Prestige language in the context of "Critically endangered language"

An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a "dead language". If no one can speak the language at all, it becomes an "extinct language". A dead language may still be studied through recordings or writings, but it is still dead or extinct unless there are fluent speakers left. Although languages have always become extinct throughout human history, endangered languages are currently dying at an accelerated rate because of globalization, mass migration, cultural replacement, imperialism, neocolonialism and linguicide (language killing).

Language shift most commonly occurs when speakers switch to a language associated with social or economic power or one spoken more widely, leading to the gradual decline and eventual death of the endangered language. The process of language shift is often influenced by factors such as globalisation, economic authorities, and the perceived prestige of certain languages. The ultimate result is the loss of linguistic diversity and cultural heritage within affected communities. The general consensus is that between 6,000 and 7,000 languages are currently spoken. Some linguists estimate that between 50% and 90% of them will be severely endangered or dead by the year 2100. The 20 most common languages, each with more than 50 million speakers, are spoken by 50% of the world's population, but most languages are spoken by fewer than 10,000 people.

Nahuatl (English: /ˈnɑːwɑːtəl/ NAH-wah-təl; hispanicized from Nawatl Nahuatl pronunciation: [ˈnaːwat͡ɬ] ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about 1.7 million Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller populations in the United States.

Nahuatl has been spoken in central Mexico since at least the seventh century AD. It was the language of the Mexica, who dominated what is now central Mexico during the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerican history. During the centuries preceding the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, the Aztecs had expanded to incorporate a large part of central Mexico. Their influence caused the variety of Nahuatl spoken by the residents of Tenochtitlan to become a prestige language in Mesoamerica.

Réunion Creole, or Reunionese Creole (Reunionese Creole: kréol rénioné or kréol rényoné; French: créole réunionnais), is a French-based creole language spoken on Réunion. It is derived mainly from French and includes terms from Malagasy, Hindi, Portuguese, Gujarati and Tamil. In recent years, there has been an effort to develop a spelling dictionary and grammar rules. Partly because of the lack of an official orthography but also because schools are taught in French, Réunion Creole is rarely written. Notably, two translations of the French comic Asterix have been published.

Réunion Creole is the main vernacular of the island and is used in most colloquial and familiar settings. It is, however, in a state of diglossia with French as the high language – Réunion Creole is used in informal settings and conversations, while French is the language of writing, education, administration and more formal conversations.

Patois (/ˈpætwɑː/, pl. same or /ˈpætwɑːz/) is speech or language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. As such, patois can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects or vernaculars, but not commonly to jargon or slang, which are vocabulary-based forms of cant.

In colloquial usage of the term, especially in France, class distinctions are implied by the very meaning of the term, since in French, patois refers to any sociolect associated with uneducated rural classes, in contrast with the dominant prestige language (Standard French) spoken by the middle and high classes of cities or as used in literature and formal settings (the "acrolect"). Sociolinguistics is the discipline that studies the relationship between these language varieties, how they relate to the dominant culture and, in the case of France, to national language policy.

Nuosu or Nosu (ꆈꌠꉙ or written in traditional script, transcribed as Nuo su hxop), also known as Northern Yi, Liangshan Yi, and Sichuan Yi, is the prestige language of the Yi people; it has been chosen by the Chinese government as the standard Yi language (Chinese: 彝语) and as such is the only one taught in schools in both oral and written forms. It was spoken by two million people and was increasing (as of PRC census); 60% were monolingual (1994 estimate). Nuosu is the native Nuosu name for their own language and is not used in Mandarin Chinese, though it may sometimes be translated as Nuòsūyǔ (simplified Chinese: 诺苏语; traditional Chinese: 諾蘇語).

The occasional terms "Black Yi" (黑彝; hēi Yí) and 'White Yi' (白彝; bái Yí) are castes of the Nuosu people, not dialects.

Englishisation refers to the introduction of English-language influences into other languages. English, as a world language, has had a very significant impact on other languages, with many languages borrowing words or grammar from English or forming calques based on English words. Englishisation is often paired with the introduction of Western culture into other cultures, and has resulted in a significant degree of code-mixing of English with other languages as well as the appearance of new varieties of English. Other languages have also synthesised new literary genres through their contact with English, and various forms of "language play" have emerged through this interaction. Englishisation has also occurred in subtle ways because of the massive amount of English content that is translated into other languages.

Englishisation first happened on a worldwide scale because of the spread of the British Empire and American cultural influence, as the English language historically played a major role in the administration of Britain's colonies and is highly relevant in the modern wave of globalisation. One of the reasons for Englishisation is because other languages sometimes lacked vocabulary to talk about certain things, such as modern technologies or scientific concepts. Another reason is that English is often considered a prestige language which symbolises or improves the educatedness or status of a speaker.