Dead languages (Written Conventions of English)

DEAD LANGUAGES (Written Conventions of English)

In everyday use, the expression "dead language" refers to any language which is no longer spoken by a natural community. But there are actually three categories of such languages:

• dead languages: those which, like Latin, may still be known and used by, for example, scholars or religious communities, but you won't find Latin-speaking households in a Latin-speaking town. Many dead languages have evolved into other languages, as Latin became the romance languages, or Sanskrit became Hindi and other languages of India.
• extinct languages: those which have been completely lost--say, there are inscriptions which no one can read, or all the speakers of a language have died (as with some Native American tongues).
• dormant languages: those which still have a role in a culture, but no proficient users--again like some Native American languages. Such languages actually have a chance of being revived through reconstruction and reintroduction to a community.

Note 1: Languages which are not "dead" in any of these senses are usually called "modern languages."

Note 2: Well-known dead languages include ancestors of modern languages, such as Latin, Sanskrit, Old English (Anglo-Saxon), Old French, Old High German, Biblical Hebrew, Ancient Greek, etc.

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