Languages usually go extinct when younger generations stop learning them and switch to a more useful/more widely spoken language. This can happen because of globalization, colonization, school systems, or jobs that require more dominant languages. Once younger generations stop learning the language and only older people speak it, the language eventually dies when those speakers pass away.
When a language dies, culture, stories, traditions, and ways of thinking are lost along with the words. The reading talked about how language is tied to identity and knowledge, so losing a language means losing part of a culture and history.
Linguists try to preserve languages by recording speakers, making dictionaries, and creating immersion programs where kids learn from fluent speakers. A “dead” language can sometimes come back if people start learning and using it again. The reading mentioned languages like Hawaiian and Cornish that were revived through schools and community programs. So a language isn’t always gone forever if people are committed to bringing it back, although it is very difficult.
Overall, I think language extinction is kind of sad because every language represents a different culture and way of seeing the world, and once it’s gone, that different perspective is gone too.
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I agree that language extinction is sad. A point from the video that resonated was that so much knowledge is lost when a language goes extinct. The elderly, who are primary speakers of a language, also complicate the situation when they have issues such as hearing loss. The difficulty of bringing a language back is also a good point, since it takes a lot of time and resources that many people do not have today.