Glenn said:So Latin and Old English aren't dead?
Latin is dead, because nobody speaks it. There is no nation/group who speaks this language.
English evolve through the time. Old English is just a period in the life of English, so it isn't a language that can be dead or not.
I was talking about natural evolution of languages, anyway, like the extinction of the dinosaurs was natural. I in no way endorsed the idea of extinguishing languages.
Tell me what languages diednaturally, without any help of human, then.
So are you saying that you don't believe the linguists' prediction that half of the world's languages will be extinct by 2060? If so, it would have been better to respond to the original post. Also, I'm not so sure I agree with you here, either, because many languages have gone extinct already, with many more to come, and culture didn't stop that from happening.
And how their culture changed after change of language? For a change of language in a group there MUST be a change in their culture.
Small languages can die. But with help of human. Go to the bigger town to look for a job, and they use official language, etc. It is not favored to be speaking minority's language in today's word. Everywhere they want a standard language. And young people goes for it, it's easier. And where the old ones die, the language die too. But I wouldn't call this "natural extinction".
many people are against dialects, and others are often discouraged from using something other than standard language. this isn't natural way of language extinction.
the only natural way, is when all the people die.