Languages die all the time. Scholars estimate that one language disappears every two weeks.As the article makes clear, "lost" in the headline means languages that no longer have native speakers. I assume that this was to avoid calling them "dead."Most vanish quietly, leaving little trace beyond memories held by the last speakers. But some dead languages cast shadows that stretch across centuries.
They influenced literature, law, religion, and entire ways of thinking about the world. You live in a culture shaped by languages nobody speaks anymore, and most people don’t realize how much these extinct tongues still matter.
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This is quite a good list of such languages, many well known (e.g., Sumerian, Akkadian, ancient Egyptian, Latin), others less so (e.g., Old Church Slavonic and Sogdian). All of them have come up from time to time in PaleoJudaica. Yes, even Etruscan and Gothic!
I could quibble about this or that detail in the descriptions, but they are generally good too.
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