18 Jun
2026
18 Jun
'26
4:54 a.m.
On Jun 17, 2026, at 5:45 PM, Rich Alderson
<cc(a)alderson.users.panix.com> wrote:
Paul Koning via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> writes:
Thanks for the clarification. I'm an amateur, though an interested one.
> On Jun 17, 2026, at 4:25 AM, Doug Jackson via
cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> 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. 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