There's only a zero point zero zero zero zero six percent chance that you would have
That was Cornish nowadays Cornish is thought to be only spoken by five thousand people worldwide
With the number of reducing more and more over time
That's only one speaker in 1 million five hundred and sixty thousand people
Linguists have estimated that on average every 14 days a language dies out somewhere in the world our IP
But how do languages end up becoming endangered and eventually dying first?
Let's get something clear
Extinct languages and dead languages are two separate things an extinct language is a language of which there are no speakers left
Anywhere in the world, there are hundreds of extinct languages languages that existed at some point
but are not spoken by anyone anymore anywhere asshole one example of an extinct language is Clallam a
Native American language spoken in Washington DC which became extinct in
2014 after the death of its last known speaker a dead language is a language that has no native
Speakers but is still used by people in some form somewhere
Latin is the poster child for this it isn't spoken anymore, but still used for religious purposes and requirements to enter
University to study medicine. For example, here's a more in-depth classification system by the United Nations
Education scientific and cultural organization better known as UNESCO that indicates just how endangered a language is
Vulnerable when a language is classified as vulnerable most children in an area speak the language
But it may be restricted to their home
Definitely endangered definitely endangered means children no longer learn the language as a mother tongue severely endangered a severely endangered
Language is still spoken by the older generation and understood by children
But not spoken normally critically endangered when a language is critically endangered the youngest people actually speaking it are the oldest
Generations they hardly use it
Extinct there are no speakers left at all back to our opening question
Why do languages die languages live and die with the people that speak them this can happen slowly over the course of many generations?
But also much quicker
Let's take a look at different types of language death
gradual language death is possibly the most natural and common way for a language to disappear from this planet a
community of speakers of one language becomes
Bilingual in another language and gradually shifts allegiance to the second language until they cease to use their original language
gradual language death usually occurs when speakers of one language come into contact with a language of a more dominant and
powerful group of people or a prestige language the speakers of the original language remain
Bilingual for an amount of time until that language is eventually faced out with time over
generation and replaced by the prestige language
the Cornish language is a prime example of gradual language death Cornish is a
Southwestern brittonic language and part of the Celtic language family it became extinct in the late 18th century
Thanks to the growing influence of the English language as well as the growing perception at the time that the Cornish we're over lower-class
to this day people are fighting about who the last native speaker might have been but let's leave the fighting to them and
Focused on the good because it's not all doom and gloom for Cornish after lots and lots and lots
of efforts by people to keep the language alive Cornish was revived since
2002 Cornish has been recognized as a minority language and went from UNESCO x'
Extinct status to being considered a critically endangered language
So all the people made speakers but children don't learn and don't understand it bottom-to-top language death is when a language
Ceases to be used as a medium of conversation but survives in special circumstances
Like religion or folksongs poster child example again Latin but language death can be much more dramatic
That sudden language death sudden language death occurs
When all or the majority of its speakers die as a result of disaster or violence a sad example
Tasmania the black war in the 1830s saw European colonists massacring the native inhabitants and with them their linguistic heritage
Tasmania had a number of native languages which were made into dead languages that eventually became extinct in
1905 when Fanny Cochrane Smith the last speaker of any of these languages died
Fortunately Fanny had made two wax cylinder recordings of two aboriginal songs
Which remained to be the only audio recordings of any of Tasmania's indigenous languages
Radical language death just like sudden language death radical language death happens very quickly
usually as a result of governments or groups pushing their agenda through the use of violence the difference between the two is that
Radical language death doesn't necessarily mean a language dies with its speakers rather
Persecution and the threat of violence oppresses the use of a language so that avoiding it becomes a form of self-defense El Salvador
experienced this tragic form of language death in 1932
when a peasant revolt led by Augustine Faribault and Omar T was quashed by the
Salvadoran army in response to the uprising the army killed
Anyone who looked Indian and so those who spoke the language were forced to stop using it the massacre took the lives of around
30,000 people and in turn the Lankan and cacao para
languages died out the future of languages as time goes by who knows which will be the next language to disappear from the face of
Existence. Well, it's guaranteed that small less unknown languages will perish frequently
It is likely that even the most spoken languages in the world will eventually meet their demise Latin which was once massively popular
eventually dies
But it's legacy lives on in many Romance languages to this day such as French
Italian Romanian or Portuguese the same may even happen to the English language
We can already see this happening in the different fragmentations of English language from around the world
Cheer up dear watcher not all languages stay dead
Some see a revival thanks to the efforts of language
Enthusiasts who do everything in their power to bring a language back to life
Hebrew is the perfect example for language revival for thousands of years
Hebrew was the sacred language of Judaism and
exclusively used for literature and prayer
Until the end of the 19th century when a diversity of Jews started arriving in Israel to establish themselves alongside the existing
Jewish community according to researchers a version of spoken Hebrew had already existed in the markets of
Jerusalem for about 50 years at that point with Hebrew being the linguistic common denominator of all
Jewish groups the newcomers turned to it as a lingua franca which enabled them to communicate and settle into their new lives in
Israel this new wave of spoken Hebrew was supported by the growing belief that in order to define a
nation worthy of national rights a common language had to be spoken by both the society and the
Individual so what do we learn from this as with anything in life?
Languages live and die with the people that speak them language and culture are almost inseparable and just like we keep memories of our ancestors
And loved ones alive languages can be protected if enough people set their mind to it
Learn them speak them and teach them save the language today one lesson at a time with buzu
You can learn to speak a language in as little as 10 minutes a day wherever you are and whenever you want
Sign up for free and enjoy 30 percent off buzu premium using the code cornish
Here's a full list of endangered languages
Take your pick South Italian
Sicilian low saxon belarusian lumbars Romani Yiddish Chandi limburgian riparian Quechua of southern bolivia
coo Moni Amara Emily in Rome ignore Piedmont ears Venetians