Language Obsolescence: Progress or Decay? The emergence of new grammatical categories in ‘language death'

The difference between language change in ‘healthy’ and in endangered or obsolescent languages very often lies not in the sorts of change, which are typically the same (Campbell and Munztel 1989). Rather, it lies in the quantity of change, and in the speed with which the obsolescent language changes. As Schmidt (1985: 213) pointed out, “one distinguishing feature of the Dyirbal death situation is that vast amounts of change are compressed into a short timespan of about 25 years”.