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Extinct vs. dead languages -

Extinct languages are not the same as dead languages. A dead language still exists and is used in some form, even if no one speaks it natively. An extinct language, however, has vanished entirely, with no users remaining. Dead languages may persist in writing, but extinct languages are irretrievably lost.

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Gradual decline -

Languages usually don’t vanish overnight. They weaken as younger generations stop learning them, favoring more dominant languages for various reasons. Over time, vocabulary is forgotten, grammar simplified, and, soon, the last native speaker’s death marks the final chapter.

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Colonization -

When powerful nations colonized new lands, they imposed their own languages and suppressed local ones. Schools, laws, and forced assimilation pressured indigenous populations to abandon their speech. This led to generational breaks where children never learned their ancestral tongue.

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Lack of written records -

Many extinct languages had no written form, relying solely on oral tradition. When speakers disappeared, so did the language. Without written documentation, these languages left no trace, which makes them impossible to reconstruct.

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Etruscan -

Etruscan was a language spoken in pre-Roman Italy, influencing Latin yet vanishing almost completely. Its script is partly deciphered, but most of its vocabulary remains elusive. Scholars struggle with fragments from tomb inscriptions and pottery, piecing together a lost culture through linguistic archaeology.

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Lemnian -

Lemnian was spoken on the island of Lemnos until the 6th century BCE. And though little remains, it appears to be related to Etruscan. The language vanished when the Greeks took over, leaving behind only a few inscriptions.

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Gothic -

Gothic was once the language of the Visigoths and Ostrogoths, powerful Germanic tribes that sacked Rome. Despite its influence, it faded as the Goths assimilated. The Wulfila Bible remains its most significant text, preserving a language that otherwise vanished into history.

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Sumerian -

Sumerian, the earliest known written language in history, flourished in Mesopotamia but was replaced by Akkadian. Though extinct as a spoken language by 2000 BCE, it persisted in scholarly use. Thousands of cuneiform tablets record its existence, yet many texts remain untranslated.

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Pictish -

The Picts were mysterious early Scots who spoke Pictish, a language now lost. Their carved stones display symbols possibly representing words, yet they left no literature. Gaelic eventually overtook it, and by the Middle Ages Pictish had become nothing more than a historical whisper.

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Dalmatian -

Dalmatian, once spoken along Croatia’s coast, died in 1898 when its last speaker, Tuone Udaina, perished in an explosion. It was a Romance language, distinct yet related to Italian. Despite its demise, it left linguistic traces in the local dialects of the region.

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Hunnic -

Attila the Hun’s empire terrified Europe in the 5th century CE, but the language of the Huns left behind barely a trace. Few words survive in historical texts, mostly loanwords (which are words borrowed by other languages). Though some believe it was Turkic, no one can definitively reconstruct how Hunnic sounded.

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Tocharian -

Tocharian, once spoken in western China, was an Indo-European language that was surprisingly distant from its European cousins. Its manuscripts, written on ancient Buddhist texts, reveal a rich culture. But despite its presence on the Silk Road, Tocharian disappeared entirely by the 9th century.

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Phrygian -

Phrygian, the language of King Midas in Greek mythology, once thrived in Anatolia, but ultimately succumbed to Greek dominance. Despite leaving behind inscriptions, it remains poorly understood. The Phrygians had their own mythology and culture, yet their language has faded.

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Oscan -

Oscan, spoken in pre-Roman Italy, was once a major language. It had its own script and literature, but Latin’s dominance erased it. Today, inscriptions on stone and pottery are its only remnants, and even these are typically only Oscan words written in Latin letters.

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Gaulish -

Once spoken across France, Gaulish fell to Latin after Julius Caesar’s conquest in 50 BCE. Though the Celts left inscriptions and Roman writers noted its influence, it eventually disappeared. Some words linger in modern French, but the language itself is lost to time.

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Old Prussian -

Distinct from German, Old Prussian was spoken by the Prussian tribes until the 18th century. Knights and later settlers suppressed the language and replaced it with German and Polish. Today, only linguistic reconstructions remain.

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Elamite -

Elamite was once spoken in ancient Iran before Persian dominance. Though its cuneiform texts survive, its grammar remains difficult to decipher. It played a major role in early Persian history, but by the time of the Achaemenids, in the 6th century CE, it had faded into obscurity.

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Iberian -

Before Latin took over Spain, Iberians spoke a language that is now lost. Though its script has been deciphered, its meaning remains unclear. The language fell into extinction by the 2nd century CE following Roman conquest.

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Meroitic -

Once spoken in the Kingdom of Kush in what is now Sudan and Egypt, Meroitic borrowed Egyptian hieroglyphs but remains largely undeciphered. Although we can read its script, we don’t understand its vocabulary or grammar since it became extinct in about 400 CE.

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Tasmanian -

Several Tasmanian Aboriginal languages were eradicated by European colonization. With only a few recorded words, they are impossible to reconstruct. The last known fluent speaker was Fanny Cochrane Smith, who also recorded a series of Aboriginal songs on wax cylinders. They are the only existing recording of a Tasmanian language.

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Cuman -

Cuman, a Turkic language, was spoken by fierce steppe nomads who roamed Eastern Europe. They played a major role in medieval history, but their language disappeared by the 18th century. Its traces still survive in some Hungarian and Romanian place names.

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Gutian -

The Gutians, who briefly ruled Mesopotamia during the Bronze Age, spoke a language that has baffled scholars. There are no traces of the actual language, and experts are only aware of its existence thanks to brief mentions in Sumerian and Akkadian texts (pictured). Whether it was Indo-European or completely unrelated to known languages remains a subject of debate.

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Carian -

Carian, once spoken in Anatolia, was for centuries mistaken for Greek due to its similar script. However, it turned out to be its own language. Though its writing system has been partially deciphered, much of its grammar and vocabulary remain a mystery.

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Venetic -

Venetic was spoken in northern Italy before Latin took over. It used its own script but borrowed from Etruscan and Greek. For a long time, scholars thought it was a dialect of Latin, but it was actually a separate, now-lost Italic language.

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Moabite -

Moabite was spoken in ancient Jordan and is known primarily from the Mesha Stele, an inscription detailing a Moabite king’s victories. Similar to Hebrew, it eventually merged with other Canaanite dialects and disappeared, existing now only in ancient texts.

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Nabataean -

Nabataean was spoken by the builders of Petra, a thriving desert city in what is now Jordan. It was a form of Aramaic but evolved into early Arabic. Though its script influenced modern Arabic letters, the language itself faded with time.

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Khitan -

Spoken by the rulers of the Liao dynasty in China until the 12th century, Khitan used two unique scripts, both of which are largely undeciphered today. Though the Khitan people played a major role in East Asian history, their language was lost as they were absorbed into the Mongol empire.

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Harappan -

The Indus Valley Civilization, which thrived in South Asia until the 13th century BCE, had a writing system that remains undeciphered to this day. Thousands of seals and inscriptions suggest a complex culture, but its meaning (and the people who spoke it) remain an enigma.

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Akabo -

Spoken by the indigenous Bo people of the Andaman Islands in the northeastern Indian Ocean, the Akabo language died in 2010 with the death of its last speaker, Boa Sr. It represented a linguistic lineage dating back thousands of years, but now its words exist only in recorded snippets.

Sources: (Britannica) (Listverse) (Global Language Services) (The Guardian)

See also: The world's most difficult languages to learn

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