The literature on LEL has not sufficiently grounded the processes in the socioeconomic ecosystems in which languages have been in competition with each other. Languages have been discussed inaccurately as waging wars with each other over practitioners. The reality is that their socioeconomic ecosystems exert pressures on people to function more and more in the language that is becoming dominant. Consequently, the domains and opportunities in which the other languages in the same multilingual space can be used decreases, until there are none left. LEL are the outcomes of convergent experiences of gradual language shift within the ethnolinguistically mixed population. Encouraging the victims to continue practicing their indigenous or “heritage” languages will not stop the endangerment of these if nothing is done to modify their deleterious ecosystems. Languages are the kinds of symbionts that are at the mercy of their hosts who think first of their own survival. Making sure that there are domains and still more opportunities for the languages to be practiced is key to protecting them against LEL.