eli5 how do languages like Aramaic, latin, ancient greek, etc just die out?
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Mostly they evolve over time, changing over hundreds of years. However, sometimes there are active campaigns to erase languages. In the area today called France, at one point 40% of the population spoke a language called Occitan, but active government campaigns to create a more solid national identity had a strict one language policy. It was literally illegal to speak languages other than French. Spain did the same thing. Languages like Basque, Catalan, Valencian, Gaulish, all used to be spoken there, and two separate waves tried to unify the country into speaking one language. The first was from the same people who did the Spanish Inquisition which also kicked out Jews and Muslims from the country, which is why today the Spanish language is often called “Castillian” or “Castellano”, because at one point in history it was only the language of the small region of Castille. The second wave was the fascist dictator Franco. Both waves were very successful but neither *completely* killed the languages.
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