A language is dead when it no longer has any native speakers. I believe there is value in studying a dead language as I have studied three: Latin, Ancient Greek, and Sanskrit (all three are not completely extinct, however, as they are preserved as historical or liturgical languages). Study of dead or historical languages can provide insight into the cultures that used the languages; in the case of Latin and Ancient Greek, they can help with the understanding of English roots; and they of course can provide interesting information about the history of language in general.
Additionally, although it's very rare, some languages can be brought back from the dead (or from dormancy), this is what happened to Hebrew in Israel. And Cornish is being saved from extinction.
This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at October 8, 2016 3:04 AM MDT
Wow m'dear! I did not realize that you were such a scholar on the subject! I hit pay dirt with you which I appreciate very much. Thank you for your thoughtful response to my question. It is very informative as well. Do you speak Sanskrit Nevan? Is it just a written language or do people actually verbally communicate in Sanskrit? If that question is really silly forgive my ignorance. Happy Saturday to thee! :)
Latin is what it is specifically because it has always been a dead language. Words do not change meanings in a dead language, and new expressions are not made up. That makes a dead language ideal for recording history, academic studies, legislation, and so on. We can read stories and records from 2900 years ago and they still have exactly the same meanings as when they were first recorded. Rome was founded in 800 BC and Latium was one of the little countries taken over at that time. The people did not usually speak Latin, they spoke Greek.
Latin has not always been a dead language; Classical Latin was, for the most part, an artificial literary language, yes, but it was based on the speech of the Roman elite, and the Romans spoke vulgar Latin (the non-literary variety of Latin, also spoken in the provinces, which gave rise to the Romance languages), though many people in Italy at that time did speak Greek since much of southern Italy had been Greek territory and certainly many learned Romans knew Greek as well.
This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at October 8, 2016 3:05 AM MDT
Yeah, I was only repeating what my Latin teacher told me sixty years ago. I took one semester and dropped it because she had bad manners and wasn't teaching anything.
That's alright; I didn't mean to come off harsh. I've just studied Latin for 8+ years! My Latin teacher was thankfully responsible for getting me so interested in it.
They say Latin is dead, but it is so viable in every category of language, it is hard to consider it as dead. It is in every subject we use, from medicine to law.
The really dead ones are like languages that are totally remote and understood by only a few; Ancient Egyptian? Is that used at all? Probably not.
This post was edited by WM BARR . =ABSOLUTE TRASH at October 7, 2016 10:06 PM MDT
And of course many of our everyday words, not just technical terms, have Latin or Greek roots.
What must look odd are resurrected languages whose last native speakers died well over 100 years ago, if anyone tries to use them in modern contexts. NevanB gives the example of Cornish - of which very little survives in written form. It died out, apart from perhaps a few words lingering as dialect, sometime in the 19C so it won't have many thousands of words we take for granted now. I don't know how such a language could be used except in a very contrived manner.
Welsh has had to "Welshify" many modern (late-19C on) words, but because it never actually died out it probably found such adaptations a bit easier to form and assimilate.
I have a tourist's guide-book to Greek, in which it says someone who learnt the language in a Classical education would probably be understood, but to the modern Greek resident would sound very old-fashioned and stilted. Probably even more so when the Classical style is sprinkled with the modern Greek words for "airport" or "camera" or "Internet", say, all things that Aristotle and Herodotus could never have even imagined might one day exist!
Benedict Arnold 