A more subtle danger to which we are especially liable in the case of a dead language is that of our acquiescing in a sense which satisfies us but which would not have satisfied the ancient writer.
He lifted a small soul-tracking device off the table, a round compass whose edges were lined with symbols from a dead language too old for him to read.
It would seem that up to the 4th century of our era the Sinhalese had written exclusively in their own tongue; that is to say that for six centuries they had studied and understood Pali as a dead language without using it as a means of literary expression.
The gradual replacement of Syriac by Arabic as the vernacular language of Mesopotamia by degrees transformed the Syriac from a living to a dead language.
Meanwhile Hebrew did not become a dead language - indeed it can hardly be said ever to have died, since it has continued in use till the present day for the purposes of ordinary life among educated Jews in all parts of the world.
