A dead language?

Latin is a dead language.
As dead as dead can be.
It killed off all the Romans,
And now it's killing me!

This schoolboy ditty could conceivably be titled The Refrain of the Juvenile Classicist.

But is Latin really a dead language?

The (mature) classicist Peter Jones writes the "Ancient and Modern" column in The Spectator. Here's his take on the matter.