The Five-Minute Linguist - Bite-sized Essays on Language and Languages Third Edition - Caroline Myrick
34. Why Do Languages Die?
The Five-Minute Linguist - Bite-sized Essays on Language and Languages Third Edition - Caroline Myrick
Christopher Moseley [+]
Independent scholar
Christopher Moseley is a university lecturer, writer and freelance translator, editor of the Encyclopedia of the World’s Endangered Languages (2006) and the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger (2009), as well as co-editor of the Atlas of the World’s Languages (1993). He has a special interest in artificial languages (and has created one himself).
Description
Languages that are no longer passed on to younger speakers, and eventually only the elderly speakers are left to speak them, die out. Languages can also die because of epidemics, human invasions or nature itself can swallow up languages.