A. Language Extinction
An extinct language is a language which no longer has any speakers, whereas a dead language is a language which is no longer spoken by anyone as their main language. Normally this conversion to an extinct language occurs when a language undergoes language death while being directly replaced by a different one. For example: Coptic, which was replaced by Arabic, and many Native American languages, which were replaced by English, French, Spanish, or Portuguese.
Language extinction also occurs when a language undergoes rapid evolution or assimilation until it eventually gives birth to an offspring, i.e., a dissimilar language or family of language. Such is the case with Old English which is the parent of Modern English.
In some cases, an extinct language remains in use for scientific, legal, or ecclesiastical functions. Old Church Slavonic, Avestan, Coptic, Old Tibetan and Ge’ez are among the many extinct languages used as sacred languages.
Hebrew is an example of a nearly extinct spoken language that became a lingua franca and a liturgical language that has been revived to become a living spoken language.
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