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An extinct language is a language
Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
 which no longer has any speakers .

Extinct languages may be contrasted with dead languages
Language death

In linguistics, language death is a process that affects speech communities where the level of linguistic competence that speakers possess of a given Variety is decreased....
: no longer spoken as a main language.

Normally the transition from a dead to an extinct language occurs when a language undergoes language death
Language death

In linguistics, language death is a process that affects speech communities where the level of linguistic competence that speakers possess of a given Variety is decreased....
 while being directly replaced by a different one. For example, Coptic
Coptic language

Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the final stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic languages language spoken in Egypt until at least the seventeenth century....
 was replaced by Arabic
Arabic language

Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....
; many Native American languages
Indigenous languages of the Americas

Indigenous languages of the Americas are spoken by Indigenous peoples of the Americas from the southern tip of South America to Alaska and Greenland, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas....
 were replaced by English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
, French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
, Spanish
Spanish language

Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
, or Portuguese
Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and Portugal. It is derived from the Latin language spoken by the Romanization Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago....
.

Language extinction may also occur when a language evolves into a new language or family of languages.






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An extinct language is a language
Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
 which no longer has any speakers .

Extinct languages may be contrasted with dead languages
Language death

In linguistics, language death is a process that affects speech communities where the level of linguistic competence that speakers possess of a given Variety is decreased....
: no longer spoken as a main language.

Normally the transition from a dead to an extinct language occurs when a language undergoes language death
Language death

In linguistics, language death is a process that affects speech communities where the level of linguistic competence that speakers possess of a given Variety is decreased....
 while being directly replaced by a different one. For example, Coptic
Coptic language

Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the final stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic languages language spoken in Egypt until at least the seventeenth century....
 was replaced by Arabic
Arabic language

Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....
; many Native American languages
Indigenous languages of the Americas

Indigenous languages of the Americas are spoken by Indigenous peoples of the Americas from the southern tip of South America to Alaska and Greenland, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas....
 were replaced by English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
, French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
, Spanish
Spanish language

Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
, or Portuguese
Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and Portugal. It is derived from the Latin language spoken by the Romanization Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago....
.

Language extinction may also occur when a language evolves into a new language or family of languages. An example of this was Old English
Old English language

Old English is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and south-eastern Scotland between the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century....
 - the parent of Modern English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
.

By contrast to an extinct language which no longer has any speakers, a dead language may remain in use for scientific
Science

In its broadest sense, science refers to any systematic knowledge or practice. In its more usual restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research....
, legal
LAW

LAW may refer to:* Anti-tank warfare, e.g. the US Army M72 LAW or the British Army LAW 80*Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights ...
, or ecclesiastical
Religion

A religion is an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of myth, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendence quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power or truth....
 functions. Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic

Old Church Slavonic, also known as Old Bulgarian, or Old Macedonian, was the first literary Slavic language, based on the old Solun dialect of the Thessaloniki region by the 9th century Byzantine Greeks missionaries, Saints Cyril and Methodius, who used it for translation of the Bible and other Ancient Greek language ecclesiastica...
, Avestan
Avestan language

Avestan is a Eastern Iranian language that was used to compose the sacred hymns and canon of the Zoroastrianism Avesta. Iranian languages are part of the hypothetical Indo-Iranian languages Language group....
, Coptic
Coptic language

Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the final stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic languages language spoken in Egypt until at least the seventeenth century....
, Old Tibetan, Ge'ez
Ge'ez language

Ge'ez is an ancient South Semitic language that developed in the current region of Eritrea and northern Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa. It later became the official language of the Kingdom of Aksum and Ethiopian imperial court....
 and Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
 are among the many dead languages used as sacred language
Sacred language

A sacred language, or liturgical language, is a language that is cultivated for religion reasons by people who speak another language in their daily life....
s.

Alternatively, a language is said to be extinct if, although it is known to have been spoken by people in the past, modern scholarship cannot reconstruct it to the point that it is possible to write in it or translate into it with confidence (say, a simple dialogue or a short tale written in a modern language); whereas a language is referred to as dead, but not extinct, if it is sufficiently known at present to permit such routine use, even though it has no modern speakers. By these definitions Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European language

The Proto-Indo-European language is the unattested, linguistic reconstruction common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans....
 (of which only conjectural reconstructions of lexicon and grammar exist) is an extinct language, and Classical Latin
Classical Latin

Classical Latin is the form of the Latin used by the ancient Rome in what is usually regarded as "classical" Latin literature. Its use spanned the Golden Age of Latin literature—broadly the 1st century BC and the early 1st century AD—possibly extending to the Silver Age—broadly the 1st and 2nd centuries....
 and Old Tupi are dead, but not extinct languages.

A language that has living native speakers is called a modern language
Modern language

A modern language is any human language that is currently in use.The term is used in a language education context to distinguish between languages such as French language and German language, which are spoken by millions of people and are learned for their usefulness as tools of communication or lingua franca, and classical languages such...
. Ethnologue
Ethnologue

Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christianity linguistics service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, primarily to provide the speakers with Bibles, in their native language....
 records 6,912 living languages known.

Hebrew
Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
 is an example of a nearly extinct spoken language (by the first definition above) that became a lingua franca
Lingua franca

A lingua franca is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues....
 and a liturgical
Liturgy

A liturgy is the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to their particular traditions. The word may refer to an elaborate formal ritual such as the Eastern Orthodox Divine Liturgy and Mass , or a daily activity such as the Muslim salat and Jewish Jewish services....
 language that has been revived
Revival of Hebrew language

The revival of the Hebrew language was a process that took place in Europe and Israel at the end of the 19th century and in the 20th century, through which the Hebrew language changed from a liturgical, written language to a spoken language of official status in the State of Israel....
 to become a living spoken language. There are other attempts at language revival. For example, young school children use Sanskrit in revived language
Language revival

Language revitalization, language revival or reversing language shift is the attempt by interested parties, including individuals, cultural or community groups, governments, or political authorities, to reverse the decline of a language....
 in Mathoor village
Mattur

Mattur is a small village near the city of Shivamogga in Karnataka, South India. It is on the bank of the Tunga River. In recent times, it has become known for Sanskrit learning....
 (India) . In general, the success of these attempts has been subject to debate, as it is not clear they will ever become the common native language of a community of speakers.

Recently extinct languages


With last known speaker and/or date of death.
  1. Adai: (late 19th century)
  2. Akkala Sami
    Akkala Sami

    Akkala Sami is a Sami languages that was spoken in the siida of A?kkel and Cu?kksu?l, in the inland parts of the Kola Peninsula in Russia. Formerly erroneously regarded as a dialect of Kildin Sami, it has recently become recognized as an independent Sami language that is most closely related to its western neighbor Skolt Sami....
    : Marja Sergina (2003)
  3. entire Alsean family
    Alsean languages

    The Alsean language family consists of two closely related languages that were spoken along the central Oregon coast....
    1. Alsea: John Albert (1942)
    2. Yaquina
      Yaquina (people)

      Yaquina originally denoted a tribe of Native Americans in the United States, now nearly extinct , along with their language . The remaining Yaquina people live on the Siletz Reservation in Oregon, and are mostly of mixed blood....
      : (1884)
  4. Apalachee
    Apalachee

    The Apalachee are an Native Americans in the United States that lived in Apalachee Province, Florida, until the tribe was largely destroyed and dispersed in the 18th century....
    : (early 18th century)
  5. Aruá
    Aruá language

    Aru? is an extinct language of Brazil. The last speaker died in 1877. All that survives is a word list from 1869.External links...
    : (1877)
  6. Atakapa
    Atakapa language

    Atakapa is an extinct language language isolate native to southwestern Louisiana and nearby eastern Texas....
    : (early 20th century)
  7. Atsugewi
    Atsugewi language

    Atsugewi is a moribund Palaihnihan language of northeastern California spoken by the Hat Creek and Dixie Valley people. In 1962, there were four speakers out of an ethnic group of 200, all elderly....
    : (1988)
  8. Beothuk
    Beothuk language

    The Beothuk language was spoken by the indigenous Beothuk people of Newfoundland . As the Beothuk are extinct and few written accounts of their language exist, little is known about it....
    : Shanawdithit
    Shanawdithit

    Shanawdithit , also referred to as Shawnadithit, Shawnawdithit, and Nancy April, was the last recorded surviving member of the Beothuk people of Newfoundland , Canada....
     (a.k.a. "Nancy April") (1829)
  9. entire Catawban family
    Catawban languages

    The Catawban languages form a small language family in east North America. The Catawban family is a sub-family of the larger Siouan languages....
    :
    1. Catawba
      Catawba (tribe)

      The Catawba are a sovereign and recognized nation, not a tribe, of Native Americans in the United States, in the Southeast United States, along the border between North Carolina and South Carolina....
      : before 1960
    2. Woccon
  10. Cayuse
    Cayuse

    The Cayuse are a Native Americans in the United States tribe in the state of Oregon in the United States. The Cayuse tribe shares a Umatilla Indian Reservation in northeastern Oregon with the Umatilla and the Walla Walla tribes as part of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation....
    : (ca. 1930s)
  11. Chemakum
    Chemakum

    The Chemakum language was spoken by the Chemakum, a Native Americans in the United States group that once lived on western Washington state's Olympic Peninsula....
    : (ca. 1940s)
  12. Chicomuceltec
    Chicomuceltec

    Chicomuceltec is a Mayan language formerly spoken in the region defined by the municipio s of Chicomuselo, Mazapa de Madero, and Amatenango de la Frontera in Chiapas, Mexico, as well as some nearby areas of Guatemala....
    : (late 20th century)
  13. Chimariko
    Chimariko

    The Chimariko were a Native American group living primarily in a narrow, 20-mile section of canyon on the Trinity River in Trinity County, California in northwestern California....
    : (ca. 1930s)
  14. Chitimacha
    Chitimacha language

    The Chitimacha language is a language isolate historically spoken by the Chitimacha people of Louisiana, United States. It went extinct with the death of the last fluent speaker, Delphine Ducloux, in 1940....
    : Benjamin Paul (1934) & Delphine Ducloux (1940)
  15. entire Chumashan family
    Chumashan languages

    Chumashan is a family of languages that were spoken on the southern California coast , in neighboring inland regions , and on three nearby islands ....
    : Barbareño language was last to become extinct.
    1. Barbareño: Mary Yee (1965)
    2. Ineseño
    3. Island Chumash
    4. Obispeño
    5. Purisimeño
    6. Ventureño
  16. Coahuilteco: (18th century)
  17. Cochimí
    Cochimi

    The Cochim? were the aboriginal inhabitants of the central part of the Baja California peninsula, from El Rosario in the north to San Javier in the south....
     (a Yuman-Cochimí
    Yuman-Cochimí languages

    Yuman-Cochim? is a family of languages spoken in Baja California and northern Sonora in Mexico and southern California and western Arizona in the United States....
     language): (early 19th century)
  18. entire Comecrudan family
    Comecrudan languages

    Comecrudan refers to a group of possibly related languages spoken in the southernmost part of Texas and in northern Mexico along the Rio Grande....
    1. Comecrudo: recorded from children (Andrade, Emiterio, Joaquin, & others) of last speakers in 1886
    2. Garza
      Comecrudan languages

      Comecrudan refers to a group of possibly related languages spoken in the southernmost part of Texas and in northern Mexico along the Rio Grande....
      : last recorded in 1828
    3. Mamulique: last recorded in 1828
  19. entire Coosan family
    Coosan languages

    This article is about the language Hanis; for the Akkadian god see Hani The Coosan language family consists of two languages spoken along the southern Oregon coast....
    1. Hanis: Martha Johnson (1972)
    2. Miluk: Annie Miner Peterson (1939)
  20. all Costanoan
    Ohlone

    The Ohlone people, also known as the Costanoan and as the Muwekma, are the Native Americans in the United States of Northern California who have lived in the San Francisco Bay and Monterey Bay areas since the sixth century, spanning south into the Salinas Valley....
     languages (which make up a subfamily of the Utian language family
    Utian languages

    Utian is a Indigenous languages of the Americas spoken in the central and north portion of California, United States. The Miwok and Ohlone peoples both spoke a language in the Utian languages linguistic group....
    ): (ca. 1940s)
    1. Karkin
      Karkin language

      Karkin is a name of one sub-group of the indigenous Ohlone people of California, as well as the name of the language they spoke.Karkin was a Utian languages in the Ohlone language family that was spoken in Northern California by the division of the Ohlone who who lived in the Carquinez Strait region....
    2. Mutsun
    3. Northern Costanoan:
      1. Ramaytush
      2. Chochenyo
        Chochenyo

        The Chochenyo are one of the divisions of the indigenous Ohlone people of Northern California. The Chochenyo resided on the east side of the San Francisco Bay , primarily in what is now Alameda County, California, and also Contra Costa County, California, inland to the Mount Diablo coastal mountains....
      3. Tamyen
        Tamyen

        The Tamyen are one of eight linguistic divisions of the Ohlone people groups of Native American in the United Statess who lived in Northern California....
      4. Awaswas
        Awaswas

        The Awaswas people are one of eight divisions of the Ohlone Native American in the United Statess of Northern California. The Awaswas lived in the Santa Cruz Mountains and along the coast of present-day Santa Cruz County from present-day Davenport, California to Aptos, California....
    4. Rumsen
      Rumsen

      The Rumsen are one of eight divisions of the Ohlone Native American in the United States people of Northern California. The Rumsen people resided from the Pajaro River to Big Sur, California, and the lower courses of the Pajaro, as well as on the Salinas River and Carmel Rivers, and the present-day cities of Salinas%2C_California, Montere...
      : last recorded speaker died 1939 in Monterey, California.
    5. Chalon
      Chalon

      The Chalon are one of eight divisions of the Ohlone people groups of Native American in the United Statess who lived in Northern California. The Chalon lived in the Salinas Valley and on the Salinas River....
  21. Cotoname: last recorded from Santos Cavázos and Emiterio in 1886
  22. Crimean Gothic
    Crimean Gothic

    Crimean Gothic was a Germanic languages dialect spoken by the Crimean Goths in some isolated locations in Crimea until the late 18th century....
    : language vanished by the 1800’s
  23. Cuman
    Cuman language

    Cuman was a Turkic language spoken by the Cumans and was similar to today's Crimean Tatar language. It is documented in several medieval works, including the Codex Cumanicus....
    : (early 17th century)
  24. Dalmatian
    Dalmatian language

    Dalmatian is an extinct Romance languages formerly spoken in the Dalmatia region of Croatia, and as far south as Kotor in Montenegro.The Dalmatian speakers lived in the coastal towns: Zadar, Trogir, Split , Dubrovnik and Kotor , each of these cities having a local dialect, and also on the islands of Krk, Cres and Rab ....
    : Tuone Udaina
    Tuone Udaina

    Tuone Udaina was the last speaker of the Dalmatian language. He was the main source of knowledge about his parents' dialect, that of the island of Veglia , for the linguist Matteo Bartoli, who recorded it in 1897....
    , (June 10, 1898)
  25. Esselen
    Esselen

    The Esselen were a Native Americans in the United States linguistic group in the hypothetical Hokan languages family, who resided in what is now known as Big Sur in the Monterey Bay Area, California....
    : report of few speakers left in 1833, extinct before end 19th century
  26. Eyak
    Eyak language

    Eyak is an extinct Na-Den? languages that was historically spoken in southcentral Alaska, near the mouth of the Copper River .Marie Smith Jones of Cordova, Alaska was the language's last native speaker, as well as the last full-blooded Eyak....
     (a Na-Dené language
    Na-Dené languages

    Na-Dene is a Indigenous peoples of the Americas language family which includes at least the Athabaskan languages, Eyak, and Tlingit language languages....
    ): Marie Smith Jones
    Marie Smith

    Marie Smith Jones was the last surviving speaker of the Eyak language of Southcentral Alaska. She was born in Cordova, Alaska, was an honorary chief of the Eyak Nation and the last remaining full-blooded Eyak....
    , January 21, 2008
  27. Gabrielino (an Uto-Aztecan
    Uto-Aztecan languages

    Uto-Aztecan is a Indigenous languages of the Americas language family. It is one of the largest and most well-established linguistic families of the Americas....
     language): elderly speakers last recorded in 1933
  28. Galice-Applegate (an Athabaskan
    Athabaskan languages

    Athabaskan or Athabascan is the name of a large group of closely related Indigenous peoples of the Americas of North America, located in two main Southern and Northern groups in western North America, and of their language family....
     language):
    1. Galice dialect: Hoxie Simmons (1963)
  29. Greenlandic Norse
    Greenlandic Norse

    Greenlandic Norse is an extinct North Germanic language that was spoken in the Norse settlements of Greenland until their demise in the late 15th century....
    : (by the late 15th century (16th century at the latest))
  30. Modern Gutnish
    Modern Gutnish

    Modern Gutnish is the old language of the island of Gotland . It was used both as a spoken and written language until late medieval times. Today it still exists as a spoken language, but is to some degree mixed with Swedish language, Danish language and German language....
     (by the 18th century)
  31. Jassic
    Jassic dialect

    Jassic is a dialect of the Ossetian language and the name of a nomadic tribe settled in Hungary in the 13th century.The Jassic people came to Hungary together with the Cumanians, chased by the Mongol-Tatars....
     (17th century)
  32. Juaneño
    Juaneño

    The Juane?o or Acagchemem are a Native Americans in the United States Group from Southern California. The Juane?o lived in what is now part of Orange County, California and San Diego County, California Counties and received their Spanish language name from the priests of the Spanish missions in California due to their proxi...
     (an Uto-Aztecan
    Uto-Aztecan languages

    Uto-Aztecan is a Indigenous languages of the Americas language family. It is one of the largest and most well-established linguistic families of the Americas....
     language): last recorded in 1934
  33. Kakadu (Gagadju): Big Bill Neidjie
    Big Bill Neidjie

    Big Bill Neidjie was the last surviving speaker of the Gagudju language, an indigenous Australians language from northern Kakadu after which the World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park is named....
     (July 2002)
  34. entire Kalapuyan family
    Kalapuyan languages

    Kalapuyan is a small extinct languages language family that was spoken in the Willamette Valley of Western Oregon, United States. It consists of three languages....
    :
    1. Central Kalapuya
      Central Kalapuya language

      Central Kalapuyan was a Kalapuyan language indigenous to the central and southern Willamette Valley in Oregon in the United States. It was spoken by various bands of the Kalapuya peoples who inhabited the valley up through the middle of the 19th century....
      :
      1. Ahantchuyuk, Luckimute, Mary's River, and Lower McKenzie River dialects: last speakers were about 6 persons who were all over 60 in 1937
      2. Santiam dialect: (ca. 1950s)
    2. Northern Kalapuya
      Northern Kalapuya language

      Northern Kalapuyan is a Kalapuyan language indigenous to northwestern Oregon in the United States. It was spoken by Kalapuya groups in the northern Willamette Valley southwest of present-day Portland, Oregon....
      :
      1. Tualatin dialect: Louis Kenoyer (1937)
      2. Yamhill dialect: Louisa Selky (1915)
    3. Yonkalla
      Yoncalla language

      Yoncalla is a Kalapuyan language once spoken in southwest Oregon in the United States. In the 19th century it was spoken by the Yoncalla band of the Kalapuya people in the Umpqua River valley....
      : last recorded in 1937 from Laura Blackery Albertson who only partly remembered it.
  35. Kamassian: (1989)
  36. Karankawa
    Karankawa

    The Karankawa were a group of Native Americans in the United States peoples, now extinct as a tribal group, who played a pivotal part in early Texas History of Texas....
    : (1858)
  37. Kathlamet (a Chinook
    Chinook

    Chinook may refer to:...
    an language): (ca. 1930s)
  38. Kitanemuk
    Kitanemuk

    The Kitanemuk were a Native American people who lived in the Tehachapi Mountains and the western Mojave Desert of southern California....
     (an Uto-Aztecan
    Uto-Aztecan languages

    Uto-Aztecan is a Indigenous languages of the Americas language family. It is one of the largest and most well-established linguistic families of the Americas....
     language): Marcelino Rivera, Isabella Gonzales, Refugia Duran (last recorded 1937)
  39. Kitsai (a Caddoan
    Caddoan languages

    The Caddoan languages are a language family of Native American languages. They are spoken across the Great Plains of the central United States, from North Dakota to Oklahoma....
     language): (ca. 1940)
  40. Kwalhioqua-Clatskanie (an Athabaskan
    Athabaskan languages

    Athabaskan or Athabascan is the name of a large group of closely related Indigenous peoples of the Americas of North America, located in two main Southern and Northern groups in western North America, and of their language family....
     language): children of the last speakers remembered a few words, recorded in 1935 & 1942
    1. Clatskanie dialect: father of Willie Andrew (ca. 1870)
    2. Kwalhioqua dialect: mother of Lizzie Johnson (1910)
  41. Lower Chinook (a Chinook
    Chinook

    Chinook may refer to:...
    an language): (ca. 1930s)
  42. Mahican
    Mahican

    The Mahicans are an Eastern Algonquian Native Americans in the United States, originally settling in the Hudson River Valley , many then moving to Stockbridge, Massachusetts after 1780, before the remaining descendants moved to northeastern Wisconsin during the 1820s and 1830s....
    : last spoken in Wisconsin (ca. 1930s)
  43. Manx
    Manx language

    Manx , also known as Manx Gaelic, is a Goidelic languages spoken on the Isle of Man. The last native speaker, Ned Maddrell, died in 1974, but in recent years it has been the subject of language revival efforts, and it is now the medium of education at the , a primary school for four- to eleven-year-olds in St....
    : Ned Maddrell
    Ned Maddrell

    Edward "Ned" Maddrell was a fishing from the Isle of Man who was the last surviving first language of the Manx language.Following the death of Mrs....
     (December 1974) (but is being revived
    Language revival

    Language revitalization, language revival or reversing language shift is the attempt by interested parties, including individuals, cultural or community groups, governments, or political authorities, to reverse the decline of a language....
     as a second language
    Second language

    A second language is any language learned after the First language . Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or lingua francas....
    )
  44. Mattole-Bear River (an Athabaskan
    Athabaskan languages

    Athabaskan or Athabascan is the name of a large group of closely related Indigenous peoples of the Americas of North America, located in two main Southern and Northern groups in western North America, and of their language family....
     language):
    1. Bear River dialect: material from last elderly speaker recorded (ca. 1929)
    2. Mattole dialect: material recorded (ca. 1930)
  45. Mbabaram: Albert Bennett (1972)
  46. Miami-Illinois
    Illinois language

    The Miami-Illinois language is a Native American languages language formerly spoken in the United States, primarily in Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, western Ohio and adjacent areas along the Mississippi River by the tribes of the Inoca or Illinois , including the Kaskaskia, Peoria , Tamaroa , Cahokia, and Mitchigamea....
    : (1989)
  47. Mochica
    Mochica language

    Mochica is a Chimuan language formerly spoken along the northwest coast of Peru and in some inland village. It was first documented in 1607. It was widely spoken in the area during the 17th and early 18th century....
    : ca. 1950s
  48. Mohegan
    Mohegan

    The Mohegan tribe is an Algonquian-speaking tribe that lives in eastern upper Thames valley Connecticut. The Mohegan were originally a conjoined tribe with the Pequot until the period of European contact in the 17th century, briefly coming under Pequot rule in the 1630s until the dominant tribe was destroyed in 1637....
    : Fidelia Fielding (1908)
  49. Molala
    Molala

    The Molala were a people of the Plateau Indians culture area in central Oregon, United States. Some consider them extinct, though they are one of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon, with 141 of the 882 members in the 1950s claiming Molala descent....
    : Fred Yelkes (1958)
  50. Munichi: Victoria Huancho Icahuate (late 1990s)
  51. Natchez: Watt Sam & Nancy Raven (early 1930s)
  52. Negerhollands
    Negerhollands

    Negerhollands is a Dutch-based creole languages that was once spoken in the Danish West Indies, now known as the U.S. Virgin Islands. Dutch language is its superstrate language with Danish language, English language, French language, Spanish language, and African languages elements incorporated....
    : Alice Stevenson (1987)
  53. Nooksack: Sindick Jimmy (1977)
  54. Northern Pomo
    Northern Pomo

    Northern Pomo is an extinct language Pomoan language formerly spoken around Clear Lake in Lake County, California by the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake, one of the several Pomo peoples....
    : (1994)
  55. Nottoway
    Nottoway

    NottowayThe name may refer to any of these things associated with Virginia....
     (an Iroquoian
    Iroquoian languages

    The Iroquoian languages are a First Nation and Native Americans in the United States language family. The language family, amongst others, includes Mohawk language, Wyandot language and Cherokee language....
     language): last recorded before 1836
  56. Pentlatch (a Salishan
    Salishan languages

    The Salishan languages are a group of languages of the Pacific Northwest . They are characterised by agglutinative and astonishing consonant clusters—for instance the Nux?lk language word meaning "he had had a bunchberry plant" has 13 consonants in a row with no vowels....
     language): Joe Nimnim (1940)
  57. Pánobo (a Pano-Tacanan language): 1991
  58. Pochutec
    Pochutec

    Pochutec is an extinct language Uto-Aztecan language of the Nahuan branch which was spoken in and around the town of Pochutla on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca, Mexico....
     (Uto-Aztecan
    Uto-Aztecan languages

    Uto-Aztecan is a Indigenous languages of the Americas language family. It is one of the largest and most well-established linguistic families of the Americas....
     last documented 1917 by Franz Boas
    Franz Boas

    Franz Boas was a Germans-United States anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology"....
  59. Polabian
    Polabian language

    The Polabian language is an extinct language West Slavic languages language that was spoken by the Slavs of North-Eastern Germany around the river Elbe ....
     (a Slavic
    Slavic languages

    File:Slavic europe.svgThe Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia....
     language): (late 18th century)
  60. Salinan
    Salinan

    The Salinan Native Americans in the United States lived in what is now the Central Coast of California, in the Salinas Valley. Said to have gone extinct by the Census of 1930, the Salinan Native Americans survived and are now in the process of applying for Federally recognized tribes from the Bureau of Indian Affairs....
    : (ca. 1960)
  61. entire Shastan family
    Shastan languages

    The Shastan family consisted of four languages, spoken in present-day northern California and southern Oregon....
    1. Konomihu
    2. New River Shasta
    3. Okwanuchu
      Okwanuchu

      The Okwanuchu were one of a number of small Shastan languages-speaking tribes of Native Americans in the United States in Northern California, who were closely related to the adjacent larger Shasta tribe....
    4. Shasta
      Shasta language

      The Shasta language was a Shastan languages spoken from northern California into southwestern Oregon. In 1980, only two fluent speakers, both elderly, were alive....
      : 3 elderly speakers in 1980, extinct by 1990
  62. Siuslaw
    Siuslaw (tribe)

    Siuslaw is one of the three Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians located on the southwest Oregon Pacific Ocean in the United States....
    : (ca. 1970s)
  63. Slovincian (a Slavic
    Slavic languages

    File:Slavic europe.svgThe Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia....
     language): (20th century)
  64. Susquehannock
    Susquehannock

    The Susquehannock people were native Americans in the United States of areas adjacent to the Susquehanna River and its tributaries from the southern part of what is now New York, through Pennsylvania, to the mouth of the Susquehanna in Maryland at the north end of the Chesapeake Bay....
    : all last speakers murdered in 1763
  65. Takelma
    Takelma language

    Takelma was the language spoken by the Takelma people....
    : Molly Orton (or Molly Orcutt) & Willie Simmons (both not fully fluent) last recorded in 1934
  66. Tasmanian: (late 19th century)
  67. Tataviam
    Tataviam

    The Tataviam which means "people facing the sun", also sometimes called the Alliklik which is also a derogatory term used by other tribes, are a Native Americans in the United States group in Southern California California....
     (an Uto-Aztecan
    Uto-Aztecan languages

    Uto-Aztecan is a Indigenous languages of the Americas language family. It is one of the largest and most well-established linguistic families of the Americas....
     language): Juan José Fustero who remembered only a few words of his grandparents' language (recorded 1913)
  68. Teteté (an Tucanoan language)
  69. Tillamook
    Tillamook language

    Tillamook is an language death Salishan languages language, formerly spoken by the Tillamook in northwestern Oregon, United States. The last fluent speaker is believed to have died in the 1970s; between 1965 and 1972, in an effort to prevent the language being destroyed, a group of researchers from the University of Hawaii interviewed the fe...
     (a Salishan
    Salishan languages

    The Salishan languages are a group of languages of the Pacific Northwest . They are characterised by agglutinative and astonishing consonant clusters—for instance the Nux?lk language word meaning "he had had a bunchberry plant" has 13 consonants in a row with no vowels....
     language): (1970)
  70. Tonkawa
    Tonkawa language

    The Tonkawa language was spoken in Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico by the Tonkawa people. A language isolate, with no known related languages, Tonkawa is now extinct, and the members of the Tonkawa tribe now speak only English....
    : 6 elderly people in 1931
  71. Tsetsaut (an Athabaskan
    Athabaskan languages

    Athabaskan or Athabascan is the name of a large group of closely related Indigenous peoples of the Americas of North America, located in two main Southern and Northern groups in western North America, and of their language family....
     language): last fluent speaker was elderly man recorded in 1894
  72. Tunica: Sesostrie Youchigant
    Sesostrie Youchigant

    Sesostrie Youchigant was the last native speaker of the Tunica language. He worked with Linguistics Mary Haas to describe what he remembered of the language, and the description was published in A Grammar of the Tunica Language in 1939....
     (ca. mid 20th century)
  73. Ubykh
    Ubykh language

    Ubykh or Ubyx is a language of the Northwest Caucasian languages, spoken by the Ubykh people up until the early 1990s.The word is derived from , its name in the Abdzakh Adyghe language language....
    : Tevfik Esenç
    Tevfik Esenç

    Tevfik Esen? was a Circassians exile in Turkey and the last known speaker of the Ubykh language.Esen? was raised by his Ubykh-speaking grandparents for a time in the village of Haci Osman in Turkey, and he served a term as the muhtar of that village, before receiving a post in the civil service of Istanbul....
     (October 1992)
  74. all dialects of Upper Chinook (a Chinook
    Chinook

    Chinook may refer to:...
    an language) are extinct, except for the Wasco-Wishram dialect. The Clackamas
    Clackamas Indians

    The Clackamas Indians were a tribe of American Indians in the United States of the United States state of Oregon.They were part of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon of Oregon....
     dialect     became extinct in the 1930s, other dialects have little documentation. (The Wasco-Wishram dialect
    Wasco-Wishram

    Wasco-Wishram is a dialect of Upper Chinook, a Chinookan language. It is an endangered language.Bibliography...
     is still spoken by 6 elders.)
  75. Upper Umpqua: Wolverton Orton, last recorded in 1942
  76. Vegliot Dalmatian
    Dalmatian language

    Dalmatian is an extinct Romance languages formerly spoken in the Dalmatia region of Croatia, and as far south as Kotor in Montenegro.The Dalmatian speakers lived in the coastal towns: Zadar, Trogir, Split , Dubrovnik and Kotor , each of these cities having a local dialect, and also on the islands of Krk, Cres and Rab ....
    : Tuone Udaina
    Tuone Udaina

    Tuone Udaina was the last speaker of the Dalmatian language. He was the main source of knowledge about his parents' dialect, that of the island of Veglia , for the linguist Matteo Bartoli, who recorded it in 1897....
     (Italian: Antonio Udina) (10 June 1898)
  77. Wappo
    Wappo language

    Wappo is an extinct language Yuki-Wappo language spoken in the Alexander Valley north of San Francisco in western California. Wappo is related to the Yuki language....
  78. Wiyot
    Wiyot language

    Wiyot is an extinct language Algic languages language, spoken by the Wiyot people of Humboldt Bay, California. The language's last native speaker, Della Prince, died in 1962....
    : Della Prince (1962)
  79. Yana
    Yana people

    The Yana people were a group of Native Americans in the United States indigenous to Northern California in the central Sierra Nevada Mountains, on the western side of the range....
    : Ishi
    Ishi

    Ishi was the pseudonym of the last member of the Yana_people#The_Yahi, in turn the last surviving group of the Yana people of California. Ishi is believed to be the last Native Americans in the United States in Northern California to have lived most of his life completely outside the European American culture....
     (1916)
  80. Yola
    Yola language

    Yola is an Extinct language West Germanic language formerly spoken in Ireland. A branch of Middle English language, it evolved separately among the English who followed the Normans barons Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke and Robert Fitz-Stephen to eastern Ireland in 1169....
     related to English (mid 19th c.)


See also

  • Language death
    Language death

    In linguistics, language death is a process that affects speech communities where the level of linguistic competence that speakers possess of a given Variety is decreased....
  • Endangered language
    Endangered language

    An endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use, generally because it has few surviving speakers. If it loses all of its native speakers, it becomes an extinct language....
  • List of extinct languages
    List of extinct languages

    *List of extinct languages of Africa*List of extinct languages of Asia*List of extinct languages in Central America and the Caribbean*List of extinct languages of Europe...
  • List of endangered languages
    List of endangered languages

    A list of endangered languages.In order to be listed, a language must be classified as "endangered" in an academic source quoted.SIL Ethnologue lists 516 out of 6,912 living languages inventorized as "nearly extinct", indicating cases where "only a few elderly speakers are still living"....
    Category:Extinct languages
  • Language revival
    Language revival

    Language revitalization, language revival or reversing language shift is the attempt by interested parties, including individuals, cultural or community groups, governments, or political authorities, to reverse the decline of a language....


External links

  • &


Bibliography

  • Adelaar, Willem F. H.; & Muysken, Pieter C. (2004). The languages of the Andes. Cambridge language surveys. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521362757.
  • Brenzinger, Matthias (ed.) (1992) Language Death: Factual and Theoretical Explorations with Special Reference to East Africa. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-013404-9.
  • Campbell, Lyle; & Mithun, Marianne (Eds.). (1979). The languages of native America: Historical and comparative assessment. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 0292746245.
  • Dorian, Nancy C.
    Nancy Dorian

    Nancy C. Dorian is an American linguistics who has carried out research into the death of the East Sutherland dialect of Scottish Gaelic for over 40 years, particularly in the villages of Brora, Golspie and Embo....
     (1978). Fate of morphological complexity in language death: Evidence from East Sutherland Gaelic. Language, 54 (3), 590-609.
  • Dorian, Nancy C. (1981). Language death: The life cycle of a Scottish Gaelic dialect. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0812277856.
  • Dressler, Wolfgand & Wodak-Leodolter, Ruth (eds.) (1977) Language death (International Journal of the Sociology of Language vol. 12). The Hague: Mouton.
  • Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (Ed.). (2005). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (15th ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. ISBN 1-55671-159-X. (Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com).
  • Harrison, K. David. (2007) When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge. New York and London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195181920.
  • Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
  • Mohan, Peggy; & Zador, Paul. (1986). Discontinuity in a life cycle: The death of Trinidad Bhojpuri. Language, 62 (2), 291-319.
  • Sasse, Hans-Jürgen (1992) 'Theory of language death', in Brenzinger (ed.) Language Death, pp. 7–30.
  • Schilling-Estes, Natalie; & Wolfram, Walt. (1999). Alternative models of dialect death: Dissipation vs. concentration. Language, 75 (3), 486-521.
  • Sebeok, Thomas A. (Ed.). (1973). Linguistics in North America (parts 1 & 2). Current trends in linguistics (Vol. 10). The Hauge: Mouton. (Reprinted as Sebeok 1976).
  • Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove. (2000). Linguistic genocide in education or worldwide diversity and human rights? Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ISBN 0-8058-3468-0.