List of extinct languages of Asia
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This is a list of extinct languages of Asia, languages which have undergone language death, have no native speakers, and no spoken descendant.
There are 175 languages listed. 19 from Central Asia, 27 from East Asia, 21 from South Asia, 23 from Southeast Asia, 22 from Siberia and 63 from West Asia.
List[edit]
This is an incomplete list. You can help by adding missing items, correcting wrong information and adding reliable sources. (March 2024)
Central Asia[edit]
East Asia[edit]
South Asia[edit]
Southeast Asia[edit]
Siberia[edit]
West Asia[edit]
See also[edit]
- List of languages by time of extinction
- List of extinct languages and dialects of Europe
- Languages of Asia
- List of endangered languages in Asia
References[edit]
- ^ "Avestan". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 16 April 2014. Retrieved 24 April 2024.
1200 - 800 BC.
- ^ "Bactrian". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 3 October 2021. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
300 BC - 1000 AD.
- ^ "Volga-Bolgarian". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 4 February 2015. Retrieved 25 April 2024.
13th century AD.
- ^ "Chagatai Turkish and Its Effects on Central Asian Culture" (PDF). Retrieved 18 May 2024.
from the 13th century until the 19th century
- ^ Melnyk, Mykola (2022). Byzantium and the Pechenegs.
István Varró, a member of the Jász-Cuman mission to the empress of Austria Maria Theresa and the known last speaker of the Cuman language, died in 1770.
- ^ "mutual-intelligibility-among-the-turkic.pdf" (PDF). Retrieved 2024-04-07.
This lect is the descendant of the Fergana Kipchak language that went extinct in the late 1920's.
- ^ Waldman, Carl; Mason, Catherine (2006). Encyclopedia of European Peoples. p. 393.
time period:Fourth to fifth century c.E.
- ^ Borjian, Habib (2008). The Extinct Language of Gurgān: Its Sources and Origins. p. 681.
Hence, Gurgani must have died out sometime after the fifteenth but certainly before the nineteenth century
- ^ "iso639-3/xqa". Retrieved 2024-05-16.
11th to 12th centuries AD.
- ^ "Khazar". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 4 February 2015. Retrieved 24 April 2024.
6th - 12th century AD.
- ^ "Khorezmian". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 5 June 2012. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
13th-14th century AD.
- ^ "Chorasmian". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 13 May 2021. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
300 BC - 1000 AD.
- ^ "Old Uighur". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 11 August 2011. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
9th - 14th Centuries AD.
- ^ "Old Turkish". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 11 August 2011. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
An ancient language of Central Asia, spoken between the 7th and 13th centuries AD.
- ^ "Parthian". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 24 February 2021. Retrieved 2024-03-05.
300 BC - 1000 AD.
- ^ Kakar, Hasan Kawun (2014). Government and Society in Afghanistan: The Reign of Amir 'Abd al-Rahman Khan (5 ed.). University of Texas Press. ISBN 9780292729001.
- ^ "Sogdian". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 13 March 2015. Retrieved 24 April 2024.
100 BC - 1000 AD.
- ^ Dagikhudo, Dagiev; Carole, Faucher (2018). Identity, History and Trans-Nationality in Central Asia.
Andreev explains that 100 years ago there was an ancient Vanji language used by people of Vanj valley. He then provides as example that in 1925, when travelling to Vanj Valley, him and his travel companion met an old man who told that, when he was 11 years old, he was speaking Vanji language. Unfortunately, the old man could remember only 20-30 words, but even then, he was not sure if they were all correct.
- ^ Brenzinger, Matthias (2007). Language Diversity Endangered.
... "Two ... Wot (Wotapuri - Katarqalai). Of the latter we can witness how the process of extinction has moved on inexorably in the course of the twentieth century. In the 1940's Morgenstierne reported that Wot was spoken in two villages in the Katar valley, one at Wotapuri at the confluence of the Pech river with the streams coming from the valley, one further up the valley in Katarqalai. 15 years later Budruss (1960) visited both villages found no speakers of the language in the lower village, Pashto having completely replaced it, and in the upper one only a few passive speakers who remember having spoken the language in their earlier years.
- ^ "Tokharian A". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 15 February 2015. Retrieved 31 May 2024.
c. 7th - 10th centuries AD.
- ^ "Paekche". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 6 July 2022. Retrieved 2024-03-07.
5th to 7th centuries AD.
- ^ "UNESCO RED BOOK ON ENDANGERED LANGUAGES: NORTHEAST ASIA". Archived from the original on 5 August 2012. Retrieved 2024-07-06.
Present state of the language: EXTINCT probably in the early 20th century, no exact date available
- ^ "Koguryo". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 2 September 2019. Retrieved 2024-04-25.
1st century to mid-8th century A.D.
- ^ "Kitan". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 2 June 2012. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
916 - 1125 AD.
- ^ "Khotanese". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 15 April 2013. Retrieved 11 May 2024.
100 BC - 1000 AD.
- ^ "Tokharian B". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 15 February 2015. Retrieved 11 May 2024.
c. 7th - 10th centuries AD.
- ^ "The prosodic structure of Pazeh". Retrieved 2024-05-21.
Pazeh, an Austronesian language of Taiwan thought to have lost its last speaker in 2010.
- ^ Savelyev, Alexander; Jeong, Choongwon (7 May 2020). "Early nomads of the Eastern Steppe and their tentative connections in the West". Cambridge University Press. 2. doi:10.1017/ehs.2020.18. PMC 7612788. PMID 35663512.
the Khüis Tolgoi inscription must have been erected between 604 and 620 AD.
- ^ "iso639-3/fos". Retrieved 2024-05-21.
Siraya is a Formosan language spoken until the end of the 19th century by the indigenous Siraya people of Taiwan.
- ^ "Tangut". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 6 April 2015. Retrieved 25 April 2024.
c. 11th - 16th centuries AD.
- ^ "Tumshuqese". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 21 January 2015. Retrieved 11 May 2024.
5th to 10th centuries AD.
- ^ "Zhang-zhung". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 19 January 2015. Retrieved 25 April 2024.
7th - 10th century AD.
- ^ a b c d e f George van Driem (2001), Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region : Containing an Introduction to the Symbiotic Theory of Language, BRILL, ISBN 90-04-12062-9,
... The Aka-Kol tribe of Middle Andaman became extinct by 1921. The Oko-Juwoi of Middle Andaman and the Aka-Bea of South Andaman and Rutland Island were extinct by 1931. The Akar-Bale of Ritchie's Archipelago, the Aka-Kede of Middle Andaman and the A-Pucikwar of South Andaman Island soon followed. By 1951, the census counted a total of only 23 Greater Andamanese and 10 Sentinelese. That means that just ten men, twelve women and one child remained of the Aka-Kora, Aka-Cari and Aka-Jeru tribes of Greater Andaman and only ten natives of North Sentinel Island ...
- ^ "Language lost as last member of Andaman tribe dies". The Daily Telegraph. 5 February 2010. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
- ^ "Remembering Licho, the Last Speaker of the Sare Language". Terralingua. April 30, 2020. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
- ^ "The Hindu". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 10 November 2012. Retrieved 2024-03-07.
- ^ Cardona, George; Jain, Dhanesh K. (2003). The Indo-Aryan Languages. p. 164.
The inscriptions of Asoka - a king of the Maurya dynasty who reigned, based in his capital Pataliputra, from 268 to 232 BC over almost the whole of India - were engraved in rocks and pillars, in various local dialects.
- ^ "The Death of an Indian-born Language". Open Magazine. 28 October 2010. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
- ^ "The last of Nepal's Dura speakers". BBC. January 15, 2008. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
- ^ Dharmadāsa, Kē. En. Ō (1992). Language, Religion, and Ethnic Assertiveness: The Growth of Sinhalese Nationalism in Sri Lanka. p. 188.
The ingredients of group consciousness mentioned above were kept alive principally because the Sinhalese people had a literate culture starting from about the third century B.C.
- ^ "KHAROSTHI MANUSCRIPTS: A WINDOW ON GANDHARAN BUDDHISM". Retrieved 2024-05-13.
... the Kharosthi script was used as a literary medium, that is, from the time of Asoka in the middle of the third century B.C. until about the third century A.D.
- ^ "Indus Valley Language". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 24 June 2019. Retrieved 2024-06-07.
2500-1900 BC.
- ^ "The Andamanese". Archived from the original on 20 May 2013. Retrieved 2024-03-07.
- ^ "Paisaci Prakrit". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 6 June 2019. Retrieved 2024-03-12.
Most of the material in this language originates from the 3rd to 10th centuries AD, though it was probably spoken as early as the 5th century BC.
- ^ "iso639-3/psu". Retrieved 2024-06-23.
Most of the material in this language originates from the 3rd to 10th centuries AD...
- ^ "Ullatan". Ethnologue. Archived from the original on 2008-02-08. Retrieved 2024-06-12.
- ^ "iso639-3/kzl". Retrieved 2024-05-17.
The last speaker of the Leliali dialect died in 1989
- ^ Dimas, Dimas. "PUNAHNYA BAHASA KREOL PORTUGIS". LIPI (in Indonesian). Archived from the original on 8 August 2020. Retrieved 13 June 2024.
- ^ "Moksela". Ethnologue. Archived from the original on 2008-10-23. Retrieved 2024-06-12.
Last speaker died in 1974.
- ^ "Pyu". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 5 June 2021. Retrieved 2024-03-06.
c. 5th? - 12th century AD.
- ^ "Taman". Ethnologue. Archived from the original on 2011-12-17. Retrieved 2024-06-12.
Reportedly the last speaker of Taman died in the 1990s.
- ^ Mark Donohue (2007). "The Papuan Language of Tambora". Oceanic Linguistics. 46 (2). JSTOR: 520–537. doi:10.1353/ol.2008.0014. JSTOR 20172326. Retrieved 2024-05-07.
...the language, along with its speakers, was lost in a gigantic volcanic eruption, the most cataclysmic in historic times in April 1815.
- ^ Haarmann, Harald. Lexikon der untergegangenen Sprachen (in German). p. 188.
- ^ "iso639-3/tvy". Retrieved 2024-05-17.
...that was spoken in Bidau, an eastern suburb of Dili, East Timor until the 1960s
- ^ "Arin". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 12 February 2021. Retrieved 2024-03-07.
Survived until the 18th century AD.
- ^ "Assan". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 13 September 2012. Retrieved 2024-05-21.
Survived until the 18th century AD.
- ^ a b "Last Native Speaker Of Aleut Language In Russia Dies". Radiofreeeurope/Radioliberty. 5 October 2022. Retrieved 2024-04-26.
- ^ "Chuvantsy". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 2 June 2012. Retrieved 2024-04-26.
Survived until perhaps the 18th century AD.
- ^ a b "UNESCO RED BOOK ON ENDANGERED LANGUAGES: NORTHEAST ASIA". Archived from the original on 5 August 2012. Retrieved 2024-07-06.
Present state of the language: EXTINCT since the late 18th century
- ^ "Dying Languages". Dzen. February 9, 2019. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
- ^ Fortescue, Michael (22 December 2011). Comparative Chukotko-Kamchatkan Dictionary. p. 1.
- ^ Abondolo, Daniel; Valijärvi, Riitta-Liisa (31 Mar 2023). Maksim Sivtorov passed away in early 2018, and Eastern Mansi is thus the latest Uralic language to become extinct.
- ^ "Kott". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 21 September 2012. Retrieved 2024-03-07.
Survived until middle of 19th century AD.
- ^ Sato, Tomomi; Bugaeva, Anna (15 March 2019). "The study of old documents of Hokkaido and Kuril Ainu : promise and challenges". 北方言語研究. 9: 67–93. Retrieved 2024-05-08.
Unfortunately, Kuril Ainu, which is absolutely indispensable for the reconstruction, disappeared in the late 19th century with just few old documents left.
- ^ "Mator". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 11 August 2011. Retrieved 2024-03-07.
Mator or Motor was a Uralic language belonging to the group of Samoyedic languages, extinct since the 1840s.
- ^ "Omok". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 2 June 2012. Retrieved 2024-04-26.
Survived until perhaps 18th century.
- ^ "CV_20240423_SES44_002 (2).pdf" (PDF). Retrieved 23 April 2024.
including Kott/Assan, Arin, Pumpokol, all extinct between about 1800 and 1860
- ^ "Wilson-May23-Language-Isolates.pdf" (PDF). Retrieved 2024-05-08.
In 1994, Take Asai died at the age of 102. She was the last native speaker of Sakhalin Ainu
- ^ "Sirenik". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 10 December 2012. Retrieved 2024-03-07.
In January 1997 the last native speaker of the language, a woman named Vyie (Valentina Wye) died.
- ^ Abondolo, Daniel; Valijärvi, Riitta-Liisa (31 Mar 2023). The Uralic Languages.
Southern Mansi, whose aboriginal territory covered a vast area including parts of easternmost Europe, is undoubtedly the Mansi language that was first to become extinct. When that happened can only be estimated on the basis of the records of Kannisto and others, which show that shift to both Russian and Siberian Tatar was progressing rapidly at the beginning of the twentieth century, leading to the conclusion that the language probably survived until the middle decades.
- ^ Abondolo, Daniel; Valijärvi, Riitta-Liisa (31 Mar 2023). The Uralic Languages.
Although we do not know the time of the death of the last speaker of Western Mansi, it does indeed seem certain that there were none left by the end of the twentieth century
- ^ "Yug". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 12 March 2021. Retrieved 2024-03-07.
18th - 20th century AD.
- ^ "CV_20240423_SES44_002 (2).pdf" (PDF). Retrieved 23 April 2024.
Yurats was another Samoyedic language replaced by the eastward advance of Tundra Nenets, extinct during the nineteenth century, with meager documentation
- ^ "Aghwan". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 26 December 2014. Retrieved 24 April 2024.
6th-8th Centuries AD.
- ^ "Neo-Assyrian". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 11 August 2011. Retrieved 2024-03-05.
Survived until around 100 AD.
- ^ Cooper, Eric; Decker, Michael J. (2012). Life And Society In Byzantine Cappadocia. p. 14.
The echoes of native Cappadocian could be heard into the sixth century and perhaps beyond.
- ^ "Armazic". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 12 December 2019. Retrieved 2024-04-16.
1st-2nd centuries AD.
- ^ "Carian". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 14 April 2021. Retrieved 2024-03-06.
7th to 3rd centuries BC.
- ^ Ivantchik, A.I. (2001). The current state of the Cimmerian problem.
The development of the Classical tradition on the subject of the Cimmerians after their disappearance from the historical arena, no later than the very end of the 7th or very beginning of the 6th century BC
- ^ "Dadanitic". Retrieved 2024-05-10.
Dadanitic was the alphabet used by the inhabitants of the ancient oasis of Dadan, probably some time during the second half of the first millennium BC.
- ^ Mehdi Marashi, Mohammad Ali Jazayery, Persian studies in North America: studies in honor of Mohammad Ali Jazayery, Ibex Publishers, Inc., 1994, ISBN 0-936347-35-X, 9780936347356, p. 269.
- ^ "Dumaitic". Retrieved 2024-05-10.
According to the Assyrian annals Dūma was the seat of successive queens of the Arabs, some of whom were also priestesses, in the eighth and seventh centuries BC.
- ^ "Palaeosyrian". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 10 January 2015. Retrieved 24 April 2024.
3rd Millenium BC.
- ^ "Edomite". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 9 March 2015. Retrieved 24 April 2024.
Earlier half of the 1st Millennium BC.
- ^ "Elamite". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 2 April 2017. Retrieved 2024-03-05.
3rd millennium BC - 8th Century BC.
- ^ "Galatian". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 7 November 2019. Retrieved 2024-03-06.
Perhaps from the late 1st millenium BC, and spoken until the 6th century AD, according to Greek Historians.
- ^ "Hadramitic". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 15 September 2012. Retrieved 2024-03-06.
100 BC - 600 AD.
- ^ "Hasaitic". LINGUIST List. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
They are thought to date from the first two centuries AD.
- ^ "Hatti". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 9 March 2015. Retrieved 24 April 2024.
2nd Millennium BC.
- ^ "Hismaic". Retrieved 2024-05-10.
i.e. first century BC to fourth century AD
- ^ "Hittite". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 10 August 2016. Retrieved 2024-03-06.
1500–1180 BC
- ^ "Hurrian". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 17 July 2019. Retrieved 2024-03-05.
2nd - Ist Millennium BC.
- ^ "Historical Memory about Migration of the Kaskians in Western Georgia". Retrieved 2024-05-06.
The Kaška first appear on the territory of the Hittite empire in the 15th c. B.C. and are mentioned till 8th c. B.C.
- ^ "Hieroglyphic Luwian". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 29 December 2014. Retrieved 24 April 2024.
2nd-1st Millennium BC.
- ^ "Lycian". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 9 March 2015. Retrieved 24 April 2024.
500 BC to about 200 BC.
- ^ "Lydian". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 1 January 2015. Retrieved 24 April 2024.
8th to ? 3rd century BC.
- ^ Gulnar Nadirova Logo. "STATUS OF THE KYPCHAK LANGUAGE IN MAMLUK EGYPT: LANGUAGE - BARRIER OR LANGUAGE - CONTACT?". Retrieved 25 April 2024.
Even towards the end of the Mamluk period, during the reign of the last sultan al-Ghawri (1501-1516), the Mamluk, called Asanbay min Sudun, copied the religious Hanbali tract of Abu al-Layth in Kypchak language for the royal library.
- ^ "Median". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 12 April 2019. Retrieved 2024-03-13.
500 BC - 100 AD.
- ^ "Milyan". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 17 September 2021. Retrieved 2024-03-06.
First millennium BC.
- ^ "Minaic". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 26 August 2012. Retrieved 2024-05-20.
100 BC - 600 AD.
- ^ "Minoan". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 9 October 2019. Retrieved 2024-03-05.
Circa 1800 and 1450 BC.
- ^ "The Neo-Aramaic Languages" (PDF). Retrieved 2024-05-08.
Ibrahim Ḥanna was the last speaker of the Mlaḥso language, as the village was destroyed in 1915 during the Armenian genocide. He died in 1999 in Qāmišli in Syria
- ^ "Moabite". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 3 March 2021. Retrieved 2024-03-05.
Earlier half of the 1st Millennium BC.
- ^ "FROM PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN TO MYCENAEAN GREEK:A PHONOLOGICAL STUDY" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 12 May 2024. Retrieved 24 April 2024.
... no tablets or any other inscribed vessels were found from ca. 1200 BC onwards.
- ^ "Mysian". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 16 February 2022. Retrieved 2024-03-06.
Before 1st Century AD.
- ^ "Old Anatolian Turkish". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 30 January 2015. Retrieved 24 April 2024.
It continued to be spoken until the 15th century AD, developing ultimately into the Turkish varieties of later years.
- ^ "Turkey – Language Reform: From Ottoman To Turkish". Countrystudies.us. Retrieved 2024-03-06.
Although the newly created works lacked some of the rich connotations of the older lexicon, modern Turkish developed as a fertile literary language as prose writers and poets created powerful works in this new idiom, especially after 1950.
- ^ "Palaic". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 22 February 2015. Retrieved 24 April 2024.
2nd Millennium BC.
- ^ "THE ARABIC WORDS IN PALMYRENE INSCRIPTIONS". ResearchGate. Retrieved 11 May 2024.
The earliest dated Palmyrene inscription is from the year 44 BC and the latest discovery has been dated to the year 274 AD.
- ^ "Phoenician". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 4 February 2022. Retrieved 2024-03-05.
2nd - 1st Millennium BC.
- ^ "Neo-Phrygian". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 11 August 2011. Retrieved 2024-03-06.
8th century BC to 2nd century AD.
- ^ "Pisidian". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 11 August 2011. Retrieved 2024-03-06.
2nd-3rd century BC.
- ^ "Qatabanic". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 18 September 2012. Retrieved 2024-03-06.
100 BC - 600 AD.
- ^ "Sabaic". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 24 January 2015. Retrieved 24 April 2024.
100 BC - 600 AD.
- ^ The Lingua Franca. Natalie Operstein. 2021.
- ^ Al-Jallad, Ahmad. "Al-Jallad. 2020. The month ʾdr in Safaitic and the status of spirantization in "Arabian" Aramaic". Academia.edu. Retrieved 2024-04-29.
A minority of dated texts suggest that the practice of carving Safaitic inscriptions spanned at least from the second century BCE to the third century CE.
- ^ "Sidetic". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 18 September 2021. Retrieved 2024-03-06.
3rd - 2nd centuries BC.
- ^ "Sumerian". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 27 June 2013. Retrieved 2024-03-05.
The language continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language until the 1st century AD.
- ^ Kootstra-Ford, Fokelien. "The Language of the Taymanitic Inscriptions and its Classification". Academia.edu. Retrieved 2024-05-08.
Therefore, at least part of the Taymanitic corpus can safely be dated to the second half of the 6th century BCE.
- ^ Al-Jallad, Ahmad. "Al-Jallad. 2018. The earliest stages of Arabic and its linguistic classification". Academia.edu. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
These inscriptions are concentrated in northwest Arabia, and one occurs alongside a Nabataean tomb inscription dated to the year 267 CE.
- ^ Koerner, E. F. K. (1 January 1998). First Person Singular III: Autobiographies by North American Scholars in the Language Sciences. John Benjamins Publishing. p. 33. ISBN 978-90-272-4576-2.
- ^ "Ugaritic". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 22 March 2021. Retrieved 2024-03-05.
15th to 13th Century BC.
- ^ "Urartean". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 10 March 2021. Retrieved 2024-03-06.
Ist Millennium BC.