Evolution of languages

Major regional languages like Elamite, Sogdian, Koine Greek, or Nahuatl in ancient, post-classical and early modern times have been overtaken by others due to changing balance of power, conflict and migration.

[7] Between 3000 and 4000 years ago, Proto-Bantu, spoken in parts of Central and West Africa in the vicinity of Cameroon split off from other Bantoid languages with the start of the Bantu expansion.

A form of the language, referred to by modern scholars as Latino-Punic continued for centuries afterward, with the same word structures and phonology but writing conducted in Latin script.

Speakers of the poorly attested, but presumably East Germanic Vandalic language took control of much of Spain and Portugal and then crossed into North Africa in the 430s, holding territory until the 6th century when they were placed under Byzantine rule following a military defeat in 536.

Relatively sparse comparative linguistics research means that the origin of the Dravidian languages now spoken in southern India and a small portion of Pakistan is poorly understood.

Benno Landsberger and other Assyriologists suggest that a hypothetical unclassified language termed Proto-Euphratean may have been spoken in southern Iraq during the Ubaid period from 5300 to 4700 BC, possibly by people belonging to the Samarran culture.

According to Robbeets, the proto-Turkic people descend from the proto-Transeurasian language community, which lived the West Liao River Basin (modern Manchuria) around 6000 BCE and may be identified with the Xinglongwa culture.

[35] Linguists disagree about when and where the Tungusic languages in northern Asia arose, proposing Proto-Tungusic spoken in Manchuria between 500 BC and 500 CE, or around the same timeframe in the vicinity of Lake Baikal.

Proto-Japonic arrived in Japan from nearby Pacific islands or mainland Asia around the 2nd century BC in the Yayoi Period, displacing the languages of the earlier Jōmon inhabitants which was likely a form of Proto-Ainu.

One explanation posits that the language displaced Japonic-speakers, triggering the Yayoi migration, while another hypothesis suggests that Proto-Korean speakers slowly assimilated and absorbed Japonic Mumun farmers.

[45] Based on the prevailing Kurgan hypothesis, the original speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language (one of the first and most extensively reconstructed proto-languages since the 19th century) likely lived in the Pontic–Caspian steppe in eastern Europe.

[61] Although little linguistic evidence exists, Malagasay stories in Madagascar tell of a short-statured zebu-herding people, farming bananas and ginger that were the first inhabitants of the island likely speaking the hypothetical Vazimba language.

However, an alternative interpretation published in 1998 argues that Vietnamese originated further south in central Vietnam and only extended into the Red River region between the 7th and 9th centuries, displacing Tai language speakers.

[38] In the 20th and early 21st century, linguists debated whether Nahuatl, the dominant language of the Aztec Empire originated to the north of central Mexico or in the historical Aridoamerica region of what is now the southwestern United States.

[85] Off the coast of mainland Europe, Germanic settlers in England began to speak Old English, displacing Old Brittonic with the Northumbrian, Mercian, Kentish and West Saxon dialects.

Polans tribes began to speak early forms of Polish under the leadership of Mieszko I, amalgamating smaller Slavic tribal languages and adopting the Latin alphabet with the Christianization of the area in the late 960s.

[101] The Mongol invasions spurred the Cumans and Jasz people to take shelter in Hungary under the protection of king Béla IV, with their Ossetian Iranian language spoken for another two centuries.

[116] Largely Romance speaking European powers like Portugal, Spain and France began assembling overseas empires in the Americas and Asia in the early modern period, spreading their languages through conquest and trade.

[119] The establishment of the Spanish Empire in 1519 displaced Nahuatl as the dominant Mesoamerican language, although it remained in widespread use among native people and in government documentation of many settlements in Mexico.

[134] In the late 18th century, colonial officials ended administrative and religious use of Quechua, banning it from public use in Peru after the Túpac Amaru II rebellion of indigenous peoples.

Vietnamese adopted many French terms, such as đầm (dame, from madame), ga (train station, from gare), sơ mi (shirt, from chemise), and búp bê (doll, from poupée).

[140] The eruption destroyed the town of Tambora, with 10,000 people that possessed bronze bowls, glass and ceramic plates and were among the last cultures left from the pre-Austronesian history of Indonesia.

Multiple small Siberian languages were lost in the late 18th and early 19th centuries including Kott (documented in an 1858 dictionary by Matthias Castren), Yurats, Mator, Pumpokol, and Arin.

During and after the French Revolution, successive governments instituted a policy of stamping out regional languages including Breton, Occitan, Basque and others that persisted into the late 20th century.

Jopi Mabinda, the last speaker of ǁXegwi was murdered in 1988 (although a 2018 report suggests the language may still be spoken in the Chrissiesmeer district) and ǀXam disappeared in the 1910s, but with substantial documentation by German linguist Wilhelm Bleek.

Japanese rule began the process of assimilating and marginalizing the diverse Austronesian languages of Taiwan, which accelerated after the arrival of the Kuomintang government at the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.

[171] In contrast to losses of regional languages throughout much of North America, the Quebec nationalist movement pushed back in the late 1960s and Canada adopted national bilingualism in 1982.

Due to high levels of crime in South Africa, large numbers of Afrikaans speakers emigrated to Australia, Canada, the US and UK throughout the late 1990s and early 21st century.

[177][178] Nursultan Nazarbayev announced in early 2018 a plan to transition the Kazakh language from Cyrillic to Latin script, estimated to cost 218 billion Kazakhstani tenge ($670 million 2018 US dollars).

Tuareg rebels revolted against the government of Niger, while reports indicate that tribes in the Nafusa Mountains allied with the National Transitional Council in Libya's civil war are seeking co-official status for the Nafusi language with Arabic.