part 2 Question 3

3) Explain how languages die? Identify the different type of language death (Simon, Aldy)

Language death is a process that affects speech communities. It is when the level of linguistic competence drops to a point where there are no native or fluent speaker.

Types:

gradual language death (when a culture adopts bilinguasim and gradually shift to the new language)

bottom-to-top language death (refers to a situation where the decline of a language
begins in low domains and spreads to high spheres of usage)

radical language death ( rapid decline and loss due, for example, to sever political
repression where speakers stop speaking language for self defense)

linguicide (a.k.a. sudden language death, language death by genocide, physical language death, biological language death)




http://www.sussex.ac.uk/linguistics/documents/q1062_topic_05.pdf
http://humanities.uchicago.edu/faculty/mufwene/LANGUAGE%20BIRTH%20&%20DEATH.pdf