> On Jun 17, 2026, at 5:45 PM, Rich Alderson <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> Paul Koning via cctalk <[email protected]> writes:
>
>>> On Jun 17, 2026, at 4:25 AM, Doug Jackson via cctalk
>>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>> ...
>>> Perhaps a better definition of a dead language is one for which there is
>>> nobody left who can read it, write it, teach it, or care about it. By that
>>> standard, many of the languages being discussed here are very much alive.
>
>> You could use the linguistic definition, which is similar to what you said
>> but a bit different. Dead languages are those that are no longer used in
>> conversation. For example, Sumerian is dead by that definition, as is Latin,
>> but (interestingly enough) not Sanskrit. To a linguist, dead languages may
>> be well understood (broadly, or only by a few) such as Sumerian, or not
>> understood anymore either, like Pictish (I think).
>
> Wearing my other hat, with multiple degrees and decades of study in
> linguistics,
> I must disagree with your definition of "dead" languages.
Thanks for the clarification. I'm an amateur, though an interested one.
> Others have pointed out that Latin (for example) is used conversationally in
> current contexts. Yet we still consider the classical form a dead language.
> In that sense, classical Sanskrit is also dead (_pace_ the nationalists).
My comment about Sanskrit was because I saw it in a list of languages spoken
(as first language) in India, by a small population admittedly, 10k or so, but
still, I had not expected that.
> The real linguistic definition of a dead language is one which children no
> longer learn from their naive (NB not "native") environment, i. e., where the
> language is spoken around them for purposes other than simple paedagogy. What
> this means for language revitalization is that until the generation *after*
> the
> one(s) studying, say, Lushootseed speaks it from infancy, it is still dead (or
> at best moribund).
That makes sense, and it reminds me of the revival of Hebrew. And the
attempted revival of Cornish, or Manx, I forget.
But doesn't that definition exclude pidgin languages (distinguished from creole
by not being first languages)?
paul
