What is really happening with the world’s languages?

As of 2007, Michael E. Krauss, a renowned linguist, estimated that there are about 6000 languages in active use. Of those, how many have a writing system? How many will last more than 100 years? According to Krauss, 60-80% of these languages will not be spoken by children in the next 100 years and 15-30% of the world’s languages are currently moribund – they have no young speakers, and will most likely die with the passing of the older generation.[1] But why is this such a big deal? Is it really a bad thing that small languages with only a few speakers gradually wither out in favor of more global majority languages?

For everyone that is reading this article, you speak or understand English, one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. With more than 300 million first language speakers and up to another 1800 million second language speakers, English is among the most-spoken languages of the world. Having a language like English – a lingua franca – that allows people to communicate even when their native languages are different is certainly monetarily economical and convenient. It allows business to go smoothly between foreign countries and makes world travel much more achievable for many. Unfortunately, having a lingua franca also makes it difficult for many languages to survive. The social and economic pressures of the majority, or socially prestigious, language may overpower the desires of communities, who also desire economic and social prosperity, to preserve their languages. Is it worth the inevitable and inherent loss to have a single language take over many individual languages?

Language death

Before we discuss the previous question, I would like to talk about what language death really is – what we lose and what is lost by the community when a language dies. For starters, let’s look at one of the world’s most ancient languages: Bo, a language of the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. While writing this article (Feb. 4, 2010) I received an email directing me to a BBC article about this language and the death of its last speaker. This was the second linguistic casualty within the last three months in the Andamans, a group of archipelagic islands in the Bay of Bengal. What has been lost with the death of this language’s last speaker? First of all, we have lost a language that may be one of "the last representatives of those languages which go back to pre-Neolithic times," noted Professor Abbi, the linguist who works with the Andamans. To a linguist, this sort of loss is comparable to losing some golden museum artifact that dates from a similar period. Not only have we lost the vocabulary and structure of the language, which are essential to linguists, we have lost the knowledge, the culture, the way of thinking, and the heritage of the Bo-speaking people. What knowledge of indigenous plants did the Bo people have that could have helped us in our search for cures to currently incurable diseases? What cultural traditions are lost forever? Each of these things are priceless. Each of these things are lost forever when an undocumented language dies.

Why “genocide”?

When I write, I usually don’t choose the title until after I am done writing, but this time I chose it first. Genocide, or "the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group," refers to human death, but what is more human than the language capacity? While other organisms may have the ability to communicate in some form or other, no organism besides the human has the ability to produce and comprehend Language (at least by a narrow definition of Language). That which makes us human also gives us our identity – language makes us who we are. When a once living, thriving, evolving language is brought to extinction, the knowledge and culture of numberless individuals vanishes. “Is this extinction deliberate, though?” you may ask. In some instances it has been, and currently is, an act of deliberate extermination. But in more cases than not, the extinction of the world’s languages is more of a sin of omission. When we do nothing, we are in effect allowing these languages to be taken over, to be downtrodden and belittled, and to be extinguished. This is why I like to describe language death as usually being a type of "passive genocide."

What can be done?

“Okay,” you say, “is it really my fault that all of this is happening? I didn’t even know languages could die until I read this article.” Well, my friend, you are now accountable, now that you have read this article. The most important thing for you to do, however, is not to go to the Amazon or to the jungles of Africa and save each language personally. You can take some of the following, simple, measures to help save the world’s languages:

• Tell your friends about language loss and why it is a loss to humanity
• Don’t participate in negativity toward minority languages, and speak up when others do
• Do participate in positivity toward minority languages, and speak up about them when you can
• If you are a minority language speaker, speak your language with pride, and teach it to your children
• If you are a voter in your country, vote for those acts and laws that promote the use, development, and revitalization of minority languages
• If you are considering charity, give to language preservation groups
• If you are feeling passionate, consider studying a minority language

Ultimately, it is up to you to decide for yourself how much you can do.

References:

1. Dictionary.com. “Genocide”: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/genocide
2. Wikipedia. “Language Endangerment”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_endangerment
3. Wikipedia. "English language": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language
4. BBC. “Last speaker of ancient language of Bo dies in India”. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8498534.stm