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What Makes a Language 'Alive' or 'Dead'?

A language is 'alive' if people use it every day. If no one speaks it anymore, it becomes 'dead'. Think of it like a game, if nobody plays it, the game ends. Languages can live or die depending on how many people keep using them and passing them down.

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Examples

  1. A child learns to speak Spanish from their parents at home, so Spanish stays alive.
  2. An old language like Latin is no longer spoken by anyone, so it's considered dead.
  3. People in a small village keep using their native tongue every day, keeping it alive.

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Categories: Culture · Language· Linguistics· Cultural Evolution · Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.