Skip to main content
                    Glotters by Sissi                  
  • Welcome
  • VideoBlog
    • Language Definitions
    • Review - language topics
    • Language learning
    • Language Challenges
    • Uralic and Finn-Ugric Issues
  • Leave a reply
  • Contact me

Challenge: extinct languages

July 23, 2018 at 2:43 pm, No comments


Language Alpha has gone to the language cemetery because he wants to visit his ancestors. He encountered some language ghosts on his way there. In the beginning he was a little bit scared but gathered his courage and asked them who they are.

The first language introduced himself:

‘My name is Partatua. I am a very old language ghost. I come from Eurasia and I am a warrior. Linguists classified me as an Indo-European language, more specifically, an Eastern Iranian language. I am surprised how they did it because I didn’t leave much traces of my language, only personal and tribal names. But you know, linguists know this stuff. In addition, some scholars claimed that I had two dialects: the Alanian languages and Saka languages.’

The second language continued:

‘Hello. I am Cato and I am a politician. I come from the Italian Peninsula. I am a classical language and belong to the Indo-European language family. I am very famous. My word roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. I was an official language of some European states. I am a synthetic, fusional language. My regular nouns belong to one of five main declensions. I have seven noun cases. I have four main verb conjugations.’

Here is the third language’s introduction:

‘I am Nesha, a princess from north-central Anatolia. I am an Anatolian language but I am also classified as an Indo-European language, but I don’t have all Indo-European features. For example, I don’t have genders or subjunctive and optative moods, and aspect. My language records are attested from the 16th century to the 13th century BC. I used a cuneiform writing system. I am famous from my cuneiform tablets and inscriptions erected by the kings of my realm.’

And here comes the last one:

‘My name is Lianna. I am a priestess of a Ziggurat in a city state in southern Mesopotamia. I am the most ancient language in the word that has been found until today. I was first attested in about 3100 BC. I am a language isolate. I have two main dialects: eme-ĝir and eme-sal. I also used a cuneiform writing system. I am an agglutinative, split ergative, and subject-object-verb language.’

Which languages did Alpha encounter? Write your answer in order in the comments.


No comments

Leave a reply







Recent Posts

  • Challenge: cognates, loanwords, foreign words, calques
    23 Jul, 2018
  • Challenge: calques
    23 Jul, 2018
  • Challenge: pidgin, creole and mixed languages
    23 Jul, 2018
  • Challenge: cognates, false cognates
    23 Jul, 2018
  • Challenge: code switching, code mixing
    23 Jul, 2018
  • Challenge: extinct languages
    23 Jul, 2018
  • Challenge: Language change 2
    23 Jul, 2018

Extra info

Replace this text with some additional info. If there is no extra info, you can hide this text or hide this block by clicking the icon at the above right corner.

Created with Mozello - the world's easiest to use website builder.

Create your website or online store with Mozello

Quickly, easily, without programming.

Report abuse Learn more