Extinct language

For the process of language extinction, see Language death.

"Dead language" redirects here. For the album by The Flatliners, see Dead Language (album).

Eteocypriot writing, Amathous, Cyprus, 500–300 BC, Ashmolean Museum

An extinct language is a language with no living descendants that no longer has any first-language or second-language speakers.^[1][2] In contrast, a dead language is a language that no longer has any first-language speakers, but does have second-language speakers or is used fluently in written form, such as Latin.^[3] A dormant language is a dead language that still serves as a symbol of ethnic identity to an ethnic group; these languages are often undergoing a process of revitalisation.^[4] Languages that have first-language speakers are known as modern or living languages to contrast them with dead languages, especially in educational contexts.

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 favor of a foreign lingua franca, largely those of European countries.^[5][6][7]

As of the 2000s, a total of roughly 7,000 natively spoken languages existed worldwide. 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.^[8]

Language death

Main article: Language death

Sisters Maxine Wildcat Barnett (1925–2021) (left) and Josephine Wildcat Bigler (1921–2016);^[9] two of the last elderly speakers of Yuchi, visiting their grandmother's grave in a cemetery behind Pickett Chapel in Sapulpa, Oklahoma. According to the sisters, their grandmother had insisted that Yuchi be their native language.

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. For example, many Native American languages were replaced by Dutch, English, French, Portuguese, or Spanish as a result of European colonization of the Americas.^[10]

In contrast to an extinct language, which no longer has any speakers, or any written use, a historical language may remain in use as a literary or liturgical language long after it ceases to be spoken natively. Such languages are sometimes also referred to as "dead languages", but more typically as classical languages. The most prominent Western example of such a language is Latin, and comparable cases are found throughout world history due to the universal tendency to retain a historical stage of a language as the liturgical language.^{[citation needed]}

In a view that prioritizes written representation over natural language acquisition and evolution, 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.^[11]

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 or as many languages. 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. In contrast, Old English, Old High German and Latin never ceased evolving as living languages, thus they did not become extinct as Etruscan did. 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.). Similarly, Old English and Old High German never died, but developed into various forms of modern English and German, as well as other related tongues still spoken (e.g. Scots from Old English and Yiddish from Old High German). 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. Latin differs from the Germanic counterparts in that an approximation of its ancient form is still employed to some extent liturgically. This last observation illustrates that for Latin, Old English, or Old High German to be described accurately as dead or extinct, the language in question must be conceptualized as frozen in time at a particular state of its history. This is accomplished by periodizing English and German as Old; for Latin, an apt clarifying adjective is Classical, which also normally includes designation of high or formal register.^[12]

Bilingual Latin–Punic inscription at the theatre in Leptis Magna in present-day Libya

Minor languages are endangered mostly due to economic and cultural globalization, cultural assimilation, and development. With increasing economic integration on national and regional scales, people find it easier to communicate and conduct business in the dominant lingua francas of world commerce: English, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, and French.^[13]

In their study of contact-induced language change, American linguists Sarah Grey Thomason and Terrence Kaufman (1991) stated that in situations of cultural pressure (where populations are forced to speak a dominant language), three linguistic outcomes may occur: first – and most commonly – a subordinate population may shift abruptly to the dominant language, leaving the native language to a sudden linguistic death. Second, the more gradual process of language death may occur over several generations. The third and most rare outcome is for the pressured group to maintain as much of its native language as possible, while borrowing elements of the dominant language's grammar (replacing all, or portions of, the grammar of the original language).^[14] A now disappeared language may leave a substantial trace as a substrate in the language that replaces it. There have, however, also been cases where the language of higher prestige did not displace the native language but left a superstrate influence. The French language for example shows evidence both of a Celtic substrate and a Frankish superstrate.

Institutions such as the education system, as well as (often global) forms of media such as the Internet, television, and print media play a significant role in the process of language loss.^[13] For example, when people migrate to a new country, their children attend school in the country, and the schools are likely to teach them in the majority language of the country rather than their parents' native language.^[15][16]

Language death can also be the explicit goal of government policy. For example, part of the "kill the Indian, save the man" policy of American Indian boarding schools and other measures was to prevent Native Americans from transmitting their native language to the next generation and to punish children who spoke the language of their culture of origin.^[17][18][19] The French vergonha policy likewise had the aim of eradicating minority languages.^[20]

Language revival

Main article: Language revitalization

Language revival is the attempt to re-introduce an extinct language in everyday use by a new generation of native speakers. The optimistic neologism "sleeping beauty languages" has been used to express such a hope,^[21] though scholars usually refer to such languages as dormant.

In practice, this has only happened on a large scale successfully once: the revival of the Hebrew language. Hebrew had survived for millennia since the Babylonian exile as a liturgical language, but not as a vernacular language. The revival of Hebrew has been largely successful due to extraordinarily favourable conditions, notably the creation of a nation state (modern Israel in 1948) in which it became the official language, as well as Eliezer Ben-Yehuda's extreme dedication to the revival of the language, by creating new words for the modern terms Hebrew lacked.

Revival attempts for minor extinct languages with no status as a liturgical language typically have more modest results. The Cornish language revival has proven at least partially successful: after a century of effort there are 3,500 claimed native speakers, enough for UNESCO to change its classification from "extinct" to "critically endangered". A Livonian language revival movement to promote the use of the Livonian language has managed to train a few hundred people to have some knowledge of it.^[22]

Recently extinct languages

Main article: List of languages by time of extinction

This is a list of languages reported as having become extinct since 2010. For a more complete list, see Lists of extinct languages.

Date	Language	Language family	Region	Terminal speaker	Notes
by 2024	Tandia	Austronesian	West Papua, Indonesia		Speakers shifted to Wandamen.[23][24]
by 2024	Mawes	Northwest Papuan?	West Papua, Indonesia		[24]
by 2024	Luhu	Austronesian	Maluku, Indonesia		[24]
2 May 2023	Columbia-Moses	Salishan	Washington (state), United States	Pauline Stensgar[25]
5 October 2022	Mednyj Aleut	Mixed Aleut–Russian	Commander Islands, Russia	Gennady Yakovlev[26]
16 February 2022	Yahgan	Isolate	Magallanes, Chile	Cristina Calderón[27]
2022 AD	Moghol	Mongolic	Herat Province		[28]
by 2022 AD	Lachoudisch	Indo-European	Schopfloch, Bavaria		[29]
25 September 2021	Wukchumni dialect of Tule-Kaweah Yokuts	Yokuts	California, United States	Marie Wilcox[30]
27 August 2021	Yuchi	Isolate	Tennessee (formerly), Oklahoma, United States	Maxine Wildcat Barnett[31]
7 March 2021	Bering Aleut	Eskimo-Aleut	Kamchatka Krai, Russia	Vera Timoshenko[32]
2 February 2021	Juma	Tupian	Rondônia, Brazil	Aruka Juma[33]
2 December 2020	Tuscarora	Iroquoian	North Carolina, United States	Kenneth Patterson[34]
4 April 2020	Aka-Cari	Great Andamanese	Andaman Islands, India	Licho[35]
23 March 2019	Ngandi	Gunwinyguan	Northern Territory, Australia	C. W. Daniels[36][37]
4 January 2019	Tehuelche	Chonan	Patagonia, Argentina	Dora Manchado[38][39]
9 December 2016	Mandan	Siouan	North Dakota, United States	Edwin Benson[40]
30 August 2016	Wichita	Caddoan	Oklahoma, United States	Doris McLemore[41]
29 July 2016	Gugu Thaypan	Pama-Nyungan	Queensland, Australia	Tommy George[42]
11 February 2016	Nuchatlaht dialect of Nuu-chah-nulth	Wakashan	British Columbia, Canada	Alban Michael[43]
4 January 2016	Whulshootseed	Salishan	Washington, United States	Ellen Williams[44][45]
4 February 2014	Klallam	Salishan	Washington, United States	Hazel Sampson[46][47][notes 1]
By 2014	Demushbo	Panoan	Amazon Basin, Brazil
By 2014	Sarghulami	Indo-European	Badakhshan		[48]
5 June 2013	Livonian	Uralic	Latvia	Grizelda Kristiņa[49][notes 2]	Under a process of revival.[50]
26 March 2013	Yurok	Algic	California, United States	Archie Thompson[51]	Under a process of revival.[52]
By 2013	Sabüm	Mon–Khmer	Perak, Malaysia		2013 extinction is based on ISO changing it from living to extinct in 2013
2 October 2012	Cromarty dialect of Scots	Indo-European	Northern Scotland, United Kingdom	Bobby Hogg[53]
11 July 2012	Upper Chinook	Chinookan	Oregon, United States	Gladys Thompson[54]
10 March 2012	Holikachuk	Na-Dene	Alaska, United States	Wilson "Tiny" Deacon[55]
c. 2012	Dhungaloo	Pama-Nyungan	Queensland, Australia	Roy Hatfield[56]
c. 2012	Ngasa	Nilotic	Tanzania		Most speakers have shifted to Chaga
by 2012	Mardijker	Portuguese-based Creole	Jakarta, Indonesia	Oma Mimi Abrahams[57]
10 April 2011	Apiaká	Tupian	Mato Grosso, Brazil	Pedrinho Kamassuri[58]
2011	Lower Arrernte	Pama-Nyungan	Northern Territory, Australia	Brownie Doolan Perrurle[59]
by 2011	Anserma	Chocoan	Antioquia Department, Colombia
24 October 2010	Pazeh	Austronesian	Taiwan	Pan Jin-yu[60]
20 August 2010	Cochin Indo-Portuguese Creole	Portuguese-based Creole	Southern India	William Rozario[60]
26 January 2010	Aka-Bo	Andamanese	Andaman Islands, India	Boa Sr.[61]

See also

• Category:Extinct languages
• Endangered language
• Globalization
• Language attrition
• Language death
• Language revival
• Language teaching
• Lists of extinct languages
• Lists of endangered languages
• List of modern literature translated into dead languages
• List of revived languages

Notes

1. Last surviving native speaker; it is being taught as a second language on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State.
2. Last surviving native speaker; some children still learn it as a second language.

References

1. Lenore A. Grenoble, Lindsay J. Whaley, Saving Languages: An Introduction to Language Revitalization, Cambridge University Press (2006) p.18
2. Foltz, Anouschka (10 December 2015). "How Languages Die". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved 17 January 2023.
3. Matthews, P. H. (1 January 2007), "dead language", The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780199202720.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-920272-0, retrieved 14 November 2021
4. "What is the difference between a dormant language and an extinct language?". www.ethnologue.com. 15 February 2013. Archived from the original on 2 January 2022. Retrieved 29 July 2023.
5. Byram, Michael; Hu, Adelheid (26 June 2013). Routledge Encyclopedia of Language Teaching and Learning. Routledge. ISBN 978-1136235535.
6. Walt, Christa Van der (1 May 2007). Living Through Languages: An African Tribute to René Dirven. AFRICAN SUN MeDIA. ISBN 9781920109707.
7. Hall, Christopher J.; Smith, Patrick H.; Wicaksono, Rachel (11 May 2015). Mapping Applied Linguistics: A Guide for Students and Practitioners. Routledge. ISBN 978-1136836237.
8. "Study by language researcher, David Graddol". NBC News. 26 February 2004. Retrieved 22 March 2012. Ian on Friday, January 16, 2009 61 comments (16 January 2009). "Research by Southwest University for Nationalities College of Liberal Arts". Chinasmack.com. Retrieved 22 March 2012.. Ethnologue records 7,358 living languages known,"Ethnologue". Ethnologue. Archived from the original on 5 October 2001. Retrieved 22 March 2012. but on 2015-05-20, Ethnologue reported only 7,102 known living languages; and on 2015-02-23, Ethnologue already reported only 7,097 known living languages.
9. "One of the Last Remaining Native Yuchi Speakers Passes". www.culturalsurvival.org. June 2016. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
10. "How Colonialism Causes Language Endangerment". www.goethe.de. Retrieved 23 October 2024.
11. "Library : Liturgical Languages". www.catholicculture.org. Retrieved 23 October 2024.
12. Sichel, Barb (12 November 2019). "Understanding Extinct Languages: When and Why They Die Off - ILS Translations". Retrieved 23 October 2024.
13. Malone, Elizabeth (28 July 2008). "Language and Linguistics: Endangered Language". National Science Foundation. Archived from the original on 9 March 2010. Retrieved 23 October 2009.
14. Thomason, Sarah Grey & Kaufman, Terrence. Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics, University of California Press (1991) p. 100.
15. "Could social media save endangered languages?". www.humanities.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 23 October 2024.
16. Atifnigar, Hamza (July–August 2021). "Exploring the Causes of Language Death: A Review Paper" (PDF). International Journal of Arts and Social Science.
17. "The History of Native American Boarding Schools is Even More Complicated than a New Report Reveals". 17 May 2022.
18. Levitt, Zach; Parshina-Kottas, Yuliya; Romero, Simon; Wallace, Tim (30 August 2023). "'War Against the Children'". The New York Times.
19. "Legacy of Trauma: The Impact of American Indian Boarding Schools…". PBS.
20. "La Vergonha and the Future of Occitan Language | Performing Trobar".
21. See pp. 57 & 60 in Ghil'ad Zuckermann's A New Vision for "Israeli Hebrew": Theoretical and Practical Implications of Analysing Israel's Main Language as a Semi-Engineered Semito-European Hybrid Language, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 5: 57–71 (2006). Dr Anna Goldsworthy on the Barngarla language reclamation, The Monthly, September 2014
22. Ernštreits, Valts (14 December 2011). "Lībiešu valodas situācija". Livones.net (in Latvian). Archived from the original on 2 February 2014.
23. "Tandia" (in Indonesian). Ministry of Education and Culture. Retrieved 20 October 2024.
24. "11 Indigenous Languages Declared Extinct: Education Ministry". Jakarta Globe. 8 March 2024. Retrieved 10 September 2024.
25. "Last Fluent Speaker of Nxamxcin Language Dies at 96". The Spokesman. Spokane, Washington.
26. "Last Native Speaker Of Aleut Language In Russia Dies". RadioFreeEurope. 5 October 2022.
27. S.A.P, El Mercurio (16 February 2022). "Fallece a los 93 años Cristina Calderón, la última hablante del idioma Yagán | Emol.com". Emol (in Spanish). Retrieved 16 February 2022.
28. Mogholi at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
29. Eylon, Lili (25 June 2022). "The Judenrein town that spoke Hebrew". Times Of Israel. Retrieved 4 November 2024. Indeed, by 1994, reportedly only 12 people used some 200 Lachoudish words. The dialect Lachoudish had its day; it is now extinct
30. Seelye, Katharine Q. (6 October 2021). "Marie Wilcox, Who Saved Her Native Language From Extinction, Dies at 87". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 12 February 2022.
31. "'Race against time': Pandemic propels fight to save Native American languages". POLITICO. 13 April 2021. Retrieved 13 April 2021.
32. "Last Native Speaker Of Rare Dialect Dies In Russia". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 9 March 2021. Retrieved 18 March 2021.
33. International, Survival (10 March 2021). "Aruká Juma, Last Man of His Tribe, Is Dead". NY Times. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
34. Anderson, Dale (11 December 2020). "Chief Kenneth Patterson, 93, leader in the Tuscarora Nation". The Buffalo News. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
35. International, Survival (1 June 2020). "The last speaker of the Sare language has died". Medium. Retrieved 28 June 2020.
36. "Preserving Indigenous languages". Monash Life. Monash University. 27 October 2019. Retrieved 12 August 2020.
37. "Cherry Wulumirr Daniels laid to rest". Yugul Mangi Development Aboriginal Corporation. 24 April 2019. Retrieved 12 August 2020.
38. Daigneault, Anna (6 November 2019). "Museums of the mind: Why we should preserve endangered languages". Global Voices. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
39. Domingo, Javier (30 January 2019). "La imborrable obra de Dora Manchado: ¿la última guardiana de la lengua tehuelche?". Infobae (in Spanish). Retrieved 23 November 2019.
40. Joe Skurzewski (10 December 2016). "Edwin Benson, last known fluent speaker of Mandan, passes away at 85". KFYR-TV. Archived from the original on 23 September 2023.
41. Daffron, Brian (6 October 2016). "Doris McLemore, Last Fluent Wichita Speaker, Walks On". Indian Country Media Network. Archived from the original on 4 August 2017. Retrieved 24 May 2017.
42. "A "Legend", Indigenous Australian Leader, Knowledge Holder Tommy George Passes On". Snowchange Cooperative. 29 July 2016. Retrieved 24 May 2017.
43. Jack Knox (19 March 2016). "Jack Knox — A silenced tongue: the last Nuchatlaht speaker dies". Times Colonist. Archived from the original on 5 August 2021.
44. Lacitis, Erik (8 February 2005). "Last few Whulshootseed speakers spread the word". Seattle Times. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
45. Sweet Dorman, Lois (21 June 2005). "Lost in translation: a connection to the sacred". Seattle Times. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
46. Kaminsky, Jonathan (7 February 2014). "Last native speaker of Klallam language dies in Washington state". Reuters. Archived from the original on 19 July 2023.
47. "Last native Klallam speaker dies in Port Angeles". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 8 February 2014.
48. Kakar, Hasan Kawun (2014). Government and Society in Afghanistan: The Reign of Amir 'Abd al-Rahman Khan (5 ed.). University of Texas Press. ISBN 9780292729001.
49. Charter, David. "Death of a language: last ever speaker of Livonian passes away aged 103". The Times.
50. Ernštreits, Valts (14 December 2011). "Lībiešu valodas situācija". Livones.net (in Latvian). Archived from the original on 2 February 2014.
51. Romney, Lee. (2013, February 6). Revival of nearly extinct Yurok language is a success story. The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved February 7, 2013
52. "Revival of nearly extinct Yurok language is a success story". Los Angeles Times. 6 February 2013. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
53. Obituary: Robert (Bobby) Hogg, engineer and last speaker of the Cromarty dialect The Scotsman. 15 October 2012.
54. Foden-Vencil, Kristian. "Last Fluent Speaker Of Oregon Tribal Language 'Kiksht' Dies". Oregon Public Broadcasting. Archived from the original on 10 October 2019. Retrieved 23 May 2017.
55. "Alaska Native Language Loses Last Fluent Speaker - Indian Country Media Network". indiancountrymedianetwork.com. Archived from the original on 8 June 2017. Retrieved 23 May 2017.
56. "ISO 639-3 Registration Authority Request for New Language Code Element in ISO 639-3" (PDF). ISO 639-3. 23 January 2012. Retrieved 29 October 2023.
57. Dimas, Dimas. "PUNAHNYA BAHASA KREOL PORTUGIS". LIPI (in Indonesian). Archived from the original on 8 August 2020. Retrieved 10 May 2020.
58. "Falecimento - 12/10/2011". Projeto de Documentação de Línguas Indígenas. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
59. "Another language faces sunset in dead centre". The Australian. ||
60. "An Indian language recently went extinct. Why were we not told about it?". write2kill.in - Select writings of Subir Ghosh. Archived from the original on 18 February 2013.
61. "Ancient Indian language dies out". 4 February 2010 – via news.bbc.co.uk.

Bibliography

• Adelaar, Willem F. H.; & Muysken, Pieter C. (2004). The Languages of the Andes. Cambridge Language Surveys. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-36275-7.
• Brenzinger, Matthias (ed.) (1992) Language Death: Factual and Theoretical Explorations with Special Reference to East Africa. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-013404-9.
• Campbell, Lyle; & Mithun, Marianne (Eds.). (1979). The Languages of Native America: Historical and Comparative Assessment. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-74624-5.
• Davis, Wade. (2009). The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World. House of Anansi Press. ISBN 0-88784-766-8.
• Dorian, Nancy C. (1978). 'Fate of Morphological Complexity in Language Death: Evidence from East Sutherland Gaelic.' Language, 54 (3), 590–609.
• Dorian, Nancy C. (1981). Language Death: The Life Cycle of a Scottish Gaelic dialect. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-7785-6.
• Dressler, Wolfgand & Wodak-Leodolter, Ruth (eds.) (1977) 'Language Death' (International Journal of the Sociology of Language vol. 12). The Hague: Mouton.
• Gordon, Raymond G. Jr. (Ed.). (2005). Ethnologue: Languages of the World (15th ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. ISBN 1-55671-159-X. (Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com).
• Harrison, K. David. (2007) When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge. New York and London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-518192-0.
• Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
• Mohan, Peggy; & Zador, Paul. (1986). 'Discontinuity in a Life Cycle: The Death of Trinidad Bhojpuri.' Language, 62 (2), 291–319.
• Sasse, Hans-Jürgen (1992) 'Theory of Language Death', in Brenzinger (ed.) Language Death, pp. 7–30.
• Schilling-Estes, Natalie; & Wolfram, Walt. (1999). 'Alternative Models of Dialect Death: Dissipation vs. Concentration.' Language, 75 (3), 486–521.
• Sebeok, Thomas A. (Ed.). (1973). Linguistics in North America (parts 1 & 2). Current Trends in Linguistics (Vol. 10). The Hauge: Mouton. (Reprinted as Sebeok 1976).
• Sharp, Joanne. (2008). Chapter 6: 'Can the Subaltern Speak?', in Geographies of Postcolonialism. Glasgow, UK: SAGE Publications Ltd. ISBN 978-1-4129-0779-8.
• Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove. (2000). Linguistic Genocide in Education or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights? Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ISBN 0-8058-3468-0.
• Thomason, Sarah Grey & Kaufman, Terrence. (1991). Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-07893-4.
• Timmons Roberts, J. & Hite, Amy. (2000). From Modernization to Globalization: Perspectives on Development and Social Change. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-21097-9.

External links

• The Dodo's Fate: How Languages Become Extinct
• The Foundation of Endangered Languages
• Endangered Languages