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.
Insert e.g. poss palawa kani tasmania see
www.aiatsis.gov.au/LOTM/dec99.htm/
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.
The article was produced by the member of masterpapers.com.
Sharon White is a senior writer and writers consultant at term papers. Get some useful tips for thesis and buy term papers.
No Comments
No comments yet.
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment