Languages as endangered species
Posted on February 23, 2009
Filed Under Discussion, Endangered languages |
Of the 6,000 or so languages still heard in the world, about 2,500 are at risk, and 199 have fewer than 10 speakers left, according to Unesco, as noted in the Chronicle of higher education. To bring attention to the plight of these endangered linguistic species, Unesco today unveiled an interactive online version of the latest edition of its Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger. Should we rush to blame global goliaths like English for what’s happening to the world’s linguistic diversity? Maybe not.
Manx, Aasax, Ubykh, Eyak: Once spoken in, respectively, the Isle of Man, Tanzania, Turkey, and Alaska, all four languages have died out in the last 35 years. Of the 6,000 or so languages still heard in the world, about 2,500 are at risk, and 199 have fewer than 10 speakers left, according to Unesco.
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3 Responses to “Languages as endangered species”
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David,
While I don’t think that we should blame English. I do think this is something, EFL teachers, as language professionals need to be aware of. I live and work in an area with several endanged minority languages. I’m actually pondering writing an article with the focus of what EFL teachers should know about endangered langauges and how that knowledge would effect their teaching.
Doubtful that we should make such a blame. Blame implies a negative connotation to the change, but in essence its just a change.
Languages have always come and gone and much of it based on the spread or contraction of various nations/empires/cultures. One could argue that latin didnt die for example but instead branched and evolved into other languages that we know today. Yes, it exists in an older static form but even that form is actually a historical language marker as latin prior to the current static version was changing and had origin in yet another form that some would define as a specific language.
What English is now will eventually change and be defined as another language, or could even come to be considered “extinct”.
That is the nature of things.
thanks for the comments, I tend to agree. change is inevitable.
In turkey, many lament the increasing number of ‘imported’ words which are making the language unrecognisable from the one that existed even fifty, let alone a hundred years ago.