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Author: Topazan

Apr 2nd 2012 at 9:11:16 PM

@TBeholder  - I don't know anything about Greek, ancient or modern, but I would be very surprised if modern Greek was still mutually comprehensible with ancient Greek after milennia of linguistic drift.  Again, to quote the wikipedia article:
-->Thus classical languages tend to be either dead languages, or show a high degree of diglossia, as the spoken varieties of the language diverge further and further away from the classical written language over centuries.

I still think ClassicalLanguage fits best:

- A dead/(mostly) forgotten language.  - Check.  See above.

- One that's spoken by the elite/educated/etc - Check.  Languages with a rich body of ancient literature tend to be held in high regard by the educated.  All of Edward Sapir's real life examples in the wikipedia article qualify in their regions.

- A language that isn't known/used by the common man. - Check.  Again, see above.

- The language may also be some kind of holy language spoken by those in a religious order, which makes the comparison to Latin all the more obvious. - Check.  Latin, Greek, Classical Chinese, Arabic, and Sanskrit are all liturgical languages.

By the way, SmartPeopleKnowLatin might be related.