Linguicide

Linguicide is an intentional annihilation of a language. Also used as a derogatory term to describe unintentional death of languages through competition and other mechanisms.

Some of the mechanisms leading to the death of languages:

• imposition of another language (e.g. by declaring it official)
• ban on the language that is to be annihilated
• linguistic competition (e.g. English vs. French in scientific publications)
• "glottopolitics and linguistic warfare"
• extermination of people speaking the language (e.g. Holocaust contributed to the decline of Yiddish)
• natural decline in native populations and their traditions (e.g. Native American languages)

External Link

• Kurdish and Linguicide (http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~siamakr/Kurdish/KURDICA/2001/2/Hassanpour.html)
• Linguicide (http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~watkinc/renee-option.html)

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Some authors use the term linguicide to refer to the way language is used. Linguicide is understood as a distortion of the language to beautify the truth (e.g. for political correctness). For example, "killing civilians" described as "collateral damage" would be a form of "linguicide".