Extinct leid

An extinct leid is a leid at disne hae ony spikkers. Extinct leids micht be contrastit wi deid leids, at arene spak bi onybody as thair main leids.

Leid loss

For ordinar, the transeetion frae a deid te an extinct leid occurs whaun a leid drees leid daith while bein directly replaced bi a different ain. For an ensaumple, Native American leids wir replace't bi Inglis, French, Portuguese, or Spaingie as an ootcome o colonisation. The Coptic leid, replace't bi Arabic in its native Egyp, wis aince thoucht te be extinct.

Leid extinction micht occur whaun a leid becomes a new leid or group o leids. An ensaumple o this is Auld Inglis, a forerunner o Modren Inglis.

Bi contrast te an extinct leid at disne hae ony spikkers at aw, a deid leid micht remeen in uise fur scienteefic, legal, or ecclesiastical purposes. Auld Church Slavonic, Avestan, Coptic, Biblical Hebrew, Ge'ez, Latin, an Sanskrit are amang the mony deid leids uised as sacred leids.

Alternatively, a leid is sayed te be extinct gif, tho it is kent for haein bin spak bi fowk in the past, modren scholarship canne reconstruct it te the pynt at it's possible te scrieve in it or owerset inte it wi confidence (say, a semple dialogue or a short tale scrieved in a modren leid); whaurby a leid is referred te as deid, bit nae extinct, gif fowk ken eneuch o it at present te allou sic routine uise, tho it disne hae ony modren speakers. Bi thon definitions Proto-Indo-European (ainly conjectural reconstructions o lexicon an grammar exist) is an extinct leid, an Clessical Laitin an Auld Tupi are deid, bit nae extinct leids.

A leid at hes livin native spikkers is cawed a modren leid. Ethnologue reports 6,912 livin leids spak commonly bi fowk.

Hebrew is an ensaumple o a naur extinct spak leid (bi the first definition 'boon) that becam a lingua franca an a liturgical leid at's bin revived te acome a livin spak leid. Thare are mony ither attempts at leid revival. For ensaumple, young schuil bairns uise Sanskrit in revived leid in Mathoor veelage (Indie). By ordinar, the success o maist o thon attempts hes been subject te debate, as it isne clear thay will ever acome the maist spak leid o a commonty o spikkers.

It's thoucht at 90% o the aboot 7,000 leids currently spak in the warld will acome extinct bi 2050, as the warld's leid seestem hes reached a crisis an is dramatically restructurin.