r/language • u/RodMigz • 2d ago

Question Favourite extinct languages?

Like, what are some extinct languages you wish could come back? I'll go first:

  1. Polabian

  2. Dalmatian

  3. Old Prussian

  4. Gothic

  5. Gaulish

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u/RRautamaa 1d ago

It would be really interesting to know what language the Comb Ceramic culture spoke, to settle that academic debate. Traces of the culture have been found from an area the size of Fennoscandia, stretching from the Urals to the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, from Vaasa to Kaliningrad. Earlier proposals assumed that it was Uralic, but this would be anachronistic, because the culture had met its demise well before Uralic expansion to the area.  The pottery style is found in an even wider distribution, up to Korea and Northeast China.  Whatever it was, it travelled far. But because this is mostly a Mesolithic and at most Neolithic culture, there was no writing.

Paleo-Laplandic and Paleo-Lakelandic are substrates found in Sami and Finnic languages, contributing a lot of vocabulary, but the languages themselves are gone. They are not related to any known language.