In linguistics, language death (also language extinction, linguistic extinction or linguicide, and rarely also glottophagy) is a process that affects speech communities where the level of linguistic competence that speakers possess of a given language variety is decreased, eventually resulting in no native and/or fluent speakers of the variety. Language death may affect any language idiom, including dialects and languages.
Language death should not be confused with language attrition (also called language loss) which describes the loss of proficiency in a language at the individual level.
Read more about Language Death: Types of Language Death, Consequences On Grammar, Language Revitalization, Dead Languages and Normal Language Change, Measuring Language Vitality
Famous quotes containing the words language and/or death:
“All official institutions of language are repeating machines: school, sports, advertising, popular songs, news, all continually repeat the same structure, the same meaning, often the same words: the stereotype is a political fact, the major figure of ideology.”
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)
“If society gives up the right to impose the death penalty, then self help will appear again and personal vendettas will be around the corner.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)