An endangered language or moribund language is a
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers
die out or
shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a "
dead language
An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers, especially if the language has no living Genetic relationship (linguistics), descendants. In contrast, a dead language is one that is no longer the native language of any commun ...
". If no one can speak the language at all, it becomes an "
extinct language
An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers, especially if the language has no living descendants. In contrast, a dead language is one that is no longer the native language of any community, even if it is still in use, li ...
". A dead language may still be studied through recordings or writings, but it is still dead or extinct unless there are
fluent speakers. Although languages have always become extinct throughout human history, they are currently dying at an accelerated rate because of
globalization
Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...
,
imperialism
Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic and ...
,
neocolonialism
Neocolonialism is the continuation or reimposition of imperialist rule by a state (usually, a former colonial power) over another nominally independent state (usually, a former colony). Neocolonialism takes the form of economic imperialism, gl ...
and
linguicide (language killing).
Language shift
Language shift, also known as language transfer or language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a speech community shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are perceiv ...
most commonly occurs when speakers switch to a language
associated with social or economic power or spoken more widely, the ultimate result being language death. The general consensus is that there are between 6,000
and 7,000 languages currently spoken. Some linguists estimate that between 50% and 90% of them will be severely endangered or dead by the year 2100.
The
20 most common languages, each with more than 50 million speakers, are spoken by 50% of the world's population, but most languages are spoken by fewer than 10,000 people.
On a more general level, 0.2% of the world's languages are spoken by half of the world's population. Furthermore, 96% of the world's languages are spoken by 4% of the population.
The first step towards language death is ''potential endangerment''. This is when a language faces strong external pressure, but there are still communities of speakers who pass the language to their children. The second stage is ''endangerment''. Once a language has reached the endangerment stage, there are only a few speakers left and children are, for the most part, not learning the language. The third stage of language extinction is ''seriously endangered''. During this stage, a language is unlikely to survive another generation and will soon be extinct. The fourth stage is ''moribund'', followed by the fifth stage ''extinction''.
Many projects are under way aimed at preventing or slowing language loss by
revitalizing endangered languages and promoting education and literacy in minority languages, often involving joint projects between language communities and linguists. Across the world, many countries have enacted
specific legislation aimed at protecting and stabilizing the language of indigenous
speech communities. Recognizing that most of the world's endangered languages are unlikely to be revitalized, many linguists are also working on
documenting the thousands of languages of the world about which little or nothing is known.
Number of languages
The total number of contemporary languages in the world is not known, and it is not well defined what constitutes a separate language as opposed to a dialect. Estimates vary depending on the extent and means of the research undertaken, and the definition of a distinct language and the current state of knowledge of remote and isolated language communities. The number of known languages varies over time as some of them become extinct and others are newly discovered. An accurate number of languages in the world was not yet known until the use of universal,
systematic survey Systematic survey or extensive survey is the archaeological technique of detailed examination of an area for the purpose of recording the location and significance of archaeological resources. It provides a regional perspective by gathering informat ...
s in the later half of the twentieth century. The majority of linguists in the early twentieth century refrained from making estimates. Before then, estimates were frequently the product of guesswork and very low.
One of the most active research agencies is
SIL International
SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics) is an evangelical Christian non-profit organization whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, in order to ex ...
, which maintains a database,
Ethnologue
''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensiv ...
, kept up to date by the contributions of linguists globally.
Ethnologue's 2005 count of languages in its database, excluding duplicates in different countries, was 6,912, of which 32.8% (2,269) were in Asia, and 30.3% (2,092) in Africa. This contemporary tally must be regarded as a variable number within a range. Areas with a particularly large number of languages that are nearing extinction include:
Eastern Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive region, geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a ...
,
Central Siberia
The Central Siberian Plateau (russian: Среднесибирское плоскогорье, Srednesibirskoye ploskogorye; sah, Орто Сибиир хаптал хайалаах сирэ) is a vast mountainous area in Siberia, one of the Grea ...
,
Northern Australia
The unofficial geographic term Northern Australia includes those parts of Queensland and Western Australia north of latitude 26° and all of the Northern Territory. Those local government areas of Western Australia and Queensland that lie p ...
,
Central America
Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...
, and the
Northwest Pacific Plateau. Other hotspots are
Oklahoma
Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
and the
Southern Cone
The Southern Cone ( es, Cono Sur, pt, Cone Sul) is a geographical and cultural subregion composed of the southernmost areas of South America, mostly south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Traditionally, it covers Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, bou ...
of South America.
Endangered sign languages
Almost all of the study of language endangerment has been with spoken languages. A UNESCO study of endangered languages does not mention sign languages. However, some
sign language
Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers. Sign l ...
s are also endangered, such as
Alipur Village Sign Language (AVSL) of India,
Adamorobe Sign Language
Adamorobe Sign Language or Adasl is a village sign language used in Adamorobe, an Akan village in eastern Ghana. It is used by about 30 deaf and 1370 hearing people (2003).
The Adamorobe community is notable for its unusually high incidence of ...
of Ghana,
Ban Khor Sign Language
Ban Khor Sign Language (BKSL) is a village sign language used by at least 400 people of a rice-farming community in the village of Ban Khor in a remote area of Isan (northeastern Thailand). Known locally as ''pasa kidd'' ('language of the mute') ...
of Thailand, and
Plains Indian Sign Language
Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL), also known as Hand Talk, Plains Sign Talk, and First Nation Sign Language, is a trade language, formerly trade pidgin, that was once the lingua franca across what is now central Canada, the central and west ...
. Many sign languages are used by small communities; small changes in their environment (such as contact with a larger sign language or dispersal of the deaf community) can lead to the endangerment and loss of their traditional sign language. Methods are being developed to assess the vitality of sign languages.
Defining and measuring endangerment
![Lang_Status_List](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Lang_Status_List.svg)
While there is no definite threshold for identifying a language as endangered,
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
's 2003 document entitled ''Language vitality and endangerment''
outlines nine factors for determining language vitality:
# Intergenerational language transmission
# Absolute number of speakers
# Proportion of speakers existing within the total (global) population
# Language use within existing contexts and domains
# Response to language use in new domains and media
# Availability of materials for language education and literacy
# Government and institutional language policies
# Community attitudes toward their language
# Amount and quality of documentation
Many languages, for example some in
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
, have tens of thousands of speakers but are endangered because children are no longer learning them, and speakers are shifting to using the
national language
A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a nation. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the te ...
(e.g.
Indonesian
Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to:
* Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia
** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago
** Indonesian ...
) in place of local languages. In contrast, a language with only 500 speakers might be considered very much alive if it is the primary language of a community, and is the first (or only) spoken language of all children in that community.
Asserting that "Language diversity is essential to the human heritage", UNESCO's Ad Hoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages offers this definition of an endangered language: "... when its speakers cease to use it, use it in an increasingly reduced number of communicative domains, and cease to pass it on from one generation to the next. That is, there are no new speakers, adults or children."
UNESCO operates with four levels of language endangerment between "safe" (not endangered) and "extinct" (no living speakers), based on intergenerational transfer: "vulnerable" (not spoken by children outside the home), "definitely endangered" (children not speaking), "severely endangered" (only spoken by the oldest generations), and "critically endangered" (spoken by few members of the oldest generation, often
semi-speaker
Within the linguistic study of endangered languages, sociolinguists distinguish between different speaker types based on the type of competence they have acquired of the endangered language. Often when a community is gradually shifting away from ...
s).
UNESCO's ''
Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
The UNESCO ''Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger'' is an online publication containing a comprehensive list of the world's endangered languages. It originally replaced the ''Red Book of Endangered Languages'' as a title in print after a ...
'' categorises 2,473 languages by level of endangerment.
Using an alternative scheme of classification, linguist
Michael E. Krauss defines languages as "safe" if it is considered that children will probably be speaking them in 100 years; "endangered" if children will probably not be speaking them in 100 years (approximately 60–80% of languages fall into this category) and "moribund" if children are not speaking them now.
Many scholars have devised techniques for determining whether languages are endangered. One of the earliest is GIDS (Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale) proposed by
Joshua Fishman
Joshua Fishman (Yiddish: שיקל פֿישמאַן — Shikl Fishman; July 18, 1926 – March 1, 2015) was an American linguist who specialized in the sociology of language, language planning, bilingual education, and language and ethnicity.
...
in 1991. In 2011 an entire issue of ''
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development'' was 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.
Causes
According to the Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages,
there are four main types of causes of language endangerment:
Causes that put the populations that speak the languages in physical danger, such as:
#
War
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
and
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
. Examples of this are the language(s) of the native population of
Tasmania
)
, nickname =
, image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdi ...
who died from diseases, and many extinct and endangered languages of the Americas where
indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
have been subjected to genocidal violence. The
Miskito language
Miskito ( in the Miskito language) is a Misumalpan language spoken by the Miskito people in northeastern Nicaragua, especially in the North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region, and in eastern Honduras.
With 700,000 speakers, Miskito is the most w ...
in
Nicaragua
Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...
and the
Mayan languages
The Mayan languagesIn linguistics, it is conventional to use ''Mayan'' when referring to the languages, or an aspect of a language. In other academic fields, ''Maya'' is the preferred usage, serving as both a singular and plural noun, and as ...
of
Guatemala
Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...
have been affected by civil war.
#
Natural disaster
A natural disaster is "the negative impact following an actual occurrence of natural hazard in the event that it significantly harms a community". A natural disaster can cause loss of life or damage property, and typically leaves some econ ...
s,
famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, Demographic trap, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. Th ...
,
disease
A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that a ...
. Any natural disaster severe enough to wipe out an entire population of native language speakers has the capability of endangering a language. An example of this is the languages spoken by the people of the
Andaman Islands
The Andaman Islands () are an archipelago in the northeastern Indian Ocean about southwest off the coasts of Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Region. Together with the Nicobar Islands to their south, the Andamans serve as a maritime boundary between th ...
, who were seriously affected by the
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami
An earthquake and a tsunami, known as the Boxing Day Tsunami and, by the scientific community, the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, occurred at 07:58:53 local time (UTC+7) on 26 December 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of northern Suma ...
.
Causes which prevent or discourage speakers from using a language, such as:
# Cultural, political, or economic
marginalization
Social exclusion or social marginalisation is the social disadvantage and relegation to the fringe of society. It is a term that has been used widely in Europe and was first used in France in the late 20th century. It is used across discipline ...
creates a strong incentive for individuals to abandon their language (on behalf of themselves and their children as well) in favor of another more prestigious language; one example of this is assimilatory education. This frequently happens when indigenous populations and ethnic groups who were once subjected to colonisation and/or earlier conquest, in order to achieve a higher social status, have a better chance to get employment and/or acceptance in a given social network only when they adopt the cultural and linguistic traits of other groups with
enough power imbalance to
culturally integrate them, through various means of
ingroup and outgroup
In sociology and social psychology, an in-group is a social group to which a person self-categorization theory, psychologically identifies as being a member. By contrast, an out-group is a social group with which an individual does not identify. ...
coercion (see
below
Below may refer to:
*Earth
*Ground (disambiguation)
*Soil
*Floor
*Bottom (disambiguation)
Bottom may refer to:
Anatomy and sex
* Bottom (BDSM), the partner in a BDSM who takes the passive, receiving, or obedient role, to that of the top or ...
); examples of this kind of endangerment are the cases of
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
,
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as ...
, and
Scots in
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
,
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
in
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
and Great Britain, the
Sardinian language
Sardinian or Sard ( , or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language spoken by the Sardinians on the Western Mediterranean island of Sardinia.
Many Romance linguists consider it the language that is closest to Latin among all its genealogica ...
in
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
, the
Ryukyuan and
Ainu languages in
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, and the
Chamorro language
Chamorro (; ch, Finuʼ Chamorro, links=no (CNMI), (Guam)) is an Austronesian language spoken by about 58,000 people (about 25,800 people on Guam and about 32,200 in the rest of the Mariana Islands and elsewhere). It is the native and spoken ...
in
Guam
Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...
. This is also the most common cause of language endangerment.
Ever since the Indian government adopted
Hindi
Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
as the official language of the
union
Union commonly refers to:
* Trade union, an organization of workers
* Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets
Union may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Music
* Union (band), an American rock group
** ''Un ...
government, Hindi has taken over many languages in
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. Other forms of
cultural imperialism
Cultural imperialism (sometimes referred to as cultural colonialism) comprises the cultural dimensions of imperialism. The word "imperialism" often describes practices in which a social entity engages culture (including language, traditions, ...
include religion and technology; religious groups may hold the belief that the use of a certain language is immoral or require its followers to speak one language that is the approved language of the religion (like the
Arabic language
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
as the language of the
Quran
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Classical Arabic, Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation in Islam, revelation from God in Islam, ...
, with the pressure for many
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
n groups of
Amazigh
, image = File:Berber_flag.svg
, caption = The Berber ethnic flag
, population = 36 million
, region1 = Morocco
, pop1 = 14 million to 18 million
, region2 = Algeria
, pop2 ...
or
Egyptian
Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt.
Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to:
Nations and ethnic groups
* Egyptians, a national group in North Africa
** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
descent to
Arabize). There are also cases where cultural hegemony may often arise not from an earlier history of domination or conquest, but simply from increasing contact with larger and more influential communities through better communications, compared with the relative isolation of past centuries.
#
Political repression
Political repression is the act of a state entity controlling a citizenry by force for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing the citizenry's ability to take part in the political life of a society, thereb ...
. This has frequently happened when
nation-state
A nation state is a political unit where the state and nation are congruent. It is a more precise concept than "country", since a country does not need to have a predominant ethnic group.
A nation, in the sense of a common ethnicity, may inc ...
s, as they work to promote a single national culture, limit the opportunities for using minority languages in the public sphere, schools, the media, and elsewhere, sometimes even prohibiting them altogether. Sometimes ethnic groups are forcibly resettled, or children may be removed to be schooled away from home, or otherwise have their chances of cultural and linguistic continuity disrupted. This has happened in the case of many
Native American,
Louisiana French
Louisiana French ( frc, français de la Louisiane; lou, françé la lwizyàn) is an umbrella term for the dialects and varieties of the French language spoken traditionally by French Louisianians in colonial Lower Louisiana. As of today Louisia ...
and
Australian languages
The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...
, as well as European and Asian minority languages such as
Breton
Breton most often refers to:
*anything associated with Brittany, and generally
** Breton people
** Breton language, a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken in Brittany
** Breton (horse), a breed
**Ga ...
,
Occitan Occitan may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain.
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France.
* Occitan language
Occitan (; o ...
, or
Alsatian in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
and
Kurdish
Kurdish may refer to:
*Kurds or Kurdish people
*Kurdish languages
*Kurdish alphabets
*Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes:
**Southern Kurdistan
**Eastern Kurdistan
**Northern Kurdistan
**Western Kurdistan
See also
* Kurd (dis ...
in
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
.
#
Urbanization
Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly t ...
. The movement of people into urban areas can force people to learn the language of their new environment. Eventually, later generations will lose the ability to speak their native language, leading to endangerment. Once urbanization takes place, new families who live there will be under pressure to speak the
lingua franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
of the city.
#
Intermarriage can also cause language endangerment, as there will always be pressure to speak one language to each other. This may lead to children only speaking the more common language spoken between the married couple.
Often multiple of these causes act at the same time. Poverty, disease and disasters often affect minority groups disproportionately, for example causing the dispersal of speaker populations and decreased survival rates for those who stay behind.
Marginalization and endangerment
Among the causes of language endangerment cultural, political and economic
marginalization
Social exclusion or social marginalisation is the social disadvantage and relegation to the fringe of society. It is a term that has been used widely in Europe and was first used in France in the late 20th century. It is used across discipline ...
accounts for most of the world's language endangerment. Scholars distinguish between several types of marginalization: Economic dominance negatively affects minority languages when poverty leads people to migrate towards the cities or to other countries, thus dispersing the speakers. Cultural dominance occurs when literature and higher education is only accessible in the majority language. Political dominance occurs when education and political activity is carried out exclusively in a majority language.
Historically, in colonies, and elsewhere where speakers of different languages have come into contact, some languages have been considered superior to others: often one language has attained a dominant position in a country. Speakers of endangered languages may themselves come to associate their language with negative values such as poverty, illiteracy and social stigma, causing them to wish to adopt the dominant language which is associated with social and economical progress and
modernity
Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norm (social), norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissancein the " ...
.
Immigrants moving into an area may lead to the endangerment of the autochthonous language.
Effects
Language endangerment affects both the languages themselves and the people that speak them. Also, this affects the essence of a culture.
Effects on communities
As communities lose their language they often also lose parts of their cultural traditions which are tied to that language, such as songs, myths, poetry, local remedies, ecological and geological knowledge and language behaviors that are not easily translated. Furthermore, the social structure of one's community is often reflected through speech and language behavior. This pattern is even more prominent in dialects. This may in turn affect the sense of identity of the individual and the community as a whole, producing a weakened social cohesion as their values and traditions are replaced with new ones. This is sometimes characterized as
anomie
In sociology, anomie () is a social condition defined by an uprooting or breakdown of any moral values, standards or guidance for individuals to follow. Anomie is believed to possibly evolve from conflict of belief systems and causes breakdown ...
. Losing a language may also have political consequences as some countries confer different political statuses or privileges on minority ethnic groups, often defining ethnicity in terms of language. That means that communities that lose their language may also lose political legitimacy as a community with special
collective rights
Group rights, also known as collective rights, are rights held by a group '' qua'' a group rather than individually by its members; in contrast, individual rights are rights held by individual people; even if they are group-differentiated, which ...
. Language can also be considered as scientific knowledge in topics such as medicine, philosophy, botany, and many more. It reflects a community's practices when dealing with the environment and each other. When a language is lost, this knowledge is lost as well.
In contrast, language revitalization is correlated with better health outcomes in indigenous communities.
Effects on languages
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 that they are shifting to. For example, gradually losing grammatical or phonological complexities that are not found in the dominant language.
Ethical considerations and attitudes
Generally the accelerated pace of language endangerment is considered to be a problem by linguists and by the speakers. However, some linguists, such as the phonetician
Peter Ladefoged
Peter Nielsen Ladefoged ( , ; 17 September 1925 – 24 January 2006) was a British linguist and phonetician.
He was Professor of Phonetics at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he taught from 1962 to 1991. His book ''A Course ...
, have argued that language death is a natural part of the process of human cultural development, and that languages die because communities stop speaking them for their own reasons. Ladefoged argued that linguists should simply document and describe languages scientifically, but not seek to interfere with the processes of language loss. A similar view has been argued at length by linguist
Salikoko Mufwene Salikoko Mufwene is a linguist born in Mbaya-Lareme in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He is the Edward Carson Waller Distinguished Service Professor of linguistics at the University of Chicago. Mufwene was elected to the American Philosophica ...
, who sees the cycles of language death and emergence of new languages through
creolization
Creolization is the process through which creole languages and cultures emerge. Creolization was first used by linguists to explain how contact languages become creole languages, but now scholars in other social sciences use the term to describe ne ...
as a continuous ongoing process.
A majority of linguists do consider that language loss is an ethical problem, as they consider that most communities would prefer to maintain their languages if given a real choice. They also consider it a scientific problem, because language loss on the scale currently taking place will mean that future linguists will only have access to a fraction of the world's linguistic diversity, therefore their picture of what human language is—and can be—will be limited.
Some linguists consider linguistic diversity to be analogous to biological diversity, and compare language endangerment to
wildlife endangerment.
Response
Linguists, members of endangered language communities, governments, nongovernmental organizations, and international organizations such as UNESCO and the European Union are actively working to save and stabilize endangered languages.
Once a language is determined to be endangered, there are three steps that can be taken in order to stabilize or rescue the language. The first is language documentation, the second is language revitalization and the third is language maintenance.
Language documentation
Language documentation (also: documentary linguistics) is a subfield of linguistics which aims to describe the grammar and use of human languages. It aims to provide a comprehensive record of the linguistic practices characteristic of a given speec ...
is the documentation in writing and audio-visual recording of
grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...
, vocabulary, and oral traditions (e.g. stories, songs, religious texts) of endangered languages. It entails producing descriptive grammars, collections of texts and dictionaries of the languages, and it requires the establishment of a secure archive where the material can be stored once it is produced so that it can be accessed by future generations of speakers or scientists.
Language revitalization
Language revitalization, also referred to as language revival or reversing language shift, is an attempt to halt or reverse the decline of a language or to revive an extinct one. Those involved can include linguists, cultural or community groups, o ...
is the process by which a language community through political, community, and educational means attempts to increase the number of active speakers of the endangered language.
This process is also sometimes referred to as
language revival or reversing language shift.
For case studies of this process, see Anderson (2014). Applied linguistics and education are helpful in revitalizing endangered languages. Vocabulary and courses are available online for a number of endangered languages.
Language maintenance refers to the support given to languages that need for their survival to be protected from outsiders who can ultimately affect the number of speakers of a language.
UNESCO's strides towards preventing language extinction involves promoting and supporting the language in aspects such as education, culture, communication and information, and science.
Another option is "post-vernacular maintenance": the teaching of some words and concepts of the lost language, rather than revival proper.
As of June 2012 the United States has a "
J-1 specialist visa, which allows indigenous language experts who do not have academic training to enter the U.S. as experts aiming to share their knowledge and expand their skills".
See also
*
Lists of endangered languages
Lists of endangered languages are mainly based on the definitions used by UNESCO. In order to be listed, a language must be classified as "endangered" in a cited academic source. Researchers have concluded that in less than one hundred years, alm ...
*
Language ideology
Language ideology (also known as linguistic ideology or language attitude) is, within anthropology (especially linguistic anthropology), sociolinguistics, and cross-cultural studies, any set of beliefs about languages as they are used in their soc ...
*
Language death
In linguistics, language death occurs when a language loses its last native speaker. By extension, language extinction is when the language is no longer known, including by second-language speakers. Other similar terms include linguicide, the deat ...
* ''
Language Documentation & Conservation
''Language Documentation & Conservation'' is a peer-reviewed open-access academic journal covering all topics related to language documentation and conservation, including the goals of data management, field-work methods, ethics, orthography desig ...
'' (peer-reviewed open-access academic journal)
*
Language policy
Language policy is an interdisciplinary academic field. Some scholars such as Joshua Fishman and Ofelia García consider it as part of sociolinguistics. On the other hand, other scholars such as Bernard SpolskyRobert B. Kaplanand Joseph Lo Bianco ...
*
Language revitalization
Language revitalization, also referred to as language revival or reversing language shift, is an attempt to halt or reverse the decline of a language or to revive an extinct one. Those involved can include linguists, cultural or community groups, o ...
*
Lingua Libre
Lingua Libre is an online collaborative project and tool by the Wikimedia France association, which aims to build a collaborative, multilingual, audiovisual corpus under free license.
Description
Lingua Libre enables to record words, phrases ...
− a
libre
Libre may refer to:
Computing
* Libre software, free software
* Libre Computer Project, developer of open-hardware single-board computers
Medicine
*FreeStyle Libre, a glucose monitoring device
Media
* Libre Times, news site which people can free ...
online tool used to record words and phrases of any language (thousands of recordings have already been done in endangered languages like
Atikamekw
The Atikamekw are the Indigenous inhabitants of the subnational country or territory they call ('Our Land'), in the upper Saint-Maurice River valley of Quebec (about north of Montreal), Canada. Their current population is around 8,000. One o ...
,
Occitan Occitan may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain.
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France.
* Occitan language
Occitan (; o ...
,
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
,
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
, and are all available on
Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons (or simply Commons) is a media repository of free-to-use images, sounds, videos and other media. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used across all of the Wikimedia projects in ...
)
*
List of endangered languages with mobile apps
This is a list of endangered languages with mobile apps available for use in language revitalization.
Endangered Australian languages with mobile apps
*The Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages (LAAL) is a digital archive of literature in end ...
*
Lists of extinct languages
*List of languages by time of extinction
----
*List of extinct languages of Africa
*List of extinct languages of Asia
*List of extinct languages in Central America and the Caribbean
*List of extinct languages of Europe
*List of extinct languages o ...
*
List of revived languages
A revived language is one that, having experienced near or complete language extinction as either a spoken or written language, has been intentionally revived and has regained some of its former status.
The most frequent reason for extinction i ...
*
Minority language
A minority language is a language spoken by a minority of the population of a territory. Such people are termed linguistic minorities or language minorities. With a total number of 196 sovereign states recognized internationally (as of 2019) and ...
*
Native American Languages Act of 1990
The Native American Languages Act of 1990 is the short cited title for executive order PUBLIC LAW 101-477 enacted by the United States Congress on October 30, 1990. Public Law 101-477 of 1990 gave historical importance as repudiating past polici ...
*
Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
The UNESCO ''Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger'' is an online publication containing a comprehensive list of the world's endangered languages. It originally replaced the ''Red Book of Endangered Languages'' as a title in print after a ...
* ''
The Linguists
''The Linguists'' is an independent 2008 American documentary film produced by Ironbound Films about language extinction and language documentation. It follows two linguists, Greg Anderson of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages ...
'' (documentary film)
*
Treasure language
An indigenous language, or autochthonous language, is a language that is native to a region and spoken by indigenous peoples. This language is from a linguistically distinct community that originated in the area. Indigenous languages are not neces ...
*
Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights The Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights (known also as the Barcelona Declaration) is a document signed by the International PEN Club, and several non-governmental organizations in 1996 to support linguistic rights, especially those of endan ...
*
World Poetry Day
World Poetry Day is celebrated on 21 March, and was declared by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in 1999, "with the aim of supporting linguistic diversity through poetic expression and increasing the o ...
Notes
References
*
*
*
* .
* Hale, Kenneth; Krauss, Michael; Watahomigie, Lucille J.; Yamamoto, Akira Y.; Craig, Colette; Jeanne, LaVerne M. et al. 1992. Endangered Languages. ''Language'', ''68'' (1), 1–42.
* Harrison, K. David. 2007. When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge. New York and London: Oxford University Press. .
*
* McConvell, Patrick and Thieberger, Nicholas. 2001
State of Indigenous Languages in Australia – 2001 (PDF) Australia State of the Environment Second Technical Paper Series (Natural and Cultural Heritage), Department of the Environment and Heritage, Canberra.
* Nettle, Daniel and Romaine, Suzanne. 2000. Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World's Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
*
*
Zuckermann, Ghil'ad and Walsh, Michael. 2011.
'Stop, Revive, Survive: Lessons from the Hebrew Revival Applicable to the Reclamation, Maintenance and Empowerment of Aboriginal Languages and Cultures' ''Australian Journal of Linguistics'' Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 111–127.
*
*Fishman, Joshua. 1991. ''Reversing Language Shift''. Clevendon: Multilingual Matters.
*Ehala, Martin. 2009. An Evaluation Matrix for Ethnolinguistic Vitality. In Susanna Pertot, Tom Priestly & Colin Williams (eds.), ''Rights, Promotion and Integration Issues for Minority Languages in Europe'', 123–137. Houndmills: PalgraveMacmillan.
* Landweer, M. Lynne. 2011. Methods of Language Endangerment Research: a Perspective from Melanesia. ''International Journal of the Sociology of Language'' 212: 153–178.
*Lewis, M. Paul & Gary F. Simons. 2010. Assessing Endangerment: Expanding Fishman's GIDS. ''Revue Roumaine de linguistique'' 55(2). 103–120
Online version of the article.*Hinton, Leanne and Ken Hale (eds.) 2001. The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
*Gippert, Jost; Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. and Mosel, Ulrike (eds.) 2006. Essentials of Language Documentation (Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 178). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
*Fishman, Joshua. 2001a. Can Threatened Languages be Saved? Reversing Language Shift, Revisited: A 21st Century Perspective. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
* Dorian, Nancy. 1981. Language Death: The Life Cycle of a Scottish Gaelic Dialect. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
*Campbell, Lyle and Muntzel, Martha C.. 1989. The Structural Consequences of Language Death. In Dorian, Nancy C. (ed.), Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death, 181–96. Cambridge University Press.
*Boas, Franz. 1911. Introduction. In Boas, Franz (ed.) Handbook of American Indian Languages Part I (Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 40), 1–83. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
*Austin, Peter K. (ed.). 2009. One Thousand Languages: Living, Endangered, and Lost. London: Thames and Hudson and Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
*"One Thousand Languages: Living, Endangered and Lost," edited by Peter K. Austin. University of California Press (2008) http://www.economist.com/node/12483451.
*Whalen, D. H., & Simons, G. F. (2012). Endangered language families. ''Language'', ''88''(1), 155–173.
Further reading
*
* Static list and spreadsheet of UNESCO Data.
*
Resource Network for Linguistic DiversityEndangered Languages Project*
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Organizations
Linguistic Society of AmericaHans Rausing Endangered Languages ProjectDocumenting Endangered Languages National Science Foundation
Society to Advance Indigenous Vernaculars of the United States (Savius.org)
Advocates for Indigenous California Language SurvivalIndigenous Language InstituteInternational Conference on Language Documentation and ConservationSorosoroEnduring Voices Project National Geographic
Endangered Language Alliance New York City
*
Endangered Languages Project
The Endangered Languages Project (ELP) is a worldwide collaboration between indigenous language organizations, linguists, institutions of higher education, and key industry partners to strengthen endangered languages. The foundation of the proj ...
DoBeS Documentation of endangered languagesCILLDI, Canadian Indigenous Languages Literacy and Development Institute
Technologies
Recording your elder/Native speaker practical vocal recording tips for non-professionals
Learning indigenous languages on NintendoPointers on How to Learn Your Language(scroll to link on page)
First Nations endangered languages chat applicationsDo-it-yourself grammar and reading in your language Breath of Life 2010 presentations
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