When and why languages become extinct

When and why languages become extinct

The process of abandoning an entire culture and people a whole language takes a long time, even over several generations, and when a new dominant language appears on the scene, a final erosion of the old one occurs.

 

Linguists have also identified the stages that languages follow in Extinction:

 

Language is considered weak when children speak the language of their parents only at home or in the company of relatives.

A language is considered endangered when children stop studying it, even though it is their native language.

A language is considered seriously threatened when the youngest people who can speak it are grandparents.

Language shifts occur throughout history where one tongue outperforms the other, for example in the UK the shift from Cornish to English has been happening for decades, and continues today. [2]

 

Origin of languages

Throughout the ages, many researchers have been interested in knowing the origin of languages and their origin, and unfortunately, researchers have not found any concrete evidence that tells about the origin of human languages, despite the great technological development that we are witnessing now.

 

The lack of evidence has prevented the discussion of messages related to the origin of languages in Paris, but many anthropologists, psychologists, archaeologists and those interested in studying the history of languages around the world are still researching this issue.

 

Thanks to this relentless pursuit and these Advanced Studies, a number of researchers have been able to divide the languages or means spoken by ancient humans into words and gestures.

 

Many scholars have argued that our ancient ancestors had a great ability to use and learn languages in a different and creative way, such as expression through painting and engraving on walls in temples and caves. [3]

 

Scientists believe that the ancient primitive man of the Stone Age was able to learn languages only a hundred thousand years ago, and there are a lot of theories that have been made in order to come to know the origin of languages, which are as follows:

 

The Po-wow theory

It is called The Cuckoo theory, attributed to the well-known German philosopher Johann Gottfried, and assumes that human speech is only an imitation of the sounds of birds and animals.

 

Ding-dong theory

It was Muller who gave it this name, and this theory assumes that there is a natural oscillation of everything, and speech is only an echo of what was uttered by ancient man.

 

Fu-fu theory

This theory assumes that speech is an emotional accumulation, and that the voice is the expression of this speech due to surprise, joy, sadness or other emotions that a person feels.

 

Ta-Ta theory

The theory of Tata was not presented in Muller’s list, and Richard Paget postulated it in 1930 ad, in which he assumed that human speech is a set of movements performed with his tongue, and this sound is heard because of the many repetitions of these movements.

 

The Yu-hee-hee theory

This theory assumes that language arises as a result of the work of a set of many rhythms overlapping with each other, and this coincides with the muscular effort exerted by a person, resulting in these sounds, such as the repetition of sighing with a HO sound.

 

The most important extinct languages

There is a large group of languages that have been endangered and extinct, and UNESCO confirms that about six thousand or more different languages have become extinct, and no one speaks them anymore, perhaps the most important of these languages are the following:

 

Mandarin language

Worldwide, Mandarin has become the dominant language throughout China, with the exception of the trading cities of Hong Kong and Kowloon, where Cantonese is rapidly spreading.

 

And far in history, after the Greeks conquered most of the known world, the Greek language spread – and the common form, the Greek koine, containing many words borrowed from the conquered cultures, became the lingua franca of the Greek empire.

 

As a result, the more formal Attic Greek dialect has become rare and is now found only in Ancient Writings.

 

Koine Greek is closer to the modern Greek language used today, and classical Latin is perhaps the most famous of the dead languages.

 

Over time, with the disintegration of the Roman Empire, Latin split into the most common languages of the conquered peoples of Rome, hence the Romance Languages of Europe, and the former Roman Empire were born: French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian.

 

When answering the question “Why are languages extinct?”” One should point the finger at political oppression, globalization, lack of writing and memorization.

 

For most of the twentieth century, governments around the world forced indigenous peoples to adopt a common national language, forcing Indigenous languages to the sidelines – and, ultimately, to the rubble of history. [4]

 

Gothic language

There are a majority of people who have never heard of this language, it is one of the languages used in the past by the inhabitants of the eastern branch in Europe and India, but it has become extinct and is no longer used now.

 

This language was characterized by its own writing system similar to Greek and Latin letters, there are a lot of ancient books written through the Gothic language and one of the most famous is the Bible.

 

Shemyhovy language

It’s strange to ever hear that this name was given to a language, but it will seem even more strange if you know that the United States of America used this language and it was its main one.

 

It was the first language of the people living on the shore of the river known as the colador, and according to UNESCO there are only three people who speak it now.

 

Merige language

It is a language spoken by a group of people living on the island of Vanuatu, and it is considered one of the remote islands and the distance between it and the Pacific Ocean is about one thousand seven hundred and fifty kilograms in Australia.

 

The lemerge language consists of four different dialects, but now it has become extinct and no one speaks it anymore.

 

Tanima language

This language was spoken by the inhabitants of the Solomon Islands, these islands are located in the Pacific Ocean and were spoken by millions of people, and over time the language became extinct and extinct.

 

UNESCO tried to reach anyone who speaks Tanima, but they failed and could not reach anyone.

 

Kiskana language

It was considered the first language of Brazilians, this language was considered one of the ancient languages Portuguese, but this language, like no other, was extinct and no one speaks it anymore.

 

Domi language

The use and pronunciation of this language spread to the countries of East Asia, in particular Nepal, whose entire population spoke this language.

 

The dictionary dealing with words in the Domi language is in circulation in ancient archaeological museums of East Asian countries.

 

There is a group of up to eight individuals who speak this language and are located in eastern Nepal.

 

Shona language

The use of this language spread in the Congo and Niger in ancient times and was spoken by more than eleven million people.

 

This language is considered one of the first languages spoken by humans on Earth.

 

Languages on the verge of extinction

There are a number of languages that are in danger of extinction due to the small number of native speakers, for example:

 

Khanty language

This language is divided into three groups in terms of basic dialects, and there are those who speak it in the western region of Siberia, and this language is in danger of extinction because the number of native speakers does not exceed ten thousand people around the world.

 

What distinguishes this language is its nucleic signs that make it easy to recognize whether the speaking person was a witness to the incident or was told by someone.

 

Chaussian language

There are more than nineteen languages in Cambodia that are in danger of extinction, and the sawch language is one of these languages, there are only ten people who speak it and live in a village with a population of only one hundred and ten people.

 

The Khmer Rouge was one of the most important reasons for the destruction of this language, in the seventies of the last century, this party kidnapped the lands of the swachian population, detained them in camps, forced them to speak a language other than their native language, and this was exploited in order to erase their religion and culture. [5]

 

Ngiri language

In Cameroon, namely in the village of Mamila, there are very few people who communicate with each other in this language.

 

These people are considered to be native speakers of this language, as well as they tend to use some phrases of this language in folk songs, polite phrases, jokes or express their inner secrets.

 

Gongota language

There is a group of only twelve deans in the southeast of Ethiopia who speak this language, and this language competes with another called Tsamai.

 

The number of speakers of the Tsamai language is increasing day by day, which foreshadows that the Tsamai language will inevitably replace the gongota language.

 

In conclusion, we would like to note that great efforts are being made by international organizations to preserve languages from extinction.