Ecclesiastical Latin

Ecclesiastical Latin
Church Latin
Liturgical Latin
Native to	Never spoken as a native language; other uses vary widely by period and location
Extinct	Still used for many purposes, mostly as liturgical language of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.
Language family	Indo-European Italic Latino-Faliscan Latin Ecclesiastical Latin
Writing system	Latin
Official status
Official language in	Holy See
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None
The spread of Christianity to 600 AD — the dark pockets represent initial enclaves
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Ecclesiastical Latin (also called Liturgical Latin or Church Latin) is the form of the Latin language used in the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church for liturgical and other purposes. It is distinguished from Classical Latin by some lexical variations, a simplified syntax and Italianate pronunciation.

The Ecclesiastical Latin used in theological works, liturgical rites and dogmatic proclamations varies in style: syntactically simple in the Vulgate Bible, hieratic in the Roman Canon of the Mass, terse and technical in Aquinas' Summa Theologica, and Ciceronian in Pope John Paul II's encyclical letter Fides et Ratio. Ecclesiastical Latin is the official language of the Holy See and the only surviving sociolect of spoken Latin.

The Church issued the dogmatic definitions of the first seven General Councils in Greek, and even in Rome Greek remained at first the language of the liturgy and the language in which the first Popes wrote. During the Late Republic and Early Empire periods, educated Roman citizens were generally fluent in Greek, although state business was conducted in Latin.

The Holy See has no obligation to use Latin as its official language and, in theory, could change its practice. As Latin is no longer in common use, the meaning of words is less likely to change radically from century to century. Since Latin is spoken as a native language by no modern community, the language is considered a universal, internally consistent means of communication without regional bias.