Mastodon have been no reports of currently recognized "Mammut" species outside of North America according to Paleobiology database (which does not recognize "M. borsoni"). However, the status of "Mammut" or "Zygolophodon borsoni" in the literature appears equivocal. "Mammut" is a genus of the extinct family Mammutidae, related to the proboscidean family Elephantidae (mammoths and elephants), from which it originally diverged approximately 27 million years ago. The following cladogram shows the placement of the American mastodon among other proboscideans, based on hyoid characteristics: Over the years, several fossils from localities in North America, Africa and Asia have been attributed to "Mammut", but
Extinct language may be considered "extinct", especially in cases where they did not leave a corpus of literature or liturgy that remained in widespread use (see corpus language), as is the case with e.g. Old English or Old High German relative to their contemporary descendants, English and German. Some degree of misunderstanding can result from designating languages such as Old English and Old High German as extinct, or Latin dead, while ignoring their evolution as a language. This is expressed in the apparent paradox "Latin is a dead language, but Latin never died." A language such as Etruscan, for example, can be