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First, "dead language" is not an academic term; "extinct language" is much more widely used by linguists. Second, I can certainly see an argument for distinguishing languages that are extinct without issue (like Galatian, Etruscan, or Meroitic) from languages that are extinct only because they were replaced by their own descendants (such as Ancient Greek, Latin, or Sanskrit; but consistency is necessary. Either Latin and Ancient Greek are both alive, or they are both extinct; the only difference in their states is that Latin has diversified more than Greek has, though even for Greek Tsakonian has sometimes been seen as a separate language. - [[User:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]] 7 July 2005 18:30 (UTC)
:I am in total agreement with [[user:Mustafaa|Mustafaa]]: it is counter-productive to try to make a distinction between ''dead'' and ''extinct'' languages. No such distinction is made in linguistic terminology, and they should be considered to be equivalents. There are fascinating issues here about language death as a feature of language development: one stage of the langauge becomes extinct in giving birth to the next. In comparative linguistics, we are aware of the fuzzy boundaries between ''language'' and ''dialect'', and perhaps the same fuzziness should be applied to the stages of language development. I think it would be wholly appropriate to say the Old English is an extinct language: it is not natively spoken, even though its progeny, Modern English, continues to thrive. After all, similar factors are involved in language death and language development. --[[User:Garzo|Gareth Hughes]] 7 July 2005 19:21 (UTC)
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