What do these languages have in common? Cornish, Dalmation, Sumerian, and Etruscan?

The common thread connecting these four diverse tongues is a somber one: each represents a language that has fallen silent. They are all considered extinct, meaning they no longer have a community of native speakers to pass them down through generations. From the ancient world, we have Sumerian, one of humanity's first written languages from Mesopotamia, and Etruscan, the mysterious pre-Roman language of ancient Italy. Their voices were lost to the tides of history and conquest thousands of years ago.

The end for others was more recent and precisely documented. The Dalmatian language, a Romance tongue once spoken along the coast of modern-day Croatia, vanished completely in 1898 when its last known speaker, Tuone Udaina, was killed in a mine explosion. His death represented the final, abrupt end for an entire linguistic tradition, highlighting how a language can disappear with a single person.

The story of Cornish, a Celtic language from southwestern Britain, is more complex. As a native, community language, it died out in the late 18th century. However, based on surviving texts, a dedicated revival movement in the 20th century brought Cornish back from the brink. While it is now spoken by a growing number of enthusiasts, it is classified as extinct in its original, unbroken line of transmission, making its modern form a remarkable story of cultural reconstruction.