1064: When is a Language Dead? Nov 7, 2017

Out of the more or less 7,000 languages spoken world-wide, all but a handful of popular ones are spoken by only around 10 percent of people. This means that there are a great deal of languages which only have a few speakers. Ayapa Zoque (Ayapaneco), also referred to as Tabasco Zoque, or by its native name, Nuumte Oote, is an endangered language spoken in Mexico by around 15 speakers, all of whom are elderly. Once however, there was once a rumour that there were merely two speakers, who no longer were talking to each other. While this was later found to be false, it does highlight the notion that a language does not die when the last speaker thereof dies, but indeed can be considered dead if all speakers but one die, because in that case there is no longer anyone to talk to in that given language.