How languages die

A. When one generation of speakers does not speak the indigenous language(s) to the next one on a regular basis, then the new generation acquires only an incomplete version of the language, often almost a pidginized form.

B. This generation cannot pass the language on to the next one at all and, thus, the language is no longer spoken. This means that even in a situation where great numbers of old people speak a language, if most middle-aged people do not, then the language is severely endangered.

C. Unlike animals and plants, which leave fossils, when a language dies without being recorded, it is truly dead, with no hope of recovery. And even when we have records of the language (epics, inventory lists, sayings, songs), this is but an approximation of what the language in its totality was.