What and when was the last major city or region to speak Latin?

by Novantico

I don't know if it would otherwise count as the official language is Italian, but just in case, I don't count Vatican City.

Edit: So a couple people think I should be more specific, and there have been fair points raised with regards to that. So I'll add:

  1. I'm talking about Vulgar Latin - I'm not too concerned with whether or not someone gives me an example of a regional version of it, as long as it's not totally foreign to "standard" (i.e. Italian Peninsula and nearby area I suppose) Vulgar.

  2. It has to be spoken by a significant portion of the population of an area, whether that be a solidly populated town, a city, territory/region/state, doesn't really matter too

  3. and the most important point, I think - I understand language is fluid, and it was foolish of me to not try to set some arbitrary criteria ahead of time. When Beowulf was used as an example of still being English, it helped me decide on how I'd like the answer to be: It has to be around (before) the point at which Vulgar Latin speaker from say, the Italian peninsula would have some real difficulty understanding it. Sort of like 1500s English to now, if that's a decent enough example.

koredozo

Languages exist on a continuum of continuous evolution. They "stop" being the language they evolved from only due to a subjective academic consensus.

Say that you were to bring a learned Anglo-Saxon scholar from the 9th century or so and ask him "What and when was the last major city or region to speak English?," giving him all the time he needs to accustom himself to the modern world, catch up and answer that question. He might say England itself, in 1066 prior to the Norman Conquest. He might say it's still spoken today in England, North America and Australia. He might say it's still spoken today - but only in Germany!

The main point here is that 9th century English and modern English have very little in common, as you can read Beowulf in the original to see - the former is a purely Germanic language, the latter is strongly influenced by Norman French and has diverged from other Germanic languages to a far greater extent than languages such as Dutch. Yet both are considered English. At what point can one say modern English stopped being the same "English" that Beowulf is written in, if it ever did?

In Spain around the 15th century, the term "Ladino" meant "the formal, literary Spanish language" (nowadays it often refers to Judaeo-Spanish, which is a complicated hornets' nest of incorrect usage I'd rather not get into.) In the mountains of Tyrol, there's a local language still known as "Ladin," most closely related to the Romansh spoken in Switzerland.

What makes these two languages not "Latin," when the speakers of them considered them to be such, at least in name? Again, an arguable conclusion, given that the term "Latin" often came to simply describe language itself in formerly Roman regions, and I've no doubt people would have recognized the differences between classical Latin and the local vernacular. But I hope I've illustrated why this question is... questionable.