The phrase "use it or lose it" applies to few things more forcefully than to ob scure languages. A tongue that is not spo ken will shrivel into extinction. If it is lucky, it may be preserved in a specialist lexicog rapher's dictionary in the way that a dried specimen of a vanished butterfly lingers in a museum cabinet. If it is unlucky, it will disappear for ever into the memory hole that is unwritten history.
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