![]() Latin differs from the Germanic counterparts in that an approximation of its ancient form is still employed to some extent liturgically. With regard to the written language, skills in reading or writing Etruscan are all but non-existent, but trained people can understand and write Old English, Old High German and Latin. ![]() Similarly, Old English and Old High German never died, but developed into various forms of modern English and German. Through time Latin underwent both common and divergent changes in phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon and continues today as the native language of hundreds of millions of people, renamed as different Romance languages and dialects (French, Italian, Spanish, Corsican, Asturian, Ladin, etc.). In contrast, Old English, Old High German and Latin never ceased evolving as living languages, nor did they become totally extinct as Etruscan did. This is expressed in the apparent paradox "Latin is a dead language, but Latin never died." A language such as Etruscan, for example, can be said to be both extinct and dead: inscriptions are ill understood even by the most knowledgeable scholars, and the language ceased to be used in any form long ago, so that there have been no speakers, native or non-native, for many centuries. Some degree of misunderstanding can result from designating languages such as Old English and Old High German as extinct, or Latin dead, while ignoring their evolution as a language. Historical languages with living descendants that have undergone significant language change may be considered "extinct", especially in cases where they did not leave a corpus of literature or liturgy that remained in widespread use (see corpus language), as is the case with Old English or Old High German relative to their contemporary descendants, English and German. The most prominent Western example of such a language is Latin, but comparable cases are found throughout world history due to the universal tendency to retain an historical stage of a language as the liturgical language. Such languages are sometimes also referred to as "dead languages", but more typically as classical languages. In contrast to an extinct language, which no longer has any speakers, or any written use, an historical language may remain in use as a literary or liturgical language long after it ceases to be spoken natively. For example, many Native American languages were replaced by English, French, Portuguese, Spanish or Dutch as a result of European colonization of the Americas. Normally the transition from a spoken to an extinct language occurs when a language undergoes language death by being directly replaced by a different one. According to the sisters, their grandmother had insisted that Yuchi be their native language. Sisters Maxine Wildcat Barnett (1925–2021) (left) and Josephine Wildcat Bigler (1921–2016) two of the last elderly speakers of Yuchi, visiting their grandmother's grave in a cemetery behind Pickett Chapel in Sapulpa, Oklahoma. Most of these are minor languages in danger of extinction one estimate published in 2004 expected that some 90% of the currently spoken languages will have become extinct by 2050. Īs of the 2000s, a total of roughly 7,000 natively spoken languages existed worldwide. In the modern period, languages have typically become extinct as a result of the process of cultural assimilation leading to language shift, and the gradual abandonment of a native language in favour of a foreign lingua franca, largely those of European countries. Languages that currently have living native speakers are sometimes called modern languages to contrast them with dead languages, especially in educational contexts. These languages are often undergoing a process of revitalisation. A dormant language is a dead language that still serves as a symbol of ethnic identity to a particular group. ![]() In contrast, a dead language is one that is no longer the native language of any community, even if it is still in use, like Latin. Eteocypriot writing, Amathous, Cyprus, 500–300 BC, Ashmolean Museum.Īn extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers, especially if the language has no living descendants.
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