Four Things That Happen When a Language Dies

[soothsayer]

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Four Things That Happen When a Language Dies
smithsonianmag.com
https://t.co/aavZpsTGLN?amp=1

Snip
Languages around the world are dying, and dying fast. Today is International Mother Language Day, started by UNESCO to promote the world's linguistic diversity.

The grimmest predictions have 90 percent of the world's languages dying out by the end of this century. Although this might not seem important in the day-to-day life of an English speaker with no personal ties to the culture in which they’re spoken, language loss matters. Here’s what we all lose:

1. We lose “The expression of a unique vision of what it means to be human”

That’s what academic David Crystal told Paroma Basu for National Geographic in 2009. Basu was writing about India, a country with hundreds of languages, at least seven major language families and rapid language loss.

The effects of that language loss could be “culturally devastating,” Basu wrote. “Each language is a key that can unlock local knowledge about medicinal secrets, ecological wisdom, weather and climate patterns, spiritual attitudes and artistic and mythological histories.”

—-
Much more at link

[Klaralven]

1. Endangered Languages List: 10 Languages Facing Extinction

Below is a snapshot of dying languages from around the world. Each language has fewer than a hundred active speakers and is facing extinction:

https://www.altalang.com/beyond-words/endangered-languages-list-10-languages-facing-extinction/

The US endangered language is Tataina spoken in Lime Village, Alaska.

Lime Village is a census-designated place in Bethel Census Area, Alaska, United States. The 2010 census found a population of 29, up from 6 in 2000. It has also been known as Hungry Village.

Young people are probably very motivated to learn English.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. I've been hearing the lament about dying languages for

decades now. I'm not sure that each loss is such a huge tragedy. I'll probably get flamed for that, but if only 17 people in the world know the language and no one at all is bothering to do anything at all to preserve it, then the language may not be all that important. Otherwise, wouldn't linguists have long since done their very best to preserve more languages?

One thing I've noticed about science fiction (which I read a fair amount of) over the years is that alien cultures and civilizations are always presented as mono cultural and mono lingual. Never even different countries on the alien planet.

[DavidDvorkin]

3. I'm with you

Many years ago, I wrote a short essay on the subject, for which I was lambasted as a narrow-minded, provincial fool. Ho hum.

Here it is:
http://dvorkin.com/essays/gloobdied.html

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

14. Thanks for that link.

You worded it more strongly than I would have, but I totally agree with the sentiment expressed.

[meadowlander]

5. The very white elephant in the room is Colonialism.

The declining number of people speaking those languages doesn't arise in a void of context.

Linguists don't "preserve" languages - the people who speak them do. And the reason people stopped speaking those language is because white people invaded their countries, in many cases kidnapped their kids, forced them to go to schools where they would beat them for speaking any language other than the coloniser's language.

Every language on earth is the equivalent of the works of Shakespeare - a cultural artifact that took tens of thousands of years to produce and which encodes the knowledge and world view of the people speaking it. People who have had their ancestors' language stolen from them suffer a profound loss of spiritual and cultural identity as well.

I strongly recommend that you read Once Were Warriors and try learning some of the indigenous languages around where you live.

I've studied Irish Gaelic (the language of my ancestors) and te reo Maori (the language of my adopted country) and both of them have been profoundly enriching experiences for me. It doesn't matter how few people actually speak those languages on a day to day basis- it's about connecting with the generational knowledge and stories about the places you come from or live in.

[DavidDvorkin]

6. I don't speak the language of my ancestors

That's true of a huge portion of the world's population.

I did study that language. It did nothing for me. I much prefer English.

I've often heard the arguments you make. I don't think they hold water.

[meadowlander]

7. Notwithstanding your sample of one,

you don't speak for all of humanity.

I'm sorry that you couldn't understand the value of learning a second language. That's not really a good excuse for cultural genocide though.

[DavidDvorkin]

8. I've studied a few languages

And achieved varying degrees of proficiency in them. I understand quite well that there's no inherent value in doing so. Learning a second or third etc. language is a fine thing for those who enjoy doing so, and in many cases it has practical value. That's all that can be said about it.

The disappearance of a language doesn't always result from cultural genocide. Nor does trying to keep it from dying equal righting the wrongs of history.

[meadowlander]

9. "Why can't everyone just speak English/Esperanto/Earth?" is advocating for cultural genocide.

What do you propose to do about all the people who don't want to learn or use English? The people who do actually find value in their ancestral language and for whom is it absolutely not your right to speak?

If you haven't learned the value of the languages you've studied then you haven't actually learned them. I suggest you keep trying. Maybe you'll get there some day. Languages aren't just about being able to order food in a restaurant and telling the taxi where to go. They are about inhabiting a mindset and understanding connections and associations which are different to the worldview you grew up in. If you can't do that, then you haven't actually learned the language notwithstanding how many vocab words you can rattle off.

I've studied nine languages and learned something different, unique and important from every one of them - even the ones like Czech I only studied for a few months and never made it to fluency in.

[DavidDvorkin]

10. Where did I say that everyone should speak English?

Or any other language?

Don't make assumptions about me. I'm not American by birth, English goes back only one generation on one side. I'm not a product of this country's culture. My views about language don't stem from ignorance but from experience with other cultures.

[meadowlander]

25. You responded to a post saying

"One thing I've noticed about science fiction (which I read a fair amount of) over the years is that alien cultures and civilizations are always presented as mono cultural and mono lingual. Never even different countries on the alien planet."

with "I'm with you."

And "I prefer English".

Like two posts ago.

[DavidDvorkin]

38. You misread me

First, "I'm with you" referred to the argument that the dying off of languages is not a great tragedy.

In the post about monolingual cultures in sf, that wasn't an endorsement. At least, I didn't see it that way. Alien worlds are often depicted in sf as monolingual and monocultural. I've always considered that a flaw in worldbuilding. I assumed the poster was simply remarking on it. In any case, my "I'm with you" had nothing to do with that.

"I prefer English" refers to me. I prefer English. If I had been born speaking some other language as my first language, I'd no doubt prefer that one.

[Goodheart]

16. Hyperbole much?

The fact that a language disappears is not "cultural genocide". It's just a natural, inevitable progression that some will die. And losing a particular language doesn't necessarily negate the culture within which it was spoken. I know this from experience, because I like most Cajuns in south Louisiana can't speak Cajun French, but the fais-do-do's and etouffee's and so on are certainly not going away any time soon.

[meadowlander]

27. It is not, sadly.

Language loss through most of human history is not a natural, gentle, inevitable progression in the majority of cases. There are actual people (albeit mostly with black and brown skin, coincidence?) who were forced to give up their own language and speak the language of their coloniser.

Native American children were kidnapped, forced to attend English-language schools and beaten for speaking any other language.

Hawaiian kids were forced to attend English-language schools and beaten for speaking any other language.

Australian aboriginal kids were kidnapped by the foster care system, "adopted" by white families and beaten for speaking any other language.

African slaves brought to the US were forced to speak English and punished for using their native language.

Maori kids into the 1990s were beaten for speaking their home language at school.

It was against the law to speak Irish Gaelic for hundreds of years.

China is currently doing this in Tibet and to the Uyghur by banning their languages in schools and in the media.

Plus how many hundreds of languages and/or dialects have been lost through the centuries due to war, slavery, famine, etc. Languages just magically disappearing through a natural process is the linguistic equivalent of the "vanishing Indian" myth.

Are there natural changes in languages between generations? Yes. Do some people choose not to learn their ancestral languages? Sure. But that doesn't excuse an attitude of "let's just let the unpopular languages die and pretend it has nothing to do with hundreds of years of systemic attempts to force indigenous people to speak European languages." Like seriously? To the people arguing this in this thread, please wake up to yourselves. That attitude reeks of Western privilege and is so, so offensive to the people dedicating their lives to trying to preserve and revive some of these cultural treasures that were stolen from indigenous populations.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/linguistic-genocide

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_genocide

[Kaleva]

29. Languages evolve

My parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, great grandparents spoke Finn and most of them spoke it quite well. But the Finn they knew was the Finnish language of the 1800's.

Some years ago at a family gathering, I was talking to an uncle who had gone on a trip to Finland with my aunt. He told me that they had some trouble conversing with the people there as the language had changed. It had evolved into what my uncle call "Finnglish".

I had the opportunity to learn Finn when I was young but I would have learned a version of the language that will soon be extinct.

[meadowlander]

30. Loss of Finnish dialects doesn't really constitute the bulk of the problem.

What do we notice here kids?

[Kaleva]

31. The point is that languages come and go and have been doing so since the beginning.

Very few today , if any, speaks ancient Egyptian, Pict, Old English or hundreds and hundreds of other languages. Nobody knows what languages the early Native Americans who lived in Upper Michigan spoke and modern day Ojibwa and Sioux, who moved in the region later and either assimilated, drove out or exterminated the earlier inhabitants, wouldn't be able to communicate with them.

[meadowlander]

39. Most people die of natural causes.

That doesn't mean we throw up our hands and say "oh well, what's the point of medicine if all these people are going to die anyway."

I just find it very sad that so many otherwise bright and liberal people are so happy to close their eyes to the fact that most of the languages that are dying now can be directly tied to the legacy of colonialism or current conflict zones and that people either can't understand the moral atrocity of trying to wipe out another culture or fundamentally don't care (hint: because it's mostly not happening to white people).

[hunter]

34. English is a vile language.

When I'm Emperor of the Earth I'm going to ban it.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

20. Colonialism is a relatively new thing.

Meanwhile, thousands of languages have come and gone long before this.

Good for you for learning Irish Gaelic and te reo Maori. But honestly, I don't feel impoverished because I don't know either one. Oh, wait. I do know two Irish Gaelic phrases, taught to me by my grandmother. Actually, all four grandparents came from Ireland, but only that Grandmother taught me any. Erin go bragh and pogue mahone.

[Retrograde]

24. The Greeks had colonies in Italy and France

well before 1 C.E. - Naples and Marseilles were two of their colonies. The name of Lincoln in the UK preserves the Roman word "colonia". It's not a new thing - it's been going on as long as humans could find someone to exploit.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

37. Okay, I hadn't thought back, even though I knew that.

I do think the person I replied to was thinking primarily of the world-wide colonialism done by Europeans starting in the 19th century.

[Happy Hoosier]

40. Perhaps, but also....

... a simple broadening of the global community. To participate in that community, you have to be able to communicate. Of course, local languages can still be valuable. Many of them express simply concepts which are difficult to describe in English (for example). But overall, I expect there to be a steady shift towards common language.... because we are social animals and want to speak to each other.

I do think languages offer a cultural preserve that few other things can, but I suspect it will be more and more difficult to maintain them as people desire to connect with those outside their smaller language groups, and languages tend to whither if they are not used daily, and for daily activities.

[greenjar_01]

13. I'm with you, though I usually find your positions reprehensible

Thousands of languages have died. It's the way of the world.

[pansypoo53219]

4. i am trying to preserve old german immigrant wis things, like moo bossy,

yah der yana hey or aina hey. use aina a lot aina-is that not so.

[Goodheart]

11. So, languages known only to a few, and thus a communication barrier except among themselves,

are dying. And some argue that this is a bad thing? LOL. Really?

"The expression of a unique vision of what it means to be human" sounds like fluff to me.

This is one of those who cares either way issues. I love cultural diversity as much as anyone.... the dress, the dance, the music, the food... but when it comes to the matter of communicating with each other... well, that's a whole different ball game.

Seriously, does anybody miss Old English?

[soothsayer]

15. It's more like languages and culture reflect and shape each other

When the English wanted to conquer the Welse, they tried to stamp out the language entirely, to wipe out the culture.

Language also influences how you think about things. Many languages have words for concepts that don’t even exist in English, and which reflect a different way of looking at the world.

Not all languages are created equal, nor are cultures, which is why it’s valuable to preserve them.

[Goodheart]

18. I don't see anybody here advocating that any language should be "wiped out"

That would be wrong.

I just see a lack of lamentation among some here (myself included) that some languages die off. I think they die by necessity, actually.

[soothsayer]

19. Well it's a shame

[Goodheart]

21. A shame? I don't think so.

I think it's a shame that languages ever diversified in the first place, away from the first that humans spoke. Those differences inevitably led to mistrust and discord.

Imagine if all the languages humans have ever spoken had never died off, and were still spoken in local pockets today. What a giant human mess that would be.

[niyad]

12. KNR and bookmarking. Thank you for this valuable OP.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

17. Languages have come and gone ever since we learned to talk.

Should we be upset that no one speaks whatever our earliest ancestors spoke? But weren't those languages equally rich, and the fact that they are gone means we can never recapture whatever they knew?

Well, no. Because the nature of language is that it changes. And changes to the point where it sometimes becomes a totally new language.

If this were really such a horrible thing, you'd think linguists would have mounted a concerted effort to save some of those languages. But how can that realistically happen? It can't, especially as the last speakers all die. Meanwhile, 500 years from now, maybe a lot sooner, English (and a lot of other current languages) will probably have morphed into something most of us now wouldn't begin to understand. It's what happens over time.

[DavidDvorkin]

23. Yes, exactly.

[DavidDvorkin]

22. Now let's imagine that in the future, we'll all be fitted with Star-Trek-like universal translators

(My translator wife would be annoyed that I'm not calling the gadgets universal interpreters, but let's not get into that argument.)

Those are probably coming in the not-very-distant future.

Imagine that we will be able to communicate clearly and fluently with anyone else, no matter what language they speak. There will be no pragmatic reason to learn another language, although some, like my wife, will continue to do so because it gives them pleasure; they'll be in the minority, though. Groups will be able to invent entirely new languages and raise their children to speak them, without cutting themselves off from the world. Perhaps the number of new languages will grow rapidly.

Nothing will change. Our views and understanding of the world will be just as they are now, or rather they'll change with time, in the natural way, just as they would have without the universal translators. In other words, even if the result is that almost everyone in the world is monolingual, that will have no real effect on the world.

(While we're at it, we'll probably have something in our eyes, or in front of our eyes, that will handle translation of written materials, so all of the above will apply to written as well as spoken words.)

[DFW]

26. Count me among the ones who think all languages should be preserved.

Each one has its own vocabulary, unique expressions, reflects a culture. I speak nine languages, and each one of them has its unique words that "you just can't translate directly," and indeed, plenty of them have filtered into English unchanged from the original. I live in a country that borders on nine others as it is. COULD I get along knowing just one? Actually, no. I work in many of those countries, and have contact with people who come from the countries I usually don't work in. I might be able to get by using English in some cases, but not in all, and I wouldn't have those people as friends if I didn't speak those languages.

During the Fascist era in Spain, Hitler's buddy, Franco, tried to stamp out the Catalan and Basque languages by forbidding newspapers and electronic media from using them, and sent schoolteachers from those regions to other parts of Spain, which replacing them with teachers from parts of Spain that only spoke Castilian ("Spanish" ). He had considerable success with Basque, little with Catalan.

Those who advocate preserving vanishing cultures had two kindred spirits in two of America's more well-known early revolutionaries: Thomas Jefferson and James Madison once traveled to a part of Long Island to try and document the vocabulary and grammar of the Unkechaug language, which did indeed end up dying out. More wide-spread languages, like Iroquois, were not then considered in danger of disappearing, but Jefferson closely studied what was called the Iroquois Confederacy, an alliance that in part inspired the confederation that ended up becoming the United States of America.

[Klaralven]

33. An advantage of English is that we borrow words freely

English is a core grammar and vocabulary with a huge vocabulary made up of borrowed words.

Every scientific, engineering, and business specialty has its own long list of terms. But "atom" comes from Old French and via Latin from Greek.

But unfortunately we haven't done a good job of borrowing geographical names. Why do we insist on using Munich for München?

[DFW]

36. Modern day speakers of English go for convenience.

There are no "foreign" sounds in Schadenfreude, so we can all pronounce that, but the ü and the German ch of München are sounds that need to be mastered by an English-speaker, so we use the French version (Munique, also spelled Munich). For example, the English/Greek/Icelandic "th" is foreign to most people except continental speakers of Castilian and some areas of Italy. Whereas most Italians pronounce the single Z as in German (ts), in some regions, they pronounce it as the English "th," and have no problem with English words containing it. Most non-Scandinavians have problems with the "sj" which is complicated by the fact that even within Scandinavia, each region pronounces it differently.

Other versions of foreign cities depend on where we get our version of them. English speakers would have no problem whatsoever with "Moskva," but we just took the German version (Moskau) and Anglicized the spelling (Moscow). Sometimes, people make themselves sound silly, such as pronouncing the city of Barcelona as "Barthelona," thinking they are being very correct. Instead, they insult the people of Barcelona who endured decades of rule from the Madrid fascists, using the Castilian pronunciation, "Barthelona." The proper pronunciation in Catalan, the language of Barcelona, is the same as it is in English.

[Silent3]

28. While it is sad to lose these languages (and their cultures), you can't (or shouldn't) force...

...people to live in cultural museums.

I'm certainly against cases where there have been deliberate efforts to stamp out languages and cultures. But a lot of loss of language happens naturally too. Some people simply find their native languages less and less useful over time. Many speakers of rare languages raise their children in different places or circumstances than they were themselves were born, where a different language is dominant.

We certainly can't force all parents to try to pass on their natives languages, nor force all children to care about the languages of their parents even when their parents want them to care.

[hunter]

42. I hate all this fucking English in my head.

My mind resonates to other music.

Nevertheless I managed to take an English minor university degree.

Not that I display it here.

[Hortensis]

32. Every language's death diminishes me. Those people struggling to

keep them alive for themselves should be helped to sustain. Those that have passed that point shouldn't be kept alive on artificial life support.

But no matter how many speak a language, every one is a treasure of mankind. Many fine people are working to record them so we can keep them that way.

[MineralMan]

35. Linguists cannot preserve languages. Only people who learn those

languages from their parents can, really. I'm competent in three languages other than English, all learned from others. However, even though I can carry on a conversation, read a newspaper, or even poetry in those three other languages, I will never be truly fluent in them, nor will I ever gain the understanding that only immersion from childhood provides.

Linguists can analyze, describe, and create vocabulary lists and grammar descriptions. However, only the native speakers of a dying language can actually preserve it.

A language that is no longer taught to children from birth cannot be saved. It is doomed to die with the last native speaker of it.

If the culture dies, for whatever reason, that culture's language dies with it.

[hunter]

41. My wife absorbed many cultural aspects of her language heritage from birth...

... and the languages themselves later.

Her grandparents were all about melting-pot-assimilation because the alternatives were dangerous. She was raised to speak English.

Whenever my wife speaks her ancestral languages many people can immediately identify where she is "from."

It's not the languages so much as the ways of thinking.

Myself is hopelessly depressive Dǫnsk.