List of extinct languages
Extinct languages are historical languages whose speakers have become extinct or whose speakers have switched to another language (have assimilated to another language community).
There are various reasons for the extinction of languages. Extinct languages are to be differentiated from "dead" languages , the speakers of which are not extinct in the actual sense, but represent the historical forerunners of today's languages (e.g. the speakers of Latin are not extinct, but have more and more vulgar Latin over the course of time changed until today's Romance languages emerged.)
A variety of languages or language families died out after the colonization of America and Australia . Linguists estimate that of the hundreds of Australian languages spoken before European settlement, only 10-20 will survive. The situation is similar in America. Here, too, the majority of the languages disappeared with the arrival of European conquerors, and were replaced by four European languages ( English , Spanish , Portuguese , French ).
Another area with a high number of endangered languages is New Guinea . Due to the geographical isolation of individual tribes, the interior of the island had a very high language density. The majority of the approximately 1000 languages are threatened with extinction.
A historical language displacement is assumed for Africa south of the Sahara . Here the Bantu languages have often replaced older languages. In North Africa it was again Arabic that displaced the previous languages, including the important cultural language Coptic .
Italian languages
Romance languages
- Dalmatian
- Moselle Romansh (extinct in the 11th century)
- Mozarabic
- Ragusa
Iranian languages
Germanic languages
Celtic languages
-
Gallic
- Noric , suspected to be closely related to Gallic; extinct at an unknown time before or during the Great Migration
- Celtiberian
- Lepont table
- Galatian
- Cornish , 1777 ( revived )
- Cumbrian , 18th century at the latest, probably much earlier
- Manx , 1974 (revived)
Slavic languages
- Old Church Slavonic (lives on as New Church Slavonic in the use of the Slavic Orthodox churches )
- Polabian (extinct 1756)
- Pomoran
- Slowinzisch (extinct around 1950)
- Old East Slavonic (replaced by Russian and Ruthenian after the 14th century )
- Ruthenian (out of use after the 17th century; replaced by Ukrainian , Belarusian and Russian in the 19th century )
Baltic languages
Finno-Ugric languages
- Merjanisch (probably extinct between 11th century and 14th century)
- Meschtscherisch (probably extinct in the 16th century)
- Muromisch (probably extinct between the 11th and 14th centuries)
- Kemi Sami (extinct in the 19th century)
- Akkalasam (last first speaker died in 2003 )
Samoyed languages
Anatolian
Semitic
- Akkadian , present-day Iraq and Syria
- Ammonitic , Middle East
- Amorite , Middle East
- Hadramautical , South Arabia
- Hatrenish , Iraq
- Lihyan , Northern Arabia
- Moabite , Middle East
- Nabatean , Northern Arabia
- Palmyrenian , Syria
- Phoenician Punic , Middle East, North Africa
- Qataban , South Arabia
- Sabaean , South Arabia
- Thamudisch , North Arabia
Old American languages
- Eyak ( Alaska ) (2008)
- Muchik (Mochica, including the Quingnam of the Chimú )
- Puquina
- Olmec language
Turkic languages
- Old Turkish language
- Khazarian language
- Hunnic Turkic language
- Kipchak language
- Cuman language
- Oghusian language (Old Turkmen, Old Azerbaijani)
- Ottoman language
- Chagatan language
Other extinct languages
- Pelasgian , Greece
- Egyptian (Coptic), 17th century
- Arabana , Australia
- Ausanisch , South Arabia
- Elamish , Chusistan (present-day Iran and Iraq), 10th century
- Etruscan , Italy
- Garamantisch , North Africa
- Hurrian , (Today's East Turkey and Iraq)
- Illyrian , Croatia , Slovenia , Bosnia and Herzegovina , Serbia , Montenegro , Albania , Epirus
- Liburnian , Croatia
- Ligurian , Liguria , Italy
- Meroitic , Sudan
- Numidian , North Africa
- Sumerian , Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq)
- Thracian , Balkan Peninsula , Asia Minor
- Tocharian , Xinjiang , China
- Ubykh , Caucasus , last speaker Tevfik Esenç died in 1992
- Urartian , present-day Eastern Turkey and Armenia
See also
literature
- Harald Haarmann : Lexicon of the lost languages (= Beck'sche series. 1456). Beck, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-406-47596-5 (2nd, revised edition, ibid 2004).
- David Crystal : Half of World's Languages May Become Extinct by 2100. World Resources Institute, September 19, 2007, ( online ( April 13, 2010 memento on the Internet Archive )).
