via French. People often use Latinisms to sound clever.
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[edit] Roman Catholics
Until recently, Roman Catholic Masses were performed in Latin, in order to keep the communicants ignorant of what was being said, and to maintain the beauty, tradition and pageantry of the spectacle. A Latin document effectively helped priests to carry on abusing children, see Crimen Sollicitationis. In Latin it did not look quite so evil and unauthorised people coming across the document would possibly not understand it.
[edit] Law logic and universities
Many Latin phrases are used in law and logic, these phrases are usually italicised to indicate their foreign origin. Many university mottoes are in Latin and some fancy schmancy universities like Harvard print their diplomas in Latin. This is probably for historical reasons; the Roman Empire encompassed a great portion of Europe, which then led to the Roman Catholics having full rule of all civilized Europe, which then led to most, if not all, intellectual writing in the Renaissance and the Enlightenment being in Latin, which then led to Latin education and remnants of Latin as the results of the Renaissance and Enlightenment. It could just be because using Latin means that many of those mottoes and diplomas include the word "ars", which is good for a giggle.
[edit] Scientific names
Latin is also used, along with Greek, for the roots of scientific names for genera and species of living things.
[edit] Latin America
Contrary to rumor, neither Dan Quayle nor George W. Bush ever expressed a desire to learn Latin for an upcoming trip to Latin America.
[edit] Dog Latin
In case you want to say something in Latin but don't know how, use the {{Dog latin}} template.