Dhaka, Feb. 26 -- The history of human language is the history of rise and fall. In around 8000 BC, 20,000 languages were in existence on this planet. But currently the number has been reduced to one third. Many languages have vanished off the face of the earth, and many are about to. Linguicide, the death of a language has become a recurring phenomenon which occurs when a language loses its last native speaker. It is also known as language extinction which means the language is no longer known to the second language speakers. The death of a language may occur for a number of reasons among which natural and political reasons and glottophagy, i.e., the replacement of a minor language by a major one are common.

The British linguist David C...