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why do the extinct languages remain extinct?
why don't we start speaking them again? languages like Gaelic, Welsh, Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Accadian, Etruscan, Iberian etc deserves to be spoken just as much as all other languages!!!
start learning them and begin speaking them everyday, so they'll never be forgotten!
First, some of those languages aren't extinct (Gaelic, Welsh).
Secondly, you could consider Latin and Anglo-Saxon as surviving in the modern Romance languages and English. In any event, all languages continue to develop and mutate (Latin to French) or they die out. They die out for two reasons: either because they are no longer useful or because their speakers have been killed off.
=>They die out for two reasons: either because they are no longer useful or because their speakers have been killed off. <= Or evolve to a point where they're not the same language anymore. (Latin > French)
All it takes is for a group of people interested in preserving one of these languages to start up a group and hold meetings where only Etruscan (for example) is spoken. Your group could read and discuss the great Etruscan literary treasures. Here's your chance to start up such a group -- there must be a lot of people around (but not me) who'd jump at the opportunity of learning to speak Etruscan.
I wonder how you'd know if your pronunciation of Etruscan really was the same as in ancient times, though.
The only "extinct" language I know of ("extinct" in the sense that it had not been in everyday use for centuries) that has been successfully revived is Hebrew/Ivrit. I am not sure if Latin can be considered as completely extinct (or evolved), since it is still used by some for communication (especially within the Roman Catholic church), although not on such a large scale as in the Middle Ages and by 16th-century Humanists. The same is true for Aramaic and Coptic, which are still liturgical languages (and the former is still spoken by a handful of people in Syria), as well as Sanskrit. On the whole, I would say that revival of an "extinct" language can happen if it is culturally important enough for a group of people (Etruscan not being one of these, as it seems).
If they can get enough people interested in something like Klingon to make it viable, surely with a big enough effort some organization could get lots of people interested in bringing back Etruscan. How difficult is Etruscan, anyway? Is it strange enough to modern ears that it might be interesting? (or is it just a variant of some other well-known language?).
Several things militate against reviving the following languages, Gaelic, Welsh, Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Accadian, Etruscan, Iberian as well as other dead or moribund languages:
1) They are are all limited languages - they don't have vocabulary for a lot of things in 21st century life. 2) Some of them are imperfectly recorded and our only knowledege of a few like Gaulish, Iberian and Etruscan comes only from a little bit of archeology. 3 Nobody really knows how most of them sounded since there are no recordings of them stored on magnetized wire or tape or even something like Edison's cylinder phonograph. 4) There are no people with ethnic links to some of these languages today. For example, the ancient Egyptians, Syrians and Accadians were eventually either annihilated or swallowed up by the Arabs. What was left of the Punic speaking Carthaginians eventually merged with the Spanish, Maltese and Italian populations. Ditto the northern European Ostrogoths and Visigoths.
<<Or evolve to a point where they're not the same language anymore. (Latin > French)>>
Yes, Sander, that's an important point!
Bardioc Mon Dec 05, 2005 3:53 pm GMT
Terry Sun Dec 04, 2005 3:52 am GMT: <<You may be right, Pete. As far as Americans changing English, for better or for worse. But I do like to think of the English language as a "living language" as the experts say, (not that I always agree with the so-called experts ) and therefore it's always changing. I fear that if it stops changing it will be like Latin and die.>> I don't like the term ''living'' applied to language in this very general way. Yes, language has something in common with the general notion of ''living'', but it also differs in some aspekts. Living also menas dying after a foreseable periode of time. But language need not to die after a foreseable periode. A language may live as long as there are speakers of it. Changing does not imply living, the wether is changing, but does it live? -- Certainly not! The development of a living being is biologically determined, but does that also hold on language? If so, that would mean that language development would be highly determined. Do you really believe that? It's more likely that language development is highly arbitrary, depending mostly on non-linguistical factors such as e.g. politics or the influence and the strength of influence of other languages. To consider a language as ''living'' in the way an animal or a plant lives is as far as I know a century-old linguistical theory -- besides other theories. It's a very romantic theory, therefore it has many supporters. Is e.g. Latin e dead lanuage? Maybe there aren't people with Latin as mother tongue, but it is tought and still spoken. And if you say, that there are no words for modern days things in Latin, why not inventing such words, according to the known rules for building up latin words, of course? Even Hebrew was reactivated, so why not Latin? Many auxillary languages are based on Latin, Latin is still used for building up words in science, the descendents of Latin are still spoken all over the world. So when do you consider a language as dead? <<Then, of course, maybe Americans have turned Englsih into their own language ( bastardized, perhaps, in your eyes).>> The other way round: If English was turned by whomever into their own language (more precise into there own variety of English, which maybe hard to understand for others or for non-native speakers), is it then justified to still call it English? <<There are many variations on the language as we see on this site and so I guess my attitude is, live and let live. Speak the language as it speaks to you. In other words, live it and don't fuss too much, easier said than done and all of that. But still . . . >> If we want English as a language for international and intercultural communication, there must be a kernal of the language which is not allowed to change, otherwise English will not be able to serve this purpose. |