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Why do languages die? | ||
Tags: Dead Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 1 of 19 26 February 2013 at 9:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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The obvious reason is that the cost to each individual of maintaining and/or learning the language is more than the value of knowing the language. This linguist has offered a fascinating detailed explanation in this article. Edited by James29 on 26 February 2013 at 9:47pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5263 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 2 of 19 27 February 2013 at 1:43am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the link, James29. Most members here tend to look dispassionately at this phenomenon of language death ("let them die, we don't speak Latin anymore"). Like most human activities, there's an emotional component. It's somewhat difficult to totally dissociate one's self completely from the non-logical, emotional consequences of language extinction.
Zachary Richard, in his song "No French No More", illustrates the emotional side of language death as he sings about French in Louisiana. Here's the English version lyrics. Ultimately, it's an uphill battle for minority language speakers to fight the tide of a majority language. The speakers have to make a strong commitment to value their language, preserve it, pass it on to their children and make it a part of their lives despite the overwhelming usefulness of the dominant language and despite government sanctioned efforts to either eliminate it or make it very difficult to use. For some, it's just not worth the effort. For some it is very important, eg- Catalan's survival despite the Franco regime. I recently read this article on the Deutsche Welle website about preserving Ladino, in English, in Portuguese Ladino, idioma trazido pelos judeus ibéricos, está em extinção and in Spanish Escribir, cantar, preparar café. Edited by iguanamon on 27 February 2013 at 5:36pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tanya b Senior Member United States Joined 4779 days ago 159 posts - 518 votes Speaks: Russian | Message 3 of 19 27 February 2013 at 3:49am | IP Logged | ||
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The Armenians of Iran have maintained their language for 400 years in a country where they comprise less than 1% of the population. Their language is anything but dead. They are acutely aware of their precarious position as a minority and speaking Armenian is one legally sanctioned way of affirming their minority status.
But when they move to the US, the language is often lost in a generation, because some of them let their defenses down and abandon the language. In the case of Armenians and others, maybe the more threatened a nationality feels, the less likely it is that its language will die. The article stated that a typical earthling speaks 3 or 4 languages. Based on what data? I think that outside of Northern Europe and the tribal areas of Asia and Africa, most are monoglots. It is almost impossible to instill in the masses a sentimental attachment to a language which has little or no economic value. So to me it's amazing when a country like Wales is even partially successful in delaying the death of its language. But I realize that most people aren't losing sleep over the status of Welsh. Some might even celebrate its death and dance on its grave, calling it "progress". 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 4 of 19 27 February 2013 at 7:03am | IP Logged | ||
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A very interesting article; thanks for sharing! Reading this with China in mind makes for a gloomy outlook indeed. Language killing is still an almost mandatory part of building a state. I don't want to get political, but this is one reason why independence movements matter and why they stir up so many feelings on both sides.
This makes me wonder how feasible a project it is to construct virtual nations online. If the largest threat to a language is being cut off from its community, the increasing ubiquitousness of the internet should make such virtual communities uncutoffable. And as languages grow and you get less and less of a community sentiment from being part of a community of hundreds of millions, maybe these virtual linguistic communities can be lively and intimate in a way that the community of the nation-state could never be, thus imparting a real sense of value to its members. There's probably a lot to learn from the Esperanto community here. Despite being relatively few in number and incredibly spread out, the Esperanto community is strong and vibrant. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| PinkCordelia Diglot Newbie Wales Joined 4812 days ago 31 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Welsh | Message 5 of 19 27 February 2013 at 11:28am | IP Logged | ||
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It's also important I think to consider variety within languages dying out. It seems
unlikely that English will become extinct any time soon but within England it's becoming blandly uniform both in terms of vocabulary and accent. Of course there's variety between age groups but this is often media-led and the rich vocabulary and varied grammar of regional varieties is severely endangered. Oh course, I'm from south London and would want to shoot myself if I sounded like I did. I want everyone else to maintain the variety for me. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4652 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 6 of 19 27 February 2013 at 1:29pm | IP Logged | ||
I agree that with the use of the Internet, communities become uncutoffable and thus may survive longer. However, it does not apply, for example, to some Yemeni dialects n danger of extinction (too little Internet access there) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5101 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 7 of 19 27 February 2013 at 1:54pm | IP Logged | ||
You've piqued my interest by mentioning thse "virtual linguistic communities." Are you referring to people who simply speak X language with one another on the internet or are there entire websites dedicated to keeping particular languages alive and well? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 8 of 19 27 February 2013 at 2:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Language preference by states through the use of force and coercion against the people (like now in Quebec) is quite sad. It really negatively impacts the standard of living over time and serves no productive purpose. If languages die naturally because people choose to spend their time and effort on something more productive the loss of the language is simply a cost of progress, but "language killing" as Ari calls it is really tragic.
This concept of virtual communities seems to exist in many different ways by use of the internet. Certainly there are numerous political and idealogical online communities that have absolutely no geographic barriers. Very interesting stuff. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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