But language diversity is at risk.

Example of language death. 1830s in Tasmania when virtually all of the islands native inhabitants were wiped out by European colonists during the black war. Britain had banned Irish in British and Northern Irish schools and Welsh was banned in the 19th century in an effort to. At other times minority languages survive much better for example when the speakers try to isolate themselves against a majority population.

Language death can be fast when the children are taught to avoid their parents language for reasons such as work opportunities and social status. Speakers of some One example of this process reaching its conclusion is that of the Dalmatian language. To date only one successful language revitalization has taken place.

To say that a language is dead is like saying that a person is dead. The term language death is used when that community is the last one in the world to use that language. The last speaker is monolingual in the dying language as in the case os Tasmanian.

Other similar terms include linguicide the death of a language from natural or political causes and rarely glottophagy the absorption or replacement of a minor language by a major language. Don Kulick a linguist who has written about language death before decided to write for people who arent necessarily linguists. An example of this is Miami language an Algonquin language which is used widely in Oklahoma and had been facing a decline in the last 30 years but is undergoing a revival at present Leonard 2008.

Eventually one culture slowly adopts the dominant language. The example of Modern Hebrew which was revitalized through great efforts and has successfully created a new generation of native speakers. At other times minority languages survive much better for example when the speakers try to isolate themselves against a majority population.

There are however cases where the bilingual stage. Unfortunately more than half of the languages spoken today have less than 10000 speakers. A quarter of the worlds languages have less than 1000 speakers.