LIVING AND DEAD LANGUAGES

 When according to accounts, we had 6500 different languages in the world, we were told that several languages died daily. I hear now that the number has increased to 7000. Those figures do not jibe. How are languages counted? Who decides between language and dialect? Who issues language death certificates? Do you remember Dalmatian? When Tuone Udaina died in 1898, the Dalmatian language died with him. He was the sole speaker left. We must assume that he spoke to himself only and managed to communicate in other languages or else he would have been unable to express his needs and ideas. This language lore does not wash with me.  There are American languages spoken by tribes of only 300 members. A language like that has no future not because it is more or less suitable for modern life but because the voice intercourse is very limited, although this is relative. I, for one, speaking English and Spanish can in theory communicate with over one thousand million people. In fact, some days I talk to no one. I go out of a morning, stroll around, board a bus or two, buy a book... without uttering a word. Sometimes I am approached by a tourist who speaks neither English nor Spanish and we must recourse to gestures. I have also noticed that I talk and write passé English and Spanish, the way these languages were spoken in the mid-twentieth century.  With my demise, both languages will die and become extinct, only to be found in musty books. But I digress. I shall return to this shortly to explain that languages are dying all the time.