Re:The Reason Some Hyperlocal Languages Survive
by bayesian_horse on Monday February 11, 2019 @05:08AM
(#19133262)
Latin is a distinct language from the extant romance languages.
Sami languages are also distinct from each other.
My point was that the specific extant sami languages aren't that old and that there must have been creations and deaths of languages at a higher frequency than I thought.
Are you sure you know what Romance languages are? This is not a statement that anyone sane would be willing to support. Why do you think the Romance languages are so similar to each other?
It is conceptually incoherent to say that the modern languages of Sami tribes have survived while Latin hasn't. The Latin of 2300 years ago is not mutually intelligible with the Latin spoken anywhere today. The Sami of 2300 years ago is also not mutually intelligible with any Sami language spoken today. It was even more different, because Latin has a robust written tradition and writing slows language change.
If one has survived, so has the other, and Latin is massively more successful.
On the other hand, if you want to take the position that Latin died out, then the concept of an "endangered language" is meaningless, as we know that all languages will inevitably die in the same way.