Why do languages die

Why do languages die

 

 

Reasons for the extinction of languages

Some people wonder what they will feel when they are the last people on earth to speak their own language, as for these individuals who have millions of speakers of their native languages, it may be impossible to imagine this, despite this, languages have appeared and gone through the history of mankind, and still perform this, as linguists estimate that among about 6,900 languages in the world, more than half of them are subject to the chance of extinction when reaching the end of the Twenty-First Century, and in a few times languages die very quickly, as can be done when small communities of speakers are wiped out as a result of disasters or the war, since it is in El Salvador, for example، The indigenous Lenca and cacaubera speakers abandoned their languages in order to avoid being defined as Indians after the massacre in 1932, in which Salvadoran troops killed tens of thousands of indigenous peasants to suppress the uprising, and the death of these languages is due to specific reasons that can be mentioned in the following: [1] [2]

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

The language is considered endangered when children stop studying it, and yet it is their native language.

The language is also seriously threatened when the youngest people who can speak it are grandparents.

Endangered languages

An endangered language is a language that is likely to become extinct in the near future, as many languages fail to be used and are replaced by others, as they are widely used in the region or nation, such as English in the United States or Spanish in Mexico, which will be done unless current trends are reversed, and those endangered languages will also become extinct during the next century, in addition, many other languages are no longer being learned by new generations of children or by new adult speakers, besides, those languages will become extinct when the last speaker dies, and in fact, there are dozens of languages today are native speakers One is still alive, and with the death of that person this will indicate the extinction of that language, in the sense that it will no longer be spoken or known by any human being, the following are some of the Endangered Languages:[3]

Irish Gaelic

Irish Gaelic now has more than 40,000 native speakers, as there are many communities in Ireland, known as (Gaeltachts), as Irish is still spoken as a primary language, and government efforts have been made for many years to require Irish students to learn Irish and encourage speaking it, and with all these attempts from the government, that language is still classified as weak in (ELCat).

 

Krymchak

It is also spelled (Krimchak), which is called (Judeo-criminal Tatar), as it is spoken by people in the Crimea, and also in the peninsula of Ukraine, and it is clear that people born during the thirties or just before them retained fluency in that language, leaving about 200 native speakers alive when the research was conducted in 2007.

Okanagan Colville

Also known as Nsyilxcən, it is one of hundreds of endangered native American languages, spoken primarily in communities in British Columbia, which is estimated to have approximately 150 native speakers of that language alone, and fortunately, ELCat has collected a large number of resources, including videos, to help preserve that language.

 

Rapa Nui

Many languages are at risk as a result of the isolation of their populations from speakers on the islands, and Rapa Nui is one of those languages, as Rapa Nui is an endangered language, and it is spoken on the famous Easter Island, and as of 2000, there were 3,390 native speakers, and Spanish gradually became the most common language among the island’s residents.

 

Languages that are extinct

Dead languages are not just ancient history, as a dead language is any language that has not become the native language of any society, even if it is still used or taught, and the dead language that often comes to the mind of many people is Latin, which has a great influence on many languages used today, and is supposed to be (dead), despite this, dead languages are spoken because they are important in order to understand the origins of the languages spoken by people today, and in the following a group of languages that are already extinct:[4]

Latin language

Latin is considered the most famous dead language, and although it has been considered a dead language for many centuries, it is still taught at school as an important way to understand many languages, as Latin was originally spoken by people living along the lower Tiber River, and the geographical area that uses Latin has spread with the Roman Empire, as the language made its way throughout Europe and through the western coastal areas of the Mediterranean Sea in Africa, partly as a result of its enormous complexity, but also because of other forces, which led to the death of Latin with the Roman Empire, despite this, it has been integrated into various other languages، Some might say, they have evolved into languages that many people speak today, including French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian.

 

Coptic

Coptic is the only thing that remains from the ancient Egyptian languages and even hieroglyphs, as Coptic is a mixture of hieroglyphic, demotic, and hieratic languages, which was used throughout Egypt by the Ptolemaic rulers after the spread of Greek culture throughout the region, and if a person wants to speak as the ancient Egyptians did, the Coptic language is the most suitable, as Coptic is now present only in the Liturgy of the Coptic Church in Egypt, and some consider it the first language of Christianity, and undoubtedly it is important in order to understand the early origins of Christianity but it has recently lost its last native speakers, thus becoming an extant language in one way or another For scholars of dead languages.

 

Biblical Hebrew

It is not possible to confuse biblical Hebrew with modern Hebrew, which is a language that is still very much alive, as biblical Hebrew refers to an ancient form of Hebrew that developed into a literary and liturgical language in approximately 200 AD, and was originally spoken by the ancient Israelis, and is currently taught in public schools in Israel, as an important way to understand the modern Hebrew Biblical is relatively easy for native Hebrew speakers.