Anyone experienced prolonged isolation?

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Now, under normal circumstances 'isolation' would, I assume, include the momentary glances at the shopping deliverers... food comes from outside... and they would be the only people I 'communicate' with if it wasn't for a single person I talk with on a weekly basis. But... he's already a pensioner and so, inevitably, he'll die before I do... and, then what, will I forget how to speak eventually?

pretty much my whole adult life. the only people talk to are employees in shops, because i go buy my food and drink daily i get to know all the staff in supermarkets just by volume of visits. sometimes i might even swap a few sentences with the checkout girls that recognise me. all my talking and socialising is done on facebook.

My life is going that way, too. I talk with my coworkers at work but not outside of work. I ask for turkey breast at the deli but that's just a business transaction. I'm already isolated in a social sense. The scary thing is I've been isolated for so long that I'm kind of used to it and seem to have accepted it. As long as you keep going to shops and speaking to the checkout people etc, you won't forget how to speak.

When I was younger, "prolonged isolation" appealed to me.

I used to want to be a monk in Ireland, sleeping on stone slabs, watching the Tempetuous Sea interact with the rocks.

I used to spend long hours in my apartment--which had only a mattress on the floor. I wanted to pretend I was "existential" or something. Once in a while, I go to the coffee shop to have a burger or something.

the lonelyness used to be a problem for a while in my early 20s. at 19 i moved to germany from the uk. i had no money and no possesions so just sat on the floor of my apartment and read over and over the same books that i had brought with me. that was crushingly boring and lonely.
but as the years went by id saved some money and learned how to entertain myself. the coming along of the internet was a massive game changer. all of a sudern i could consume british and american media again after a break of several years.
now i look forward to going to my apartment that is a retreat from the world. its like a playground for me. its one big 60m2 room with 5 meter tall walls with a big recess in the wall as a bedroom that you get to by pulling a mission impossible.
then the room is laid out in zones. computers-reading corner-home cinema-electronics desk-dart board-weights and fitness-kitchen-technik lego.
so now no matter the length of isolation im never board or lonely.

oh and i would strongly recomend going for a long walk if you feel lonely. the fresh air can work wonders

It takes a lot to forget how to speak generally severe brain damage and you can’t achieve it with this style of isolation unless you have a pre-meditating factor which severely impairs your cognitive ability. And you certainly can't do it if you keep posting to this forum because it's still processing language making it impossible to forget. So the answer is no.

Naturally there will be some consequences to isolation but what happens, in the end, is in your control. After the pensioner dies you could keep searching for someone else to socialize with or take up a fun isolated hobby perhaps. On the positive side quite a few neurotypicals end up isolated in old age greatly increasing the number of potential socialization targets.

I always lose my voice when, after so long in isolation (I've gone a couple of months without talking to anyone), I get into a conversation with someone on the bus, or doctor's office, for instance, and start coughing my head-off. I've often heard that the vocal cords are a muscle; and so, after such long periods of not speaking, that muscle is weak, and I'm not able to talk much----even if it's only been several days, without talking----but, it's not that I forget HOW to talk.

I'm isolated too. Only interact at work. I didn't know there were others like me here... I talk a lot with my cats.