Sad enough when a language outlives its users,
but so much sadder if the reverse were true:
People rendered mute, reduced to grunts and gestures,
tongues used solely for chewing food or ululating.
To lose an individual word through disuse is evolution,
but to banish an entire class amounts to mass extinction.
Just last year we lost past participles.
Now would have gave is as good as would have given up.
We say language separates us from lesser species.
Do songbirds shrink the range of their melodies?
Maybe language isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Unlikely something valuable would be treated quite so casually.
