A dead language, that-is, which ceased to be a spoken language. and
survives only in written monuments or in artificial used, e.g., as lang.
worship and sacred books, or, as lang. scientists essays, or as the
official language. in its international relations.
Our planet's
six thousand languages, some say hundreds of millions of people, on the
other - several dozens of one tribe, but all of them are valuable for
linguists. Diversity is the wealth that should make all possible to keep
and treat it with as much care as and to the endangered animals and
plants. And languages die. According to experts, from twenty to fifty
percent languages doomed to extinction, children do not learn them and
they will perish in the following century.
One of the reasons for
this tragic situation - the rapid development of transport and
telecommunications. To actively participate in the rapid processes of
today, we have to learn languages, which are spoken by most. They are
spoken by radio and TV, exit of the most interesting books, Newspapers
and magazines, communicates science and much more. Small Nations with
their tongues simply have to forget his speech and culture, and included
in the global process. So were forgotten in the beginning of the
century dozens of languages of American Indians.
This rapid death
of a large number of languages will inevitably affect linguistics as a
science, and not only in linguistics and to the culture in General. Any
language keeps a memory of the Millennium development of the people.
There are thousands of examples of how the study of languages helped
scientists to understand the unknown aspects of history. The Australian
aborigines, for example, the language spoken by young men a few years
after initiation. A stunning example of how people with a rather low
development can create such a sophisticated intellectual product. This
language as soon disappear...
Languages die too