The Silent Speakers

According to the Ethnologue (the largest catalogue of languages in the world) there are currently 7,117 known languages spoken. Languages have a unique way of preserving the history and origins of many ancient civilizations and communities, as well as evolving and developing to match the modern era to reflect cultures as they grow. Languages do often go through cycles with some running their course and becoming dead languages (the most famous example being Latin), however right now we are going through what could be considered a mass extinction event of languages, which are dying at a rate faster than ever. Over 30% of the known languages that have gone extinct have disappeared since 1960, and an estimated 50 - 90% of languages spoken today are predicted to go extinct by the end of this century. With the top ten most spoken languages dominating half of the population, what is causing the rapid erosion of the world's languages? How important is it that we preserve these vernaculars?

The remnants of colonisation weigh heavy on society as it is today, and this is especially pronounced when looking at languages. Colonisation is often seen as a military takeover of certain areas or countries, coupled with physical violence against the natives. Colonisation also comes in the form of pressuring the locals to conform to the customs of the invading country. In 1887, Native Languages were banned in American schools, and it was only in 1990 where a federal policy came into place allowing for languages of Native American communities to be spoken in schools by which point, many native languages were lost to previous generations, or had seriously dwindled in speakers. For example, UNESCO considers the dialects of Cherokee as “severely endangered” languages, with roughly 8 native speakers dying each month. A similar example can be seen in Australia, with the disappearance of many Aboriginal languages. The stolen generation were a generation of children taken from their homes and denied access to their culture. Prior to British colonisation of Australia, the aboriginal population had over 250 languages, by the time the British left, only 60 languages were truly spoken. This historical oppression has led to a huge amount of languages going extinct.

A consequence of colonisation, globalization, is currently the greatest reason for the decline in the amount of languages spoken today. As cultures intertwine and intermingle, certain languages become more dominant. Globalisation has allowed us to reach the other side of the world, to connect and to learn in a way that simply wasn't possible a century ago; globalization has also been spurred on by the internet. The international language is slowly becoming English, with finance, communications, and technology all utilizing English more and more. With so many parts of life needing people to speak English or one of the other highly spoken languages (like Spanish and Mandarin) it's no surprise that certain languages are being seen as obsolete and are being replaced by more commonly spoken dialects.

Why put so much effort into preserving languages? Languages allow people to connect to their heritage. They provide a map of the history of peoples cultures, and allows us to see into history. As languages die out, we become a less diverse and unique society. For example, the Jicarilla Apache, based in New Mexico, say that in English, their spirituality and culture isn't understood in the same way it is when said in Apache. This is common for many languages, where certain words just don’t exist in English that do exist in other languages.

Languages provide us with so much history, diversity and culture. Right now we’re on track to losing 1000s of them, but there is hope: wikitongues is a non profit attempting to catalogue endangered languages all over the world, more and more podcasts and videos are being created on endangered languages, and more and more records are being created for the world's dying languages. Language preservation is vital to preserving the diversity of earth.

“​​Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going”. - Rita Mae Brown

By Dia Nanda 11F