17 Jun
2026
17 Jun
'26
2:45 p.m.
Paul Koning via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> writes:
> 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).
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).
Putting my usual hat for this list back on, I currently make money making
improvements to the assembler program for a well known computer architecture,
writing in that assembly language. Assembler programming is assuredly not dead...
--
Rich Alderson news(a)alderson.users.panix.com
Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
--Galen