Рассказ о мертвом языке) На английском

A dead language - a language that does not exist, and the use of live, usually known only from written monuments, or who is a regulated viskusstvennom use. Usually this happens when one language is completely replaced by a used other language (ie. N. "Language shift"), such as Coptic yazykbyl replaced by Arabic, but many Native American languages have been supplanted by English, French, Spanish and portugalskimyazykami. With the extinction of the language in the last stages of its existence, it becomes unique to certain age (and social) groups. Dead languages are often called archaic forms of living, to actively use the language. In some cases, the dead languages, ceasing to serve as a means of live communication are stored in written form and are used for the needs of science, culture, religion. Examples of this development are: • Latin (from the VI century BC to VI century AD ...) - a dead language, which is the ancestor of the modern Romance languages (though it is still used in science and the Catholic Church) ; • Old Russian language (written monuments of XI-XIV c.) - A dead language, developed in the modern East Slavic languages; • Ancient Greek (from the end of the 2nd millennium BC to the V century BC ...) - Developed in the modern Greek language and dialects. • Church Slavonic - Bulgarian, Macedonian, Moravian dialects of the Old Slavonic language and is now used only in a single (specific) church book-writing sphere, hymnography and daily service in the Slavic Orthodox churches. Spoken language, he never was. In some cases, an extinct language continues to be used vnauchnyh and religious purposes. Among the many dead languages that are used in a similar way - Sanskrit, Latin, Church Slavonic, Coptic, etc. Avesta. There is an example when a dead language has become alive again - it happened sivritom, Cornish and Manx Language. The most common literary language divorced from the spoken and freezes in some its classic form, then almost unchanged; when the spoken language generates a new literary form, it can be considered old turned into a dead language (an example of such a situation could be Turkish, who succeeded in the 20-ies of XX vekaosmansky language as the language of education and office work in Turkey).