How Languages Die

We all know what a living language is- those are the ones we use. But languages eventually die out when people don't use them. The death of a language is a gradual process that goes from a lack of native speakers to no speakers to eventually an untranslatable mystery. We think of Latin as the epitome of a "dead" language because no one raises their children to speak Latin as their first language. Yet a lot of people can speak and understand it, and it is used in certain ways in religion and science, unlike, say, Sanskrit. Linguist Dr. Erica Brozovski takes us through the process of language death. (via Laughing Squid)