ghost language

English

Etymology

By analogy to ghost town.

Noun

ghost language (plural ghost languages)

1. A language which has lost its speakers.

   Synonyms: dead language, extinct language

   • 2000, Juliette Blevins, Nhanda: An Aboriginal Language of Western Australia (Oceanic linguistics special publication; 30), Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, →ISBN, page ix:

     Of the 250 or so Aboriginal languages once spoken in Australia, two-thirds are extinct or moribund. Coastal languages were usually the first to go, with settlement patterns matching patterns of extinction. In Western Australia, the former of approximately 110 Aboriginal languages, 45 were presumed extinct, and another 30 were on the verge of extinction. Wajuk, the original language of Perth, was dead. Nyungar, the language of the southwestern tip of the continent, was gone. Mirning, the language of Eucla, had disappeared with barely a trace. Witjaari, once spoken north of Wajuk, was now a ghost language. And the list went on. I had come to a land of linguistic devastation.

2. A language posited against actual evidence, a merely fancied natural language.

   Synonym: spurious language