You may have heard of the term “dead language” if you haven’t, I will explain below, but for those of you who are wondering if you should focus your time on one, well the answer is maybe.

You should treat a dead language just like any other language you might want to learn. If you have an interest in it and think it will be something good to do, as well as something you can commit then, then you should learn one.

Dead languages may not be as popular to learn, but they can still be important and useful to study, even if they are used in a slightly different way than a living language.

What Is A Dead Language?

A dead language is basically one that is no longer spoken. There is no country, or group of people that use it in daily life. We can still learn these languages and even speak them sometimes, but they are not collectively used any more.

Some examples would be Latin, Ancient Greek, Ancient Egyptian (think hieroglyphs) and Old Norse. The list could of course go on, but you will usually find that the civilisation or society that spoke these languages died out, and sadly so did the language, which would have been replaced by the societies that followed on after them.   

Some Languages Are Currently Dying

Languages change all the time and in fact there are some languages that are in decline and could possibly die. Just think of Irish or Welsh, let alone and many others around the world that are not as widely spoken as they used to be.

Irish and Welsh are only spoken by a handful of people today and English very much dominates these countries. These languages are not dead yet as people still do use them, and they are still taught, but more as a second language and most daily interactions take place in English.

However, if you choose to learn one of these declining languages, you are helping to keep them alive a little longer.

Why Should You Learn A Dead language?

There are plenty of good reasons why you should learn a dead language, which I will go through below. If any of these points appeal to you, along with just a general desire to do it, you should totally start learning a dead language.

Dead Languages Can Show You Where Modern Languages Come From

One of the beautiful things about a dead language is that you can look at how they have directly influenced modern languages.

If we look at Latin, it has heavily influenced the romance languages of Europe that are spoken today. You can trace back how Latin has shaped the different languages and see how words have evolved over time. You can also find that some of our words are taken directly from Latin, which is just crazy.

If you are interested in how languages grow and evolve over time then going back to learn about the dead languages is going to be very interesting for you.

It Allows You To Study Historical Works

A lot of the most famous historic philosophical, religious and poetic works where all written in dead languages.

If you are interested in these types of topics it could be good to learn dead languages so you can study these historical works in their original form. This is common for Jewish people, who will learn ancient Hebrew so they can read the bible in its historical form.

Some Material Is Better In The Original Form

You will often hear the argument that any form of material is always better in its original form. This is why people want to learn Japanese, so they can then watch anime and enjoy it exactly how it was intended, rather than being translated and the general message and feeling being slightly altered.

This is the same for ancient texts. If you are interested in this area, then learning a dead language can allow you really understand the ancient texts properly without the need to have them translated and risking having the meaning or feeling  of the works slightly lost in translation.  

It Keeps History Alive

While these languages are dead and not used in general life, they are historically very much still alive.  Studying them allows their story to continue and to make sure they are not forgotten about.

If you are generally interested in history, studying a language related to the period of history you are interested in can just really keep the whole era alive in some way and you can help to preserve that time period and make sure it is passed on to the next generation.

History can very easily be forgotten if there is no one to keep the story going and if you study a dead language you will be helping to avoid this.  

Dead Languages Are Just fascinating

I will be honest, I prefer living languages. I like that I can make new friends when I learn to speak a new language. However, I can’t really deny the fact that dead languages are fascinating.

I know some of you out there will enjoy this even more than me. I know you will adore the whole concept of looking at some ancient language and thinking about how it was used hundred or maybe thousands of years ago.

If you just take a general interest in a dead language, don’t hold back you should dive in and treat it just like any other language you might be interested in.

If there is one thing I can tell you about life, its to chase after the things you have interest in, and you will get so much more out of life this way. If a dead language seems interesting to you, that’s all you need to justify learning it.

Not Many People Learn Them

You also need to remember that not many people learn dead languages and you can see this as both a negative a positive.

Of course it means that there is only a small community of people to share your language with, but on the flip side, it means your skills are much rarer. This can be really help you if you want to get a job that involves a dead language, as basically there is going to be much less competition.  

However, I would also say that the amount of jobs that actually require you have to have the skill of knowing a dead language is pretty low too. It’s probably going to be more of a university based or historical study based job that would require such skills.

If this is the type of work you would be interested in, then a dead language will certainly be something you should start learning. 

(You can read more about – Getting A Job With Your Second Language)

You Still Get All The Same Benefits As learning Other Languages

When you learn a language you actually get a lot of benefits that go along with it. Everyone thinks that you just acquire the language, but there is actually so much more that you will gain from the experience. 

The great thing is that you still get these when you learn a dead language. You will still get the same cognitive benefits, which makes sense as you brain is basically doing the same as when you learn a living language.

You will also still be able to have new career opportunities, you can make new friends (but sadly there will be no natives to befriend, only other learners) and you will still get the experience of being able to explore new cultures (even if they are ones that are no longer around).

(You can read more about – Why Learn A Foreign Language?)

Are There Any Reasons Not To Learn A Dead Language?

If you are thinking of a learning a dead language, there are plenty of reasons to avoid them and I will go through some reasons why that actually might be the right choice for you.

No One Actually Speaks Them

The sad thing about dead language is that all the native speakers are long gone. This means you can only interact with other learners. 

I find this aspect of dead languages quite sad. There is something really special about speaking to natives and learning from them and having a lack of this really reminds me that the language is very much dead. I am still happy people are trying to keep the history alive, but it’s just not the same.

There Are Limited Resources

When you are learning a language, you need resources to help you learn along the way. These could be anything from books, courses, TV shows or audio and annoyingly these are going to be fairly limited in a dead language.

There will of course still be some new books and courses being made, but nowhere near to the level of a living language, which is fair enough since the demand is going to be totally different between the two.

Really most of the resources are going to be the old historical literature from the time, which can be still be great, but once you go through all of these, there will be no more for you to enjoy. Luckily it’s very unlikely for you to get through all of this literature, so what is available should keep you busy.

Its More For Academic Purposes

As dead languages are not really spoken in daily life, they probably won’t really have a purpose in your daily life too.

They are more a language for academics, so in that sense you could make them a apart of your life, but I think what I’m trying to say is that they are more of a subject that you learn about, rather than it simply being a form of communication, which is what language really is. 

It’s kind of like how studying English literature at university is very different to just learning how to speak in English as language, so that you can watch TV.

Conclusion

Hopefully now you can have a clearer understanding of why you should learn a dead language, or perhaps not.

Really it comes down to personal choice and it really is like learning any other language. There may be some slight difference in how you learn, since there are no native speakers, but in general dead languages are very similar to living language.

If you want to do it and feel you have the interest and motivation, then go for it. Only you can decide if it will be right for you and if you think a dead language is for you, then go for. There is nothing stopping you.