Poll results for question: Will Latin be revived as a spoken language?

Wednesday, November 03, 2010

It's time to take the poll down on the right on the revival of Latin so here are the results for posterity. The question was as follows:

Reader poll: Will Latin be revived as a spoken language? (Quick definition: revived = at least 25 people speak it more than any other language on a daily basis)
And the results were more interesting than I thought they would be. I had expected that somewhere around a third to half would agree that Latin would be revived as a spoken language within 50 years, but the vast majority said that it never would:

  • Yes, within the next 10 years -- 4 (3%)
  • Yes, within the next 10 - 25 years -- 7 (6%)
  • Yes, within the next 25 - 50 years 1 (0%)
  • No, it will not / probably not be revived as a spoken language -- 94 (87%)
  • Other -- 1 (0%)

Total votes: 107


I didn't vote (I never vote on my own polls), but if I did I would have chosen the first or second option. Given the extremely wide but quite shallow support for Latin (same as an IAL) the only thing the Latin revivalist community needs to do to make this happen is to decide on a place to focus on, a town or section of a city that could benefit from the extra tourism dollars a change to a Latin-themed community would bring. Looking for a local government that would be willing to approve something like this would be best as with that they could start making use of the basic strategies all languages need to be revived: daily reminders of its presence such as road signs, menus, and so on. Basically something like this (Wallsend Metro Station), but on a much larger scale:


I would recommend a community inside a larger city, as the larger the city the easier it is for those interested in using and promoting the language to move there and work, giving them the opportunity to stay there in the long term. A small town wouldn't suffice as it would simply serve as a short-term pilgrimage-type location, where those that visit it spend all their money and have to leave to return to real life after the trip is over.

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