Historical languages (also known as historic languages) are languages that were spoken in a historical period, but that are distinct from their modern form; that is, they are forms of languages historically attested to from the past which have evolved into more modern forms. Thus, historical languages contrast with dead languages (languages which have become extinct, or undergone

language death In linguistics, language death occurs when a language loses its last native speaker. By extension, language extinction is when the language is no longer known, including by second-language speakers. Other similar terms include linguicide, the de ...

). Also, historical languages contrast with reconstructed languages (that is, the

proto-languages In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattest ...

) of

theoretical linguistics Theoretical linguistics is a term in linguistics which, like the related term general linguistics, can be understood in different ways. Both can be taken as a reference to theory of language, or the branch of linguistics which inquires into the n ...

. One of the approaches to defining and using the concept of historical languages is implemented in the ISO 639 standards.

ISO 639

The

International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in Art ...

(sometimes by means of a

registration authority Registration authorities exist for many standards organizations, such as ANNA (Association of National Numbering Agencies for ISIN), the Object Management Group, W3C, IEEE and others. In general, registration authorities all perform a similar fun ...

) maintains and publishes standards for languages, among other things: the

ISO 639-3 ISO 639-3:2007, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages – Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages'', is an international standard for language codes in the ISO 639 series. It defines three-letter codes for ...

standards for languages include type H, for historical languages, part of a five-way typology to classify languages. Besides the historic languages, there are also ISO 639-3 classifications for living languages (languages with currently living native speakers), extinct languages (for languages whose last native speaker died within the last few centuries), ancient languages (whose last attested native speaker died more than a millennium ago), and

constructed languages A constructed language (sometimes called a conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, instead of having developed naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devised for a work of fiction. ...

(which may or may not have native speakers).

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

is an example of a historic language. The ISO 639 language code for Old English is ang. A further ISO 639-3 criterion for historic languages is that they have a distinct literature from their descendant languages: in the example of Old English, Beowulf and other works of

Old English literature Old English literature refers to poetry and prose written in Old English in early medieval England, from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066, a period often termed Anglo-Saxon England. The 7th-century work '' Cædmo ...

form a distinct body of material.

External links

International Organization for Standardization language standards (ISO 639)SIL International page, including a definition of historic languages
{{DEFAULTSORT:Historical Language H

ISO 639

See also

External links