Linguicide is an intentional annihilation of a language. Also used as a derogatory term to describe unintentional death of languages through competition and other mechanisms.
Some of the mechanisms leading to the death of languages:
- imposition of another language (e.g. by declaring it official)
- ban on the language that is to be annihilated
- linguistic competition (e.g. English vs. French in scientific publications)
- "glottopolitics and linguistic warfare"
- extermination of people speaking the language (e.g. Holocaust contributed to the decline of Yiddish)
- natural decline in native populations and their traditions (e.g. Native American languages)
- Kurdish and Linguicide (http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~siamakr/Kurdish/KURDICA/2001/2/Hassanpour.html)
- Linguicide (http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~watkinc/renee_option.html)
Some authors use the term linguicide to refer to the way language is used. Linguicide is understood as a distortion of the language to beautify the truth (e.g. for political correctness). For example, "killing civilians" described as "collateral damage" would be a form of "linguicide".