Language Extinction

Aytekin Eliyeva Qafqaz University Faculty of Pedagogy aytekin.aliyeva28@yahoo.com

Abstract

Today statistics send SOS about the endangered languages all over the world. Every fortnight one language dies. Some forty per cent of the world's languages are thought to be at risk. From Alaska to Australia, hundreds of languages around the world are on the threshold of extinction—some being spoken only by a single person, according to a new study. Increasing speed of losses should make us think about causes and solutions more carefully. People try to find the reasons which creates this danger, the reasons why we need each language that slips through our hands and all of us ought to know his or her duty about this unchangeable fact. Our goal is to highlight the ways which makes us think more about the complexity of the subject matter of language death. So people have to focus on three major questions: 1) How do languages die and why? 2) What can be done? 3) Why should we care?

Key words: Extinct Language, Lingua Franca, Linguicide, Language Attrition Revitalization

The life of a language can be measured with a population that speaks it as a primary language still continues to live. But when the population of the native speakers is gone, the language is often categorized or referred to as an extinct language. According to David Crystal “To say that a language is dead is like saying that a person is dead. It could be no other way – for languages have no existence without people” (David Crystal, 2000, Language death, 1p). But opposite thoughts are also exist because some linguists say that death of the last user does not mean the extinction of one language and they support it by taking Coptic - ancient Egyptian language which currently survives only as the liturgical language of the Coptic Church and Latin - which is used in scholarship and administration terminology today. Death of languages because no native users is understandable but today’s statistics about extinction of languages despite of its alive owners are much bitter. Only 5% of 6912 existing languges is used actively nowadays. More than 500 languages may be spoken by fewer than ten people and this number shows us the measure of extinction danger. According to the investigations of the Living Tongues Institute scientists, David Harrison and Greg Anderson there are 5 hotspots for endangered languages around the world – Northern Australia, Central South America, Oklahoma and the south-west USA, the Northwest Pacific Plateau and Eastern Siberia. Investigators of this matter show some reasons of extinction:

No native speakers – As the number of speakers of a language diminishes, the language comes closer to extinction, for example, if people choose to use lingua franca instead of passing their native language to next generations, the extinction of such languages is inevitable. Like the people in Kenya preferred Swahili to their own language Dahalo. Children also play a main role in killing of a language, such as a child growing up speaking Mayan and Spanish soon figuring out that Spanish is better because it's spoken in school and on television. So they refuse use Mayan because of being a part of big whole.

No written form – Some languages existed only in a spoken, traditional form, passing down the elements of the language through historians or story-tellers. Pictorial forms of a language may exist on temporary materials such as animal skins, rock or cave paintings, or as tattoos on human skin and these are not good protectors. Harsh climates, lack of durable materials or absence of written structure all could be a reason to the demise of a traditionally spoken language form. Absorption by another Lingua Franca – The countries for the sake of saving their relationships with the others use common languages instead of their own and such kind of common language is called lingua franca. So lost of these languages is also “absorption” of cultures. Linguicide – Linguicide is the sudden death of language and it could be as the result of genocide, diseases, natural disasters and extra mechanisms. Such kind of extinction is mostly seen in the continents of America and Australia. Language Attrition – Languages can borrow words from each other. It is obvious. But when this process gets out of control it can be dangerous for language because language with weak basis firstly will get words, grammar, then even some sentence structures. Consequently, it becomes impossible to distinguish them and the weak language melts away inside the strong one. Linguists all over the world try some methods to decrease extinction rate. One of them is documentation of endangered languages. It means recording as much data as possible. In this process linguists restore languages with the help of native users. For example, Sarah Gudschinsky's (1974) work with the last known speaker of Ofaié, during 1958 and 1959, provided valuable linguistic information about the composition of the Gê language family. Second option is revitalization, or maintenance program, including language development strategies. Revitalization programs are still continuing in many languages, and have had different degrees of success. In this method linguists somehow recreate languages by making some changes in vocabulary, sentence structures, grammar and so on. Especially, revitalization helps to recover languages which became almost useless due to some governmental restrictions. For example, American government put some limitations on Hawaiian after Hawaii Island got annexed to USA or British government forbid teaching Welsh and Gaelic at schools. But with the changes in laws languages again restored through this program. Languages considered as victims of language attrition process are also recovering in revitalization program. For example, revitalization of the Basque language is the best sample. This language had been spoiled by the loan words because some words could not be adapted to language structure. So loan words seriously damaged language instead of enrich it. Due to revitalization program language gained its value again. In the last few years a number of linguistic conferences have focused on the problem of endangered languages. This problem is always on the agenda of the UN and that is the reason why in 1999 UNESCO declared February 21 “The Day of Mother Tongue”. Sometimes people think that all the efforts made for revitalization of extinct languages do not make any sense, but actually each restored language brings a big piece of history back because any kind of written source can say more things than material sources, moreover languages are not just for communication they are also carriers of culture. It means that languages are the reflection of the songs, stories, traditions of the current generation as well as the past. It is a reflection of the society and the culture we live in. So the extinction of languages is not just about the death or loss of vocabulary and words. In a bigger sense, it would signify the loss of a culture and history too. Also languages refer to the intellectual ability and adaptations of populations to the world because related language systems makes this mankind intact and if one section of this whole disappears it should be considered as a lost of an important part of our life. According to Michael Krauss: "Every time we lose a language, we lose that much also of our adaptability and our diversity that gives us our strength and our ability to survive." (Michael Krauss, Does language extinction matter? February 16, 2007). For the sake of keeping this world whole and undamaged we just need to save all the endangered languages.

References:

Chistyakov, Boris. Nearly Extinct Languages, (2009)

Crystal, David. Language death, Cambridge University Press, UK, (2000) , 209p

Kindell, Gloria. Endangered Language Groups

Krauss, Michael. Does language extinction matter? , University of Alaska Fairbanks,

(2007)

Lofgren, Stefan. Languages Racing to Extinction in 5 Global "Hotspots", (2007)

Lynch, Larry M. Why Do Languages Die? , (2008)

Soares, Claire. The languages of extinction: The world's endangered tongues, (2007)