Dead Languages and Normal Language Change
Linguists distinguish between language "death" and the process where a language becomes a "dead language" through normal language change, a linguistic phenomenon analogous to pseudoextinction. This happens when a language in the course of its normal development gradually morphs into something that is then recognized as a separate, different language, leaving the old form with no native speakers. Thus, for example, Old English may be regarded as a "dead language", with no native speakers, although it has never "died" but instead simply changed and developed into Middle English, Early Modern English and Modern English. The process of language change may also involve the splitting up of a language into a family of several daughter languages, leaving the common parent language "dead". This has happened to Latin, which (through Vulgar Latin) eventually developed into the Romance languages. Such a process is normally not described as "language death", because it involves an unbroken chain of normal transmission of the language from one generation to the next, with only minute changes at every single point in the chain. There is thus no one point where Latin "died".
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Famous quotes containing the words dead, languages, normal, language and/or change:
“Green leaves on a dead tree is our epitaph—green leaves, dear reader, on a dead tree.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)
“I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigree of nations.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“Unlike the normal pattern, I know I have grown more liberal as I’ve grown older. I have become more convinced that there is room for improvement in the world.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)
“There’s a cool web of language winds us in,
Retreat from too much joy or too much fear.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)
“I know what love is. It’s understanding. It’s you and me and let the rest of the world go by. Just the two of us living our lives together happily and proudly. No self-torture and no doubt. It’s enduring and it’s everlasting. Nothing can change it. Nothing can change us, Ollie. That’s what I think love is.”
—Dewitt Bodeen (1908–1988)