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What is an Endangered Language?

An endangered language is a language headed for extinction. It is a language without monolingual speakers, people who speak only that language. It is a language spoken by a minority of people in the nation and for that reason is held in low esteem, causing its speakers to avoid using it or passing it on to their children. 20 years ago, all of the children in the Yupik community in Alaska spoke Yupik; now the youngest speakers are in their 20's. Mohawk and Onondaga are still spoken in upstate New York but only by older adults. Many languages today have only one remaining speaker, an older person who will take that language with him or her to the grave. Many linguists predict that at least half of the world's 6,000 or so languages will be dead or dying by the year 2050. Languages are becoming extinct at twice the rate of endangered mammals and four times the rate of endangered birds. If this trend continues, the world of the future could be dominated by a dozen or fewer languages. Linguists say that the number of dead or dying languages could be more like 50 percent by 2100, and that's the best-case scenario.

How Languages Become Extinct?

Outright genocide is one cause of language extinction. For example, when European invaders exterminated the Tasmanians in the early 19th century, an unknown number of languages died as well. Far more often, however, languages become extinct when a community finds itself under pressure to integrate with a larger or more powerful group. Sometimes the people learn the outsiders' language in addition to their own; this has happened in Greenland, a territory of Denmark, where Kalaallisut is learned alongside Danish. But often the community is pressured to give up its language and even its ethnic and cultural identity. This has been the case for the ethnic Kurds in Turkey, who are forbidden by law to print or formally teach their language. It has also been the case for younger speakers of Native American languages, who, as recently as the 1960s, were punished for speaking their native languages at boarding schools

These languages are considered dead because they are no longer spoken in the form in which we find them in ancient writings. But they weren't abruptly replaced by other languages; instead, Ancient Greek slowly evolved into modern Greek, and Latin slowly evolved into modern Italian, Spanish, French, Romanian, and other languages. In the same way, the Old English of Chaucer's day is no longer spoken, but it has evolved into Modern English.

What Causes Language Extinction?

Because it is not useful in the society, perhaps even a social liability, an endangered language is not passed on by parents to their children. Speaking the majority language better equips children for success in the majority culture than speaking a less prestigious language. Some governments actively discourage minority language use. For decades, it was illegal to speak Macedonian or sing Macedonian songs in Greece. That situation is reflected in the history of Native American languages in the United States.

How Many Languages are Threatened Today?

No one knows exactly how many languages exist in the world today but best estimates place the figure around 6800. Roughly 1,000 are spoken in the Americas (15%), 2,400 in Africa (35%), 200 in Europe (3%), 2,000 in Asia (28%) and, perhaps, 1,200 in the Pacific (19%). Keep in mind that only about a quarter of the languages and few dialects have writing systems and not all languages have even been "discovered" by Western linguistics. Many fear that 90% of the half the world's languages will disappear by the end of the 21st century.

While Australia with 194 has the highest number of languages that have either become extinct or are endangered, Europe has 28 among them, Latin (Vatican state), ancient Greek (Greece), Umbrian (Italy) and Dalmatian (Croatia). North America has 117 extinct and endangered languages which include Apache.Kiowa, Chinook and Cherokee. Asia which has 109 extinct and endangered languages has wait for it; ancient Hebrew, Samaritan (Isreal)and Indo-Portuguese (India) listed on the extinct and endangered languages roll-call. Africa has 67 extinct and endangered languages among them Coptic (Egypt), Korana(South Africa) and Bikya (Cameroun). In Nigeria the following languages are on the verge of extinction; Ajawa; Auyokawa; Bade; Basa-kaduna; Bassa-kontagora; Bete; Fali of Baissa; Gamo-ningi; Gana; Kiong; Kpan; Kpati; Lufu; Mawa; Njerup; Odut; Putai; Shau; Sheni; Somyewe; Taura; Teshenawa and Ziriya.Is language extinction sudden or gradual?

The fate of a language can be changed in a single generation if it is no longer being learned by children. This has been true for some Yupik Eskimo communities in Alaska, where just 20 years ago all of the children spoke Yupik; today the youngest speakers of Yupik in some of these communities are in their 2os, and the children speak only English. Likewise, Scots Gaelic was spoken on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, until the 194os, but by the 1970S the language was no longer being learned by children. In other cases, languages have declined much more slowly. Iroquoian languages like Onondaga and Mohawk, spoken in upstate New York and adjacent parts of Canada, have been declining for over two centuries; yet they are still spoken today by older adults and, in the case of Mohawk, some younger people as well.

Some language loss, like species loss, is natural and predictable. No language exists forever. Just as plants and animals have appeared and disappeared over the millennia, languages evolve, grow, and spread, and eventually dwindle and die. Sometimes they're replaced by their "descendant" languages, as Italian gradually replaced Latin. Other times they're forced out, as the ancient Etruscan language was when Latin speakers overran the Italian peninsula.

Language extinction is accelerating today for some of the same reasons as species extinction-population pressures and the spread of industrialization. The global economy often forces small, unindustrialized communities to choose between their traditional language and participation in the larger world. East Africans need to speak Swahili for success; Central Europeans need to speak Russian; and lately, the whole world seems to need to speak English. Sometimes these languages coexist with the local language. More often, they eventually replace it as older speakers die and younger ones adopt the more-useful tongue.

Modern media have produced a strange phenomenon, giving children a source of knowledge about the world which is independent of the knowledge that comes from their elders in their own community. [Since] it conveys a sense of wealth that is not available in most places it is not surprising that children are seduced by it. Even strong national languages might have some worries. The European Union, for instance, is increasingly concerned that English will eventually replace some European languages, since it's the only language that many Europeans have in common.

Pressure to abandon a language in favour of a more dominant one has historically been direct and forceful. In nineteenth-century Australia and the United States, native children were sent to boarding schools, where they were punished for speaking their own language. No public or official use of native languages was allowed. The English government used similar methods to forcibly repress the Celtic languages of Ireland and Wales. Although recent language policies in all three places attempt to reverse this trend, for many languages it is simply too late.

Repressive language policies are common in many parts of the world. East African countries actively encourage citizens to abandon tribal languages in favor of Swahili or another "unifying" common language as a way of promoting loyalty to new governments. Minority languages are routinely repressed as a first step toward repressing the minorities themselves. One recent example is the Kosovars' struggle to continue speaking Albanian freely in the face of Serbian policies to the contrary. Although interest in language preservation is on the rise in some quarters, many people have an equally strong interest in stamping out minority tongues.

Evolution of new Languages

Many signed languages, including American Sign Language, have been born within the last few centuries. Tok Pisin, the national language of Papua New Guinea, developed from an English- based pidgin (a blend of two or more languages). In most African countries like Nigeria new languages which are largely derivatives of English language have been born in the past half century. For instance Pidgin English which is widely spoken in Nigeria by the illeterate and semi-literate population has more than five variants which differences are based on mostly the current popular slangs in the society. These variants include the Warri Pidgin, Benin Pidgin, Port-Harcourt Pidgin and Lagos Pidgin. Local Nigerian dialects have also evolved with most Nigerian languages now having an English strain. The indigenous language spoken alongside. It is near difficult to hear a Nigerian language spoken in any of the country's urban centers that is not generously interspersed with English language. These new forms of Nigeria's indigenous language is widely accepted and spoken by Nigerians who are in their 30's and below. Such new languages are regarded as being fashionable. It has become so much so that it is difficult to meet a Nigerian who can converse in an indigenous language without interspersing it with English especially if that person is an urban dweller. The victims of these new language variants are Nigeria's Big Three i.e Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba. Among urban dwellers of Yoruba origin for instance it has become increasingly fashionable to say Ma ri e later ( I will see you later) instead of Ma ri e to baya or Shei you know instead of Sho mo ( Do you understand?). For the Igbos its more trendy and acceptable among the youths to say I likeriim this and I likriim that (I like this and I like that) instead of Enwere m mmasi n'ihe ahu iji na aka or Aga m eri but oburo kita instead of Aga m eri kama oburo kita (I will eat but not now) . It has more or less become accptable so much so artistes employ such in their literary and musical productions. And over many centuries, different dialects of a single language can grow to be distinct languages in their own right, just as dialects of Latin developed into French, Italian, and so on.

But these new languages do not compare to the linguistic heritage that is being lost. The thousands of languages spoken in the world today have evolved over the entire course of human history. Every group of related languages is separated from every other group by at least 5000 years of development, usually more. If English were to become the sole language of every person on earth, it would take tens of thousands of years to produce anything like the diversity that is our heritage-assuming we could somehow reproduce the conditions under which this diversity grew. For all practical purposes, the diversity we have now is absolutely irreplaceable.

What Difference Does it Make?

Language is the most efficient means of transmitting a culture, and it is the owners of that culture that lose the most when a language dies. Every culture has adapted to unique circumstances, and the language expresses those circumstances. While a community may not lose its sense of identity when it loses its language, identity is closely associated with language. When Yugoslavia broke up, it was very important that the Serbo-Croatian language spoken in Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Serbia, and Montenegro be called 'Croatian' but the Croatians, 'Bosnian' by the Bosnians, and so on. All peoples identify their culture as closely with their languages as with their religion. What we talk about, think, and believe is closely bound up with the words we have, so the history of a culture can be mapped in its language. The Russian word "mir" for example has three discrete meanings today: 'commune, world, peace'. There was a point in Russian history when most of the population lived in communes all their lives so that a commune was a Russian's world so long as they were at peace. (They tended to flee into the forests when invaded.) Millions of cultural stories like this are at risk.

People from other cultures are also impoverished when any language dies. The history tied up in a language will go unrecorded; the poetry and rhythm of a singular tongue will be silenced forever. The scientific search for Universal Grammar, the common starting point for all grammars that human children seem to be born with, depends on our knowing what all human languages have in common. The wholesale loss of languages that we face today will greatly restrict how much we can learn about human cognition, language, and language acquisition at a time when the achievements in these arenas have been greater than ever before.

The definition of a healthy language is one that acquires new speakers. No matter how many adults use the language, if it isn't passed to the next generation, its fate is already sealed. Although a language may continue to exist for a long time as a second or ceremonial language, it is moribund as soon as children stop learning it. For example, out of twenty native Alaskan languages, only two are still being learned by children.

Although language extinction is sad for the people involved, why should the rest of us care? What effect will other people's language loss have on the future of people who speak English, for example? Replacing a minor language with a more widespread one may even seem like a good thing, allowing people to communicate with each other more easily. But language diversity is as important in its way as biological diversity.

The Revival Of Dying Languages

The deck is stacked heavily against the world's minority languages, but the case isn't hopeless. The Celtic language of Cornish, once spoken in southwestern England, expired abruptly in 1777 when its last living speaker died. Reports of its death may have been exaggerated, however. Cornish has made a comeback in recent years. Using surviving written documents, descendants of Cornish speakers began to learn their language and even speak it to their children. Road signs began appearing in Cornish and English. Now, about 2,000 people speak Cornish.

Another example of a resuscitated language is modern Hebrew. Hebrew survived for centuries as a religious and scholarly language. In the late nineteenth century, a movement led by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda reintroduced Hebrew into Palestine as a spoken language. After the founding of Israel, Hebrew was taught in the schools and is now the common language of Israeli citizens.

Other languages have risen from their cultural sickbeds to new life. Welsh and Navajo speakers revitalized these dying languages through "immersion" schools where children used their ancestral language every day. Both languages have grown in numbers of speakers over the past few decades.

Reintroducing a language into a community is a long, multistaged process. If someone in histwenties learns it now, the language will survive for another fifty or seventy years. Thus, even a few such language apprenticeships may help avert the wholesale extinction of minor languages.

Recently, linguists and other interested people have started a number of umbrella organizations for a more comprehensive approach to language rescue.

We face two alternative scenarios for the future. In one, the world becomes increasingly homogenized as minority cultures and their languages are swept away in the on-coming tide of standardization. The accumulated knowledge of millennia disappears, leaving the world a poorer place. In the other scenario, minorities keep their cultural integrity, and minor languages continue to exist alongside larger ones. Which scenario comes to pass depends to a large extent on our actions now.