One thing years of working with dead/dying languages has taught me:

[subjacentish@zeroes.ca]

One thing years of working with dead/dying languages has taught me:

People are very bad at reading Big Change while it rolls over them.

In some language groups, people don't notice the language is dying until their last speaker hits 90.💀

"We should do something!"

You sad sons of bitches, you should have done something 60 years ago.

Remember when linguists were all like OH NOES YOUR KIDS ARE NOT SPEAKING THE LANGUAGE! YOUR LANGUAGE IS NOW CLASSIFIED AS MORIBUND!

And you guys said you had "plenty of speakers"? (Who were all in their 40s & 50s)

Welp.😑

[subjacentish@zeroes.ca]

(This is a Covid post, btw.)

People are always like "Why is Subjacentish so negative all the time OMG?"

Have YOU ever spent 20 years working with a language that is in its death throes?

Try being a Palliative Care linguist for awhile. It'll give you a Certain Outlook on all these human shenanigans.