Dying Languages

There are approximately 6 000 languages spoken in the world today, but many of these are quickly dying out. (A language is described as “dead” when there are no native speakers left.) On the island of New Guinea, 3 million people speak a total of 740 languages between them. Even more amazingly, there are perhaps 260 Australian Aborigine languages, spoken by a total of only 450 000 people. Most of these languages are spoken by no more than a few hundred people, and with each generation the number of speakers decreases. Sadly, some Papuan and Aborigine languages may already be dead, and others will certainly die soon.

Before we can look at how a language becomes extinct it is perhaps important to consider exactly how to define an endangered or extinct language, Krauss (1992) establishes three types of prognosis, a prognosis being the probability of continuation, degeneration or possible rejuvenation of a language. He terms languages as being moribund a language no longer learned as a mother tongue by children is doomed to extinction. Alternatively a language may be simply. Endangered now still learned by children which are likely to cease to be learned by children during the coming centuries. These two categories according to Krauss account for 90% of the world’s languages leaving only the remaining 10% or 600 languages as safe, languages that are neither moribund nor endangered.

There are many factors which contribute to language death or endangerment one of the most obvious, which is highlighted by the above example, being lack of speakers.

Other factors which can lead to a language being jeopardized can include governmental repression or just lack of governmental support FIND E.G OF GOVERNMENTAL REPRESSION. Low prestige, the language may be poorly perceived by locals, this is shown in North west of Ireland where Irish is spoken by only a few thousand people who belong to the lowest socio-economic group, who believe that speaking Irish while everyone else has adopted English has left them in this disadvantageous position and feel there is no need to continue with this process. Many of Dublin's middle classes are fighting to revive the language never the less. (Dixon, 1997). Endangered languages are often languages which are mainly oral or have little literary tradition, some give way to the pressures of globalization or standardization, possibly the biggest threat a language can face is contact with a prestigious language. Otto Jespersen (1938/68) estimated the number of English speakers worldwide to be four million in 1500, six million in 1600, eight and a half million in 1700, somewhere between twenty and forty million in 1800, and between 116 and 123 million in 1900. By the end of the twentieth century experts place the number anywhere between 700 million and one billion speakers of English across the world, meaning the number has multiplied by ten in just one century. These speakers of English fall into three approximately equal categories, native speakers of English, speakers of English as a second (or international [Pennycook, 1994]) language, and speakers of English as a foreign language. Pennycook explains in The cultural politics of English that this last group is perhaps the most difficult to put a figure to as it is clearly the fastest growing sector of English language speakers. There are two mindsets as to the reasons for and implications of this quite remarkable spread of a single language, but whatever the reasons it is apparent that English is far from endangered.

Just as there are many types of threats a language can face, there also varied ways in which it can meet its demise. According to Campbell and Muntzel (1989) [in Dorian, ed.] there are four categories of language death. The rarest is latinate pattern death otherwise known as bottom to top death. In this situation the range of stylistic registers suffers slow destruction from the bottom rungs of social context to the top. That is, the language is first lost in family and informal situations and is eventually only left in highly formalised or ritualistic circumstances, an example of this can be seen in Latin a language long dead to the ear but still in existence in the church, legal and medical terminology. Another classification is Sudden death , in this instance a language disappears almost instantly because its speakers die suddenly in a natural disaster such as an earthquake or tsunami or are subject to mass disease.

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Radical death describes a situation where language is lost quickly and often due to severe political repression, sometimes accompanied by genocide, to the extent that speakers refuse to speak the language as a form of self defense, to prevent them being identified or merely to appease a particular regime. An example of this is found in El Salvador where Lenca and Cacaopera are already extinct and Pipil only has a few remaining speakers all of whom are in the autumn of their lives, to say the least. The loss of language due to a gradual shift in favor of the dominant language in language contact situation, there is usually an intermediate process of bilingualism where the dominant language slowly replaces the subordinate languages in its own prominent domains , this was called gradual death by Campbell and Muntzel. Some people are of the opinion that this gradual change is natural and others that it is an imposed form of imperialism.

English itself can be said to have a history of imposition, some would argue this is for material and political reasons and that in most periphery communities more often than not it is in competition with local/native languages and does not just happily co-exist. In 1796 the British colonized the ethno-linguistically diverse island of Ceylon under one political umbrella, they imposed English as the national language and went about setting up English schools at both secondary and Tertiary levels, this education not only included language lessons but discipline (in keeping with that usually found in British public schools) and Protestant teachings. Students were often expected to board to be protected from outside cultural and linguistic influence. This education was needed for particular jobs but was only available to those able to pay the fees, Christians were given preferential treatment with regard to admission and most students finished their education having been converted to Christianity regardless of previous cultural and religious beliefs, in the main natives competed to be given an English education, mainly because the Tamils defined themselves by religion and not language. The native church devised a mission which offered Western (English) scholarships to students who promised not to desert their religion, this enabled natives to embrace the new language without in the main losing cultural identity. This is not to say the program was without opposition, many natives accepted the Christianity they were compelled to in public, but continued to practice Hinduism in private, not all forms of opposition were as subtle as this. Tamil scholars were sometimes vocal with regard to the English only education of younger generations, Ananda Coomarasamy called the English educated natives -a generation of spiritual bastards (1946:32) adding in explanation- A single generation of English education suffices to break the threads of tradition and to create a nondescript and superficial being deprived of all roots. A fellow scholar Sir Arunachalam commented The root of the evil in Ceylon is that the vernacular is neglected (undated:261-2).

Without both the subtle and overt opposition found here, it is possible that English would have eventually dominated and many of Ceylon’s native tongues would’ve been lost.

It is becoming clear that the loss of linguistic diversity in the modern world is reaching a grave state, as Dixon (1997:116) points out there are people who live in the developing world who have knowledge about the medicinal properties of plants we’ve never seen or perhaps even species of animal yet to be categorized, if their linguistic and therefore cultural and historical knowledge is destroyed how will they ever be able to pass on information which could be invaluable. He goes on to explain that the nuances of languages are an insight into the workings of the human brain and only by studying the technicalities and details of the widest variety possible can we even begin to establish a clear picture of how our minds work. We might ask why make the effort to rescue and revitalize languages when we have lots of languages to study already, the language of the odd small group of people can’t be that important can it? This very question makes huge assumptions, for instance that a culture which is perhaps limited with regard to material possessions will also be limited linguistically, often smaller societies have complex hierarchies and communal relations and associated complex pronoun structures (Dixon, 1997). Dixon’s view on the importance of linguistic diversity is supported by Hale (Grenoble & Whaley 1998). He believes that linguistic and cultural diversity is the enabling condition for the maximal production of intellectual wealth of all kinds and in all fields. He goes on to say that we have already lost so much valuable information through colonization, if this is true surely it makes sense to halt damage currently being done and to try and revitalize the languages on the brink of extinction. He points out the role of just one language Irish, he points out that it makes clear an issue which could be overlooked when studying English, although it exists in both languages, the idea that extraction must obey subjacency.

If we have established that from both a technical and cultural perspective it is important to rescue as many of the world’s languages, the next question to answer would be; how? This is a matter upon which linguists still only have rather vague ideas, and much as is usual in the world of linguistics there is little consensus as to which route to take. One method would be to raise ethnic and cultural awareness both worldwide and within each community to ensure the importance of each language is recognized, as shown in my earlier example of Ceylon a little subtle resistance can go a long way Other methods may include the collection of oral literature, descriptions and analysis of ancestral language, some even go so far as to suggest providing a descriptive grammar, developing an orthography and dictionary and beginning a language archive. I believe the method which may be of most use on a large scale is the very method by which prestigious languages have often encroached on the territory of the indigenous languages; teaching. We need to ensure adequate resources are provided for teachers of every language not just the language of trade, industry and commerce, teaching materials must be prepared and a constant stream of language specialists need to be trained.

These ideas are all on a massive scale, and that is probably necessary but it can make the task seem daunting. Most attempts to revive languages fail miserably, there are however a few success stories, even to just a modest extent. Hebrew is usually hailed as the most successful (Fishman 1991), although this has even been brought into doubt more recently (Spolsky & Shohamy:350 in Fishman 2001). Perhaps a more interesting case to look at is French Quebec. This example shows that sustained language planning can stave off the influx of even one of the most powerful languages of recent times, English. Census results showed a decline of 12% in Quebec’s English mother-tongue population between 1971 and 1981 (Caldwell 1984), by the nineteen nineties the number of English mother tongue speakers had dropped from 789,000 to 622,00 a drop of 167,00, with English use even in the home dropping by 4% This is particularly highlighted in Montreal, the English mother-tongue speaking population dropped from 26% in 1951 to just 13% in 1996. (Bourhis 2001 in Fishman). Bill 101 had a lot to do with this trend it guaranteed the rights of every Quebecer to receive communication in French when dealing with the civil administration, semi-public agencies and business firms, including the right by all customers to be served in French. all workers to work in French and not to be dismissed or demoted for the sole reason that they were monolingual in French. These strict regulations seem to be working thanks to the rigorous efforts of the French speaking population and government. Who is to say similar systems couldn’t be beneficial elsewhere?

Kramsch (1998) makes a fantastic point when she says; The only way to preserve the room for maneuver vital to any human communication is not by making sure that everyone speaks the same language, but by making sure that the linguistic semiotic capital of humankind remains as rich and diverse as possible. This is most certainly true and now it just leaves time to tell if as humankind we are willing to put in the effort to reap the benefits of an exquisitely rich and diverse population. A language is the emblem of its speakers. Each and every language determines a unique way of viewing the world. It encapsulates the laws and traditions of its ethnic group. The claim that a language death is nothing more than the loss of a language system is close to ridiculous. To lose natural languages is to lose an important aspect of humanity itself.

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