Human civilization is unthinkable without the exchange of information. Initially, people learned to do this orally. However, it quickly turned out that it was simply impossible to explain complex concepts with words and gestures. This is how writing appeared. At first these were just pictures on the walls of caves, but then numerous languages were formed.
Throughout history, peoples have left and new ones appeared, circumstances have changed. As a result, some written languages lost all meaning and became dead. In practice, no one uses them today; only a trace remains in history. The most unusual dead languages will be discussed below.
Shuadit. This dialect, scientifically called Judeo-Provençal, has many other names (Chouhadite, Chouhadit, Chouadite or Chouadit). Historians find it difficult to say when exactly Shuadit appeared. For a long time in France, religious freedom was in great doubt. This forced some believers to be discriminated against and band together to form separate small settlements. This is exactly what happened to the Jews expelled from southern France in 1498. Only in the county of Comte-Vennessen, which was under the control of the Pope, were Jews allowed to live legally. The isolated group used its own language - Shuadit. It is built on the basis of Hebrew and Aramaic, and not on the basis of Provençal, as it might seem. After the French Revolution, Jews were allowed to live legally throughout the country, giving them full rights. As a result, the communities quickly disbanded, and the speakers of Shuadite simply dispersed. As a result, the language began to quickly die. The last known speaker of Shuadite died in 1977.
Azeri. Based on the name, it is already clear that this language is related to Asia. Azeri was widespread in the territory of modern Azerbaijan. This language was once spoken by ancient local people, but since the 11th century the number of speakers began to decline. Scientists suggest that Azeri was not even a single language, but a whole group of dialects of the peoples living here. The new Turkish-Azerbaijani language began to gain ground, but until Tabriz came under Persian rule, Azeri was widely used. When the region came under the Persians, control shifted to Tehran, causing the language to lose its dominant significance. Some scientists still suggest that the modern variety of Azeri can be found in some villages of southern Azerbaijan. Although, according to the official theory, the language died out in the 17th century.
Saterlandic Frisian language. For many centuries, the Frisian language competed in prevalence with Germanic. As a result, this fight was lost, the Frisian dialect gradually disappeared from official use. And this language originated back in the 1100s. A strong blow to him was the change in church boundaries. As a result, German-speaking Catholics were able to form families with Frisian-speaking Protestants. This made it possible for the Germanic language to quickly progress and spread. So he was able to quickly take the place of the old Frisian language, practically making it dead. Today, there are only a couple of thousand speakers of this language left, they live in the German city of Saterland, in Lower Saxony. At the same time, the language has no official status; it is simply used in everyday life by a few adherents.
Martha's Vineyard Island Sign Language. The name of this island literally translates as “Martha’s Vineyard.” For almost two centuries, almost all the people who inhabited it suffered from deafness. The reason for this phenomenon was incest - marriages between close relatives became common on the island. To adapt to such difficult living conditions, people here came up with their own Vineyard language, which was based on gestures. By the end of the 19th century, the successful system had even spread beyond the island itself, beginning to crowd out American Sign Language. Only about a hundred years ago, deafness among the islanders began to occur less and less often. Obviously, the residents realized that consanguineous marriages were harmful. Or maybe more residents from the mainland appeared on the island, which diluted the spoiled gene pool. With the decrease in the number of deaf people, sign language has become less relevant. By 1980, only a small group of people were using it.
New language from Bernard Shaw. The famous English playwright Bernard Shaw went down in history not only as a writer, but also as an ardent supporter of changing English writing. The writer did everything possible to introduce the forty-letter phonetic alphabet he himself created. Even after his death, Shaw fought for language changes - the will mentions a sum of 10 thousand pounds for anyone who can introduce the new system into everyday life and make it popular. One of the fans of Bernard Shaw's work even decided to publish a book written on the basis of the new alphabet. This work was even published, but it was not successful. Those who read Bernard Shaw became accustomed to his language, being afraid to buy a publication in an incomprehensible dialect. In addition, before reading, the language still had to be understood and mastered. As a result, the only book failed to change the English language. However, for the sake of honesty, it is worth noting that the alphabet invented by Bernard Shaw was still used as an experiment in a number of schools. However, this program was considered unsuccessful. Only some teachers noted that the new system had positive aspects, while others felt that such an innovation would only confuse students.
Solresol. This language appeared in France in the 19th century. Its unusualness lies in the fact that it is musical. The system was able to transmit information not only through speech and writing, but also through gestures, painting, singing and even flags. A new language was intended for deaf French children. However, in practice the language turned out to be in demand for less than a hundred years. At the end of the 19th century, the unusual linguistic means was considered ineffective, and children began to be taught using ordinary sign language. After Solresol was no longer needed even by the deaf, it gradually disappeared from use.
English by Benjamin Franklin. In the 18th century, relations between the English colonies in North America and the mother country became very complicated. The settlers wanted freedom and independence. At the same time, the conversation even concerned the alphabet. In order to feel fully independent from Great Britain, the famous statesman Benjamin Franklin decided to create a new alphabet. He came up with the idea of removing letters such as c, j, q, w, x, and y from the traditional one. They seemed unnecessary to Franklin. But instead of them it was supposed to place combinations of two vowels, for example, ch, which conveys the sound “ch”. The new idea was received with curiosity, and several schools even tried to implement the new system. The Revolution that broke out in the country prevented us from assessing the results. The country simply had no time for reformations in the language. Over time, Franklin's new alphabet was lost and the project was abandoned. Humanity learned about its existence only a century later.
Simplified Carnegie Spelling. The reform of the native language in order to improve it worried many minds. In 1906, the major American-Scottish industrialist Andrew Carnegie decided to introduce a simplified spelling system for the English language. President Theodore Roosevelt himself expressed his support for this. Like other reformers, Carnegie thought that the English language was quite difficult and needed to be simplified. For example, it was supposed to change some words. So, “kissed” and “bureau” should have turned into the laconic “kist” and “buro”. The reform also affected words with a combination of two vowels. For example, “check” should have been replaced by the much simpler “check”. The idea was promoted so persistently that it was even accepted in some schools. But over time, the new spelling caused many complaints. The case even reached the Supreme Court, which finally decided that Carnegie's plans for language changes were not destined to come true. The system has not been officially used since 1920. However, echoes of it can be found in everyday English today. For example, the letter "u" is dropped, except for the spellings of "colour" and "parlour".
Deseret. After the Mormons, also representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, were expelled from Ohio, Illinois and New York, these believers went to Utah. After the new territories were settled, believers decided to create an entire Order with its own laws. Naturally, there was a need for a new writing system. Such a system was created, it was called Deseret. The new letters became a replacement for the familiar Latin alphabet. It was assumed that with the help of this language it would be possible to express any other language using the same symbols. They began to quickly implement the new product - Deseret began to be studied in schools, books began to be published in it. Even official documents and coins contained new symbols. For better or worse, the system collapsed overnight for a very banal reason - lack of money. It turned out that providing every Mormon with new books on Deseret would require all the funds available to the community. Reprinting the literature would require more than a million dollars. The Church leadership decided not to take risks with the new language, abandoning it in favor of traditional English.
Tamboran. This language has been in use among the population of Southern Indonesia for more than a thousand years. The language lost its functions literally overnight. In 1815, the Tambor volcano erupted; it became the largest in the history of mankind. The raging disaster destroyed almost the entire local population. Only officially more than 92 thousand people died. Along with them, the Tamboran language also disappeared into oblivion. Even Europeans suffered from the eruption, having to endure the consequences of the volcanic winter. The year 1816 passed virtually without a summer in Europe; crop failure led to famine. Grain prices soared 10 times. And the language itself became dead not gradually, but literally immediately, due to a natural disaster.
Just because almost no one speaks them doesn’t mean they should be forgotten.
You never know, maybe some of you, after reading this article, will want to become better acquainted with one of the languages listed below. There is something mysterious and enigmatic about them, something that will attract any polyglot.
10. Akkadian
When appeared: 2800 BC
Disappeared: 500 AD
General information: lingua franca of ancient Mesopotamia. The Akkadian language used the same cuneiform alphabet as Sumerian. The epic of Gilgamesh, the myth of Enuma and Elisha and many others are written on it. The grammar of a dead language resembles the grammar of classical Arabic.
The advantages of studying it: people will be very impressed when they see that you can easily read these strange icons for them.
Disadvantages of studying it: It will be difficult for you to find an interlocutor.
When appeared: 900 BC
Disappeared: 70 BC
General information: The Old Testament was written on it, which was later translated into ancient Greek or, as it is commonly called, the Septuagint.
The advantages of studying it: Biblical is very similar to modern spoken Hebrew.
Disadvantages of studying it: It won't be easy to talk to someone on it.
8. Coptic
When appeared: 100 AD
Disappeared: 1600 AD
General information: it contains all the literature of the early Christian church, including the Nag Hammadi library, which contains the famous Gnostic Gospels.
The advantages of studying it: it is the basis of the Egyptian language, created using the Greek alphabet, and it sounds absolutely amazing.
Disadvantages of studying it: alas, no one speaks it because Arabic has supplanted it.
When appeared: 700 BC
Disappeared: 600 AD
General information: for centuries it has been the lingua franca of much of the Middle East. Aramaic is commonly identified with the language of Jesus Christ. The bulk of the Talmud, as well as the biblical books of Daniel and Ezra, are written on it.
The advantages of studying it: it is not very different from biblical Hebrew, and therefore, by studying it, you can kill two birds with one stone. If this interests you, just imagine speaking the language of Jesus.
Disadvantages of studying it: No one speaks it, except for a few Aramaic communities.
When appeared: 1200 AD
Disappeared: 1470 AD
General information: on it you can read the works of the “father of English poetry” Geoffrey Chaucer, the Bible translated by Wycliffe, as well as the children’s ballads “The Exploits of Robin Hood,” which are considered early tales about the hero of the same name.
The advantages of studying it: it is the basis of modern English.
Disadvantages of studying it: you can't find anyone who can use it fluently.
5. Sanskrit
When appeared: 1500 BC
General information: still exists as a liturgical or ecclesiastical language. The Vedas and most of the scriptures are written on it. For three thousand years, Sanskrit was the lingua franca of the Indian subcontinent. Its alphabet consists of 49 letters.
The advantages of studying it: Sanskrit became the foundation of the religious texts of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.
Disadvantages of studying it: only priests and residents of some village settlements can speak it.
When appeared: 3400 BC
Disappeared: 600 BC
General information: It was in this language that the Book of the Dead was written, and the tombs of Egyptian rulers were also painted.
The advantages of studying it: this language is specifically for those who love difficult-to-understand hieroglyphs
Disadvantages of studying it: no one speaks it.
When appeared: 700 AD
Disappeared: 1300 AD
General information: The main work of German-Scandinavian mythology, the Edda, and a whole series of old Icelandic myths are written on it. This is the language of the Vikings. It was spoken in Scandinavia, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland and in some areas of Russia, France, and the British Isles. It is considered a kind of predecessor of modern Icelandic.
The advantages of studying it: Once you learn Old Norse, you can pretend to be a Viking.
Disadvantages of studying it: Almost no one will understand you.
When appeared: 800 BC, which is also called the Renaissance. 75 BC and 3rd century AD It is considered to be the “golden” and “silver” periods of classical Latin. Then the existence of the era of medieval Latin began.
General information: in the original language you can read Cicero, Julius Caesar, Cato, Catullus, Virgil, Ovid, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.
The advantages of studying it: Among dead languages, it is considered the most popular.
Disadvantages of studying it: Unfortunately, you can’t communicate on social networks or in real life. Although in societies of Latin lovers and in the Vatican you will have someone to talk to.
When appeared: 800 BC
Disappeared: 300 AD
General information: Knowing ancient Greek, you can easily read the works of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Homer, Herodotus, Euripides, Aristophanes and many others.
The advantages of studying it: you will not only expand your vocabulary and expand your consciousness, but you will also be able to read the ancient scripture on sex, written by Aristophanes.
Disadvantages of studying it: almost no one is fluent in it.
You never know, maybe some of you, after reading this article, will want to become better acquainted with one of the languages listed below. There is something mysterious and enigmatic about them, something that will attract any polyglot.
In contact with
Classmates
Akkadian.
When appeared: 2800 BC
Disappeared: 500 AD
General information: the lingua franca of ancient Mesopotamia. The Akkadian language used the same cuneiform alphabet as Sumerian. The epic of Gilgamesh, the myth of Enuma and Elisha and many others are written on it. The grammar of a dead language resembles the grammar of classical Arabic.
Pros of learning it: People will be very impressed when they see that you can easily read these strange icons for them. Disadvantages of studying it: it will be difficult for you to find an interlocutor.
Biblical Hebrew.
When appeared: 900 BC
Disappeared: 70 BC
General information: the Old Testament was written on it, which was later translated into ancient Greek or, as it is commonly called, the Septuagint.
Pros of learning it: Biblical is very similar to modern spoken Hebrew. Disadvantages of studying it: it will not be easy to talk to someone on it.
Coptic.
When appeared: 100 AD
Disappeared: 1600 AD
Trivia: It contains all the literature of the early Christian church, including the Nag Hammadi library, which contains the famous Gnostic Gospels.
Pros of learning it: It's the basis of the Egyptian language, created using the Greek alphabet, which sounds amazing. Disadvantages of studying it: alas, no one speaks it for the reason that it was supplanted by Arabic.
Aramaic.
When appeared: 700 BC
Disappeared: 600 AD
General information: For many centuries it has been the lingua franca of much of the Middle East. Aramaic is commonly identified with the language of Jesus Christ. The bulk of the Talmud, as well as the biblical books of Daniel and Ezra, are written on it.
The advantages of studying it: it is not very different from biblical Hebrew, and therefore, by studying it, you can kill two birds with one stone. If this interests you, just imagine speaking the language of Jesus. Disadvantages of learning it: no one speaks it, except for a few Aramaic communities.
Middle English.
When appeared: 1200 AD
Disappeared: 1470 AD
General information: on it you can read the works of the “father of English poetry” Geoffrey Chaucer, the Bible translated by Wycliffe, as well as the children’s ballads “The Exploits of Robin Hood,” which are considered early tales about the hero of the same name.
The advantages of studying it: it is the basis of modern English. Disadvantages of studying it: you can’t find someone who speaks it fluently.
Sanskrit.
When appeared: 1500 BC
General information: still exists as a liturgical or ecclesiastical language. The Vedas and most of the scriptures are written on it. For three thousand years, Sanskrit was the lingua franca of the Indian subcontinent. Its alphabet consists of 49 letters.
The advantages of studying it: Sanskrit has become the foundation of the religious texts of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Disadvantages of learning it: only priests and residents of some village settlements can speak it.
Ancient Egyptian.
When appeared: 3400 BC
Disappeared: 600 BC
General information: it is in this language that the Book of the Dead was written, and the tombs of Egyptian rulers were also painted. The advantages of learning it: this language is specifically for those who adore hieroglyphs that are not easy to understand. Disadvantages of learning it: no one speaks it.
Norse.
When appeared: 700 AD
Disappeared: 1300 AD
General information: the main work of German-Scandinavian mythology, the Edda, and a number of old Icelandic myths are written on it. This is the language of the Vikings. It was spoken in Scandinavia, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland and in some areas of Russia, France, and the British Isles. It is considered a kind of predecessor of modern Icelandic.
Pros of learning it: Once you learn Old Norse, you can pretend to be a Viking. Disadvantages of studying it: almost no one will understand you.
Latin.
When it appeared: 800 BC, also called the Renaissance.
General information: in the original language you can read Cicero, Julius Caesar, Cato, Catullus, Virgil, Ovid, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.
The advantages of learning it: among dead languages, it is considered the most popular. Disadvantages of studying it: unfortunately, you cannot communicate on social networks or in real life. Although in societies of Latin lovers and in the Vatican you will have someone to talk to.
Ancient Greek.
When appeared: 800 BC
Disappeared: 300 AD
As Oliver Holmes said: “A language is like a temple that preserves the souls of those who speak it.” But it may collapse as soon as people stop using it. The appearance of the metaphor “living and dead languages” is far from accidental. A people disappears, followed by its culture, traditions and values. When all this does not exist, a dead language appears, which is stored only in written sources.
How and why they die
The disappearance of languages has been observed at all times, but this has begun to happen most actively in recent centuries. According to scientific research, a dead tongue appears every 2 weeks. Many of them are unwritten, and they disappear as soon as death takes the last carrier. This situation occurs when three main reasons occur:
1. The people who speak this language are disappearing. This fate affected the residents of Tasmania, who were expelled from their native land.
2. People learn new languages, while forgetting old ones. This process can be explained as people switching to another culture. Such people are divided into 3 categories:
2.1 The generation knows only its native language.
2.2 Native people are used at home, but on the street they speak the main language.
2.3 They do not know their native language, but have an excellent command of the basic language.
The third generation is often subject to difficulties. For example, a family lives in America, and the children speak the main language, but do not know their native language. But older relatives do not know English, but speak their native language. This is where a communication barrier between relatives arises.
Expanding the meaning of the term
A dead language is one that does not exist in use and is known only through writing or is used in another form. For example, not many people know that Arabic used to be Coptic, and the native American language was replaced by French, English, Spanish and Portuguese.
Dead languages, a list of which will be presented below, help continue the evolution of others. For example:
Latin is the ancestor of the Romance language;
Old Church Slavonic gave the basis to our Russian;
Ancient Greek exists only in dialects.
Sometimes dead languages of the world continue to exist in religion and science. But there have been cases when a dead language came to life. An example of this event was Hebrew.
The same can be said about Turkish speech, which was formed from Ottoman speech. The latter at the beginning of the 20th century was used only in office work. This case clearly demonstrates how the literary language is separated from the spoken language, which over time passes into a new form, thereby turning the main one into a dead one.
Dead languages. List
Tamboran - used for 1000 years by the people of southern Indonesia. But in 1815, after a powerful volcanic eruption, not only the people died, but also their language.
Frisian was a competitor to German, where the latter turned out to be stronger. Today it exists only in the everyday life of a small town called Saterland.
Azeri - ended its existence in the 17th century, when the Persians attacked the city where they spoke this language. After that, everyone switched to Turkish-Azerbaijani speech.
Shuadit - spoken by French Jews in the 11th century. Due to religious lack of freedom, they created their own communities, where all speech was in this language. With the attainment of religious independence, Jews dispersed to different countries, and Shuadit eventually became a dead language.
Greek. More than 15 million people spoke it. The development of the language occurred together with the people of the Mediterranean countries. It was this that Aristotle and Plato used to write their works. It is considered to be a scientific language. More than 1 million English words are taken from Greek.
Latin is a dead language that originated in 1000 BC. e. Today, the residents of the Vatican (100 thousand people) are considered carriers. Latin is the language of medical terminology. It was he who played one of the main roles in the spread of the religion of Christianity.
Dead or alive
We will talk about Latin, the alphabet of which became the basis for the creation of writing for many modern languages. From the very beginning of its inception, it was spoken only by the population of the small region of Latium. The city of Roma (Rome) became the center for this people, and the inhabitants began to call themselves Romans. This stage in the development of Latin was called archaic.
The next period was called the classical period and appeared when the territory of Rome became the largest slaveholding land. Latin of this period was considered a literary language in which prose works and poetic works were written.
The last stage is medieval. The Latin of this period was expressed in prayers, songs and hymns. Saint Jerome, by translating the Bible into it, made it as sacred as Hebrew and Greek.
To summarize, we can say that Latin is not a dead language, but to some extent a living one. At least 1,000,000 people on our planet know it, although no one speaks it as a native language. He can be considered dead because many words and dialects have not reached us, and we do not know the correct pronunciation of sounds.
Revival of Hebrew
This language is the most popular example of how a dead language became alive again. After the Great Patriotic War, Jews united in Israel and contributed to the revival of their language. Thanks to the people who used it as a cult, and the efforts of scientists, Hebrew came to life again. It was this example that became the basis and impetus for the revival of such dead languages as Gascony (France) and Manx (Britain).
1. The most common languages in the world are English, Chinese, and Arabic.
2. The world's population speaks 7,000 languages. 2,500 of whom may soon join the list of dead.
4. The rate of development of English is so fast that a new word appears every 98 minutes.
5. The smallest alphabet of the Rotokas (population of Papua New Guinea) consists of 12 letters.
6. Lebanese was added to the list of dead languages when its last speaker, Griselda Christina, died.
7. The Google search engine operates in 124 languages, 2 of them are artificial - Esperanto and Klingon.
Living language is any natural language (used for communication) that is currently in use. Dead language- a language that does not exist in living use and, as a rule, is known only from written monuments, or is in artificial, regulated use. Dead languages are often called archaic forms of living, actively used languages. In some cases, dead languages, having ceased to serve as a means of living communication, are preserved in written form and are used for the needs of science, culture, and religion: 1. Latin (from the 6th century BC to the 6th century AD) 2. Old Russian language (written monuments of the 11th-14th centuries) 3. Ancient Greek language (from the end of the 2nd millennium BC to the 5th century AD) for scientific and religious purposes - Sanskrit, Latin, Church Slavonic, Coptic, Avestan, etc. There is an example when a dead language became alive again, as happened with Hebrew. Most often, the literary language is torn away from the spoken language and freezes in some of its classical appearance, then hardly changing; when a spoken language develops a new literary form, the old one can be considered to have turned into a dead language (an example of such a situation would be the Turkish language, which replaced the Ottoman language as the language of education and office work in Turkey in the 20s of the 20th century). Constructed languages- special languages, which, unlike natural ones, are designed purposefully. types: 1.Programming languages and computer languages. 2. Information languages - languages used in various information processing systems. 3. Formalized languages of science - languages intended for symbolic recording of scientific facts and theories of mathematics, logic, chemistry and other sciences.4. Languages of non-existent peoples created for fictional or entertainment purposes, for example: Elvish language - J. Tolkien, Klingon language - Star Trek. International auxiliary languages - languages created from elements of natural languages and offered as an auxiliary means of international communication. The most famous artificial language was Esperanto (L. Zamenhof, 1887) - the only artificial language that became widespread and united quite a lot of supporters of an international language. There are also languages that were specifically developed for communication with extraterrestrial intelligence (linkos). According to the purpose of creation, artificial languages can be divided into the following groups: 1. Philosophical and logical languages. 2.Auxiliary languages - intended for practical communication. 2. Artistic or aesthetic languages. 3. Language is also created to set up an experiment, for example, to test the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (that the language a person speaks limits consciousness, drives it into a certain framework).