Latin -Lingua Latina-

Latin : a dead language ? Only because no child has it as his mother tongue any more. But it's not as dead as one might think. It's still taught in classes, and some are trying to revive it : for example, here's a neo-latin lexicon. Latin is being to adapted to the modern world.

Alphabet : for English speakers (or a French like me), it isn't difficult to decipher, as the letters have the same shape if not exactly the same sound. With its 26 letters, it's the most widely used alphabetic writing system today.

Grammar : the declensions are what people think is most difficult to learn. That's a completly wrong idea. Latin has 6 cases (Nominative, Vocative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, Ablative) - or 7 if you count Locative which is only used for a few words (humi, domi, ruri, and some cities' names [first and second declensions only] : Romae, Cretae, Lugduni...), and 5 declension groups (but that didn't prevent Roman babies from learning the language).
To learn them, I do not advise a complete grammatical approach. A method like Lingua Latina or Assimil is far better, but a Latin grammar book can help a lot and remains essential.

Reading : Once you've got the basics, you can read easy books. The main problem is that there aren't many children books in latin. But Harrius Potter et philosophi lapis or Regulus are a good choice. I've heard S. Aurelii Augustini is easy to understand. I've only started it yesterday, and so far I've understood everything - or almost. *winks*
Ah, look at what I found : easy latin reading. Click !
The latin library provides a lot of reading materials.

Speaking (little words) :
obiter = by the way
extemplo = at once

Various links :
=>The Textkit website is excellent : it proposes a very good forum, e-books, and much more.
=> Ephemeris is an online newspaper (in latin, of course!)
=> Vicipaedia latina : sunt 4,883 articuli.
=> The world of live latin : listen to live latin. Just discovered the site today. Latin's quite alive - more alive than Sumerian, any way.
=> Again a site for Latin ears : in viva voce, you can listen to recited poetry.
=> Test your vocabulary
=> Brief overview of the evolution of latin characters with animated gif here.