A language is like a big family of words and phrases that people use to talk every day. When no one in the whole family speaks it anymore, the language becomes lost forever. This usually happens when all the people who know the language pass away or forget how to speak it.
Sometimes, just one generation can cause this. If kids stop learning their parents' language and only learn a new one, the old language might disappear completely in a few years.
Examples
- A family moves to a new country, and the kids only learn the local language at school, after they grow up, they don’t speak their parents’ language anymore.
- A grandmother tells her grandchild stories in her native tongue, but when the child grows up, no one else speaks that language anymore.
- A group of friends all switch to learning a new language together and stop using their old one at home.
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See also
- What Causes a Language to Become Extinct?
- How Do We Know a Language Is ‘Dead’?
- How Do We Know a Language Is ‘Alive’?
- How Did the First Languages Evolve and Why Are Some Easier to Learn Than Others?
- What Makes a Language ‘Dying’ or ‘Alive’?
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