Social linguistics Chapter 3

Language death and language loss ◦ When the last speaker of the language died, the language died with him. ◦ For example, many languages had died due to the massacre of the aboriginal people. ◦ Sometimes language shift happens but there are cases where language death occurs. ◦ Language loss is when one’s ability to master the language in their vocabulary and grammar shrunk. For example, someone who is a Malay speaker but the sentence structure is more to English structure. ◦ Language death can also start with language loss. ◦ Some language in the world is alive just to be used in prayers like the Maori communities.