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Language death: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Language death
Language death is not a single event but a slow, often invisible process that begins when the last native speaker stops using their language for daily communication. This phenomenon, known as language death, occurs when a language loses its final native speaker, rendering it unable to be passed down to new generations. By extension, language extinction happens when the language is no longer known by anyone, including second-language speakers, and becomes classified as an extinct language. A related term, linguicide, refers to the forced death of a language, often through policies that suppress or eliminate it. The disappearance of a minor language as a result of absorption or replacement by a major language is sometimes called glottophagy, a process that has been accelerating in the modern period following the rise of colonialism. As of the 2000s, a total of roughly 7,000 natively spoken languages existed worldwide, with most being minor languages in danger of extinction. One estimate published in 2004 expected that some 90% of the currently spoken languages will have become extinct by 2050. Ethnologue recorded 7,358 living languages known in 2001, but on the 20th of May 2015, Ethnologue reported only 7,102 known living languages, and on the 23rd of February 2016, Ethnologue reported only 7,097 known living languages. This rapid decline highlights the urgency of understanding how languages die and what can be done to prevent it.
The Slow Fade
During language loss, sometimes referred to as obsolescence in the linguistic literature, the language that is being lost generally undergoes changes as speakers make their language more similar to the language to which they are shifting. This process of change has been described by Appel in 1983 in two categories, though they are not mutually exclusive. Often speakers replace elements of their own language with something from the language they are shifting toward. Also, if their heritage language has an element that the new language does not, speakers may drop it. This includes overgeneralization, undergeneralization, loss of phonological contrasts, variability, changes in word order, morphological loss, such as was seen in Scottish Gaelic in East Sutherland, Scotland as fluent speakers still used the historic plural formation, whereas semi-speakers used simple suffixation or did not include any plural formation at all, synthetic morphosyntax may become increasingly analytic, syntactic loss, relexification, loss of word-formation productivity, style loss, such as the loss of ritual speech, morphological leveling, and analogical leveling. These changes are not random but follow patterns that reflect the pressure of the dominant language. The loss of these grammatical features is a sign that the language is dying, as speakers struggle to maintain the complexity of their heritage language in the face of a more powerful alternative. The process of language death is rarely a sudden event, but a slow process of each generation learning less and less of the language until its use is relegated to the domain of traditional use, such as in poetry and song. Typically the transmission of the language from adults to children becomes more and more restricted, to the final setting that adults speaking the language will raise children who never acquire fluency. One example of this process reaching its conclusion is that of the Dalmatian language.
Within Indigenous communities, the death of language has consequences for individuals and the communities as a whole. There have been links made between their health, both physically and mentally, and the death of their traditional language. Language is an important part of their identity and as such is linked to their well-being. One study conducted on aboriginal youth suicide rates in Canada found that Indigenous communities in which a majority of members speak the traditional language exhibit low suicide rates while
Language death is the process in which a language eventually loses its last native speaker, rendering it unable to be passed down to new generations. This phenomenon occurs when the last native speaker stops using their language for daily communication, leading to extinction when the language is no longer known by anyone.
When did Ethnologue report the number of living languages drop to 7,102?
Ethnologue reported only 7,102 known living languages on the 20th of May 2015. This figure represents a decline from the 7,358 living languages recorded in 2001 and further dropped to 7,097 known living languages on the 23rd of February 2016.
How does language death affect the health of Indigenous communities?
Language death has been linked to higher suicide rates and increased prevalence of diabetes within Indigenous communities. One study found that suicide rates were six times higher in groups where less than half of its members communicate in their ancestral language, while greater knowledge of the traditional language correlated with lower diabetes prevalence.
Which language is the only example of a language acquiring new first language speakers after becoming extinct?
The Hebrew language in Israel is the only example of a language acquiring new first language speakers after it became extinct in everyday use for an extended period. This revival occurred after the language was used only as a liturgical language or as a lingua franca between Jews from different linguistic communities.
What factors does Akira Yamamoto identify to prevent language death?
Anthropologist Akira Yamamoto identified nine factors that include a dominant culture favoring linguistic diversity and the creation of bilingual and bicultural school programs. These factors also require the endangered community to be completely involved, the creation of easy-to-use language materials, and the use of the language in new environments.
Who proposed the Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale in 1991?
Joshua Fishman proposed the Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale, known as GIDS, in 1991. This system measures the level of disruption in the intergenerational transmission of a language and has been used to track the progress of language revitalization efforts in many communities.
suicide rates were six times higher in groups where less than half of its members communicate in their ancestral language. Another study was also conducted on aboriginal peoples in Alberta, Canada. There was a link found between their traditional language knowledge and the prevalence of diabetes. The greater their knowledge was of their traditional language, the lower the prevalence of diabetes was within their communities. These findings highlight the deep connection between language and health, showing that the loss of a language can have profound and measurable impacts on the well-being of a community. The death of a language is not just a cultural loss but a public health crisis, affecting the physical and mental health of those who speak it. The loss of language can lead to a loss of identity, which in turn can lead to a loss of health. The connection between language and health is a critical area of research, as it highlights the importance of preserving languages for the well-being of communities.
Language revitalization is an attempt to slow or reverse language death. Revitalization programs are ongoing in many languages, and have had varying degrees of success. The revival of the Hebrew language in Israel is the only example of a language's acquiring new first language speakers after it became extinct in everyday use for an extended period, being used only as a liturgical language or as a lingua franca between Jews from different linguistic communities. Even in the case of Hebrew, there is a theory that argues that the Hebrew revivalists who wished to speak pure Hebrew failed. The result is a fascinating and multifaceted Israeli language, which is not only multi-layered but also multi-sourced. The revival of a clinically dead language is unlikely without cross-fertilization from the revivalists' mother tongue(s). Other cases of language revitalization
The Cost of Silence
that have seen some degree of success are Welsh, Basque, Hawaiian, and Navajo. Reasons for language revitalization vary: they can include physical danger affecting those whose language is dying, economic danger such as the exploitation of natural resources, political danger such as genocide, or cultural danger such as assimilation. During the past century, it is estimated that more than 2,000 languages have already become extinct. The United Nations estimates that more than half of the languages spoken today have fewer than 10,000 speakers and that a quarter have fewer than 1,000 speakers, and that, unless there are some efforts to maintain them, over the next hundred years most of these will become extinct. These figures are often cited as reasons why language revitalization is necessary to preserve linguistic diversity. Culture and identity are also frequently cited reasons for language revitalization, when a language is perceived as a unique cultural treasure. A community often sees language as a unique part of their culture, connecting them with their ancestors or with the land, making up an essential part of their history and self-image. According to Ghil'ad Zuckermann, language reclamation will become increasingly relevant as people seek to recover their cultural autonomy, empower their spiritual and intellectual sovereignty, and improve wellbeing. There are various ethical, aesthetic, and utilitarian benefits of language revival, for example, historical justice, diversity, and employability, respectively.
Google launched the Endangered Languages Project aimed at helping preserve languages that are at risk of extinction. Its goal is to
The Fight to Revive
compile up-to-date information about endangered languages and share the latest research about them. Anthropologist Akira Yamamoto has identified nine factors that he believes will help prevent language death. There must be a dominant culture that favors linguistic diversity. The endangered community must possess an ethnic identity that is strong enough to encourage language preservation. The creation and promotion of programs that educate students on the endangered language and culture. The creation of school programs that are both bilingual and bicultural. For native speakers to receive teacher training. The endangered speech community must be completely involved. There must be language materials created that are easy to use. The language must have written materials that encompass new and traditional content. The language must be used in new environments and the areas the language is used, both old and new, must be strengthened. These factors provide a framework for understanding how languages can be preserved and revitalized. The success of language revitalization efforts depends on the involvement of the community, the availability of resources, and the support of the dominant culture. The Endangered Languages Project is one example of how technology can be used to help preserve languages, but it is not a solution on its own. The success of language revitalization efforts requires a combination of community involvement, educational programs, and the support of the dominant culture. The nine factors identified by Akira Yamamoto provide a comprehensive framework for understanding how languages can be preserved and revitalized, and they highlight the importance of community involvement and the availability of resources.
Linguists distinguish between language death and the process where a language becomes a dead language through normal language change, a linguistic phenomenon analogous to pseudoextinction. This happens when a language in the course of its normal development gradually morphs into something that is then recognized as a separate, different language, leaving the old form with no native speakers. Thus, for example, Old English may be regarded as a dead language although it changed and developed into Middle English, Early Modern English and Modern English. Dialects of a language can also die, contributing to the overall language death. For example, the Ainu language is slowly
The Tools of Survival
dying: the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger lists Hokkaido Ainu as critically endangered with 15 speakers, and both Sakhalin and Kuril Ainu as extinct. The language vitality for Ainu has weakened because of Japanese becoming the favoured language for education since the end of the nineteenth century. Education in Japanese heavily impacted the decline in use of the Ainu language because of forced linguistic assimilation. The process of language change may also involve the splitting up of a language into a family of several daughter languages, leaving the common parent language dead. This happened to Latin, which, through Vulgar Latin, eventually developed into the Romance languages, and to Sanskrit, which, through Prakrit, developed into the New Indo-Aryan languages. Such a process is normally not described as language death, because it involves an unbroken chain of normal transmission of the language from one generation to the next, with only minute changes at every single point in the chain. Thus with regard to Latin, for example, there is no point at which Latin died; it evolved in different ways in different geographic areas, and its modern forms are now identified by a plethora of different names such as French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, etc. Language shift can be used to understand the evolution of Latin into the various modern forms. Language shift, which could lead to language death, occurs because of a shift in language behaviour from a speech community. Contact with other languages and cultures causes change in behaviour to the original language which creates language shift.
Except in case of linguicide, languages do not suddenly become extinct; they become moribund as the community of speakers gradually shifts
The Ghost of Latin
to using other languages. As speakers shift, there are discernible, if subtle, changes in language behavior. These changes in behavior lead to a change of linguistic vitality in the community. There are a variety of systems that have been proposed for measuring the vitality of a language in a community. One of the earliest is the GIDS, Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale, proposed by Joshua Fishman in 1991. A noteworthy publishing milestone in measuring language vitality is an entire issue of Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development devoted to the study of ethnolinguistic vitality, Vol. 32.2, 2011, with several authors presenting their own tools for measuring language vitality. A number of other published works on measuring language vitality have been published, prepared by authors with varying situations and applications in mind. These include works by Arienne Dwyer, Martin Ehala, M. Lynne Landweer, Mark Karan, András Kornai, and Paul Lewis and Gary Simons. These systems provide a way to measure the vitality of a language and to track the progress of language revitalization efforts. The GIDS, for example, provides a way to measure the level of disruption in the intergenerational transmission of a language, and it has been used to track the progress of language revitalization efforts in many communities. The publication of an entire issue of the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development devoted to the study of ethnolinguistic vitality is a noteworthy milestone in the field, and it highlights the importance of measuring language vitality. The works of Arienne Dwyer, Martin Ehala, M. Lynne Landweer, Mark Karan, András Kornai, and Paul Lewis and Gary Simons provide a range of tools for measuring language vitality, and they highlight the importance of tracking the progress of language revitalization efforts.