In all of the animal kingdom, what makes us the most unique species is our ability to speak languages. I am currently communicating with you through a language we and millions of others speak, English. However, not every language is privileged enough to enjoy the same status as English or even other widely spoken languages. Imagine this- you scream out words, hoping for someone to understand you but no one knows how to speak your language anymore. You are the only speaker who knows this once vibrant language and your progeny speaks one you’ll never fully understand. This is the case for many languages like Kusunda. Many will disappear if we don’t do something about it. One language goes extinct every 14 days, and linguists estimate that by the end of this century, half of the world’s 7000 languages will disappear, and currently around 88 million speakers are at risk of losing their languages.
But How Do We Lose Languages?
Language is most often lost due to assimilation. The causes of this are many but to name some: colonisation, globalisation, and nationalisation. For example, Britain’s ban on Irish being taught and spoken has led Irish to become an endangered language, as Irish speakers were forced to speak English. America’s colonisation has led to the death of millions of Native Americans, which also led to the extinction of many Native American languages: 65 languages are extinct and 75 more that will become extinct. Globalisation has made certain languages (e.g. English, Chinese) more. Therefore more people are drawn towards learning and speaking them and may become better at them than their native language, and if the language is a small one, to begin with or doesn’t have recognition, it will lose speakers. This is because the now more important languages are more economical and provide better job opportunities. Nationalism, most of the time, leads to a belief that a single language should be spoken to unify the country’s people. Basque, for example, was banned from being spoken and taught during the Spanish Civil War to unify the Spanish people. While Basque is nowhere near the threat of extinction despite the oppression, many languages like Ös/ Chulym do not share the same fate. The Soviet Union forced many native speakers to forgo their native language in favour of Russian. The Ös speakers were one of them and now it is a severely endangered language with only 30 speakers left. It is estimated that by the 2030s the Ös language will disappear. This is not only due to government policies but also to humiliation faced by Ös speakers from teachers and native Russian speakers. K. David Harrison goes into detail about it: one of the elders shares his heartbreaking experience about the humiliation he faced from his teachers for speaking Ös. This is the case for many Indigenous people who face ridicule and humiliation for their languages at the hands of the population who speak the more favoured language.
Why Should We Care?
The loss of a language is not just people moving on to speaking another one. It is the death of a culture, of the knowledge that was contained within the language’s words, of the thousands of stories that were passed from generation to generation, of grandparents not being able to speak and understand their grandkids. It is cultural genocide.
I speak Bengali, my mother tongue, which has been passed through generations. I understand the people of my culture and through Bengali, we let each other know what it is to be human and to experience being human in this land which we call our home. My language allows me to understand my grandma’s stories, my village’s superstitions, and my mother’s rants. It has been molded to fit my culture and its people’s needs. If Bengali were to disappear, a huge chunk of my identity would disappear. No other language can replace the part of me that I would lose, and no other language will fit the way I can express my thoughts in Bengali. To whom can I then say, “ঘোরার ডিম!”? (literally translates to “horse’s egg” which is an expression that can mean “nonsense” or “nothing” among some other meanings).
Imagine this for your own language. Doesn’t that want to make you cry?
Is It Too Late To Save These Languages?
The answer is no. Linguists throughout the world are trying to save endangered languages or at least document them so that if the next generation wants, they can revive them. This is done through a process of language documentation and revitalisation. It is a subfield of linguistics concerned with documenting a language’s vocabulary, grammar, and resources. They can be used to preserve the language and at the same time be used as teaching materials. We know revitalising a language is possible because humans have already done it. Take Hebrew for example. It was a dead language (in linguistics a “dead: language refers to one having no native speakers but is learnt and used for other purposes, usually often liturgical. For example: Latin) until it was revived in Ottoman Palestine. The Celtic languages for example are doing better now than the previous decades due to both the people and the government pushing for its revival. In short, it is indeed possible. We may not save every endangered language but we can save as many as possible before the last word is lost to the air and we lose them forever.
Do You Have To Be a Linguist To Save Your Language(s)?
No! All you need is to be able to record audio, videos, and a place to store them, both digitally and physically. You can know more about how to document and archive languages using The Living Tongues Institute’s toolkit for Language Sustainability. Living Tongues Institute and Wikitongues both archive and preserve dictionaries, videos, and texts of dying languages, and with your help, they can save more languages from completely disappearing off the face of the earth.
The Internet is also a great way to promote and “archive” your language. Len Pennie, a poet, promotes and talks about her language, Scots on her social media handles. She also has a book called Poyums (Poems) where the poetry is written in Scots. Cherokee Nation’s Instagram account often promotes the Cherokee language and has a Cherokee language course. This allows more people to become aware of your language as well as motivates young generations of your community to be in touch with the language. Language revitalisation is a long-term process but it will be futile if people, especially younger people in the community do not reciprocate this, and adopt their language. This requires a lot of effort, such as digitising your language, and its script, and producing media in the said language. Some languages do not even have a script, which creates a huge problem. Bangladesh, (my home country) has between 30-40 different languages and many of them are endangered. The biggest problem that arises when it comes to preserving them is a lack of script. The speakers themselves are unsure about whether to adopt the Mayan script, the Latin script, or the Eastern Nagri (Bengali) script. However, these things can be overcome by going out of the box. Western Africa is filled with beautiful and unique scripts, made by the speakers of those languages. These scripts fit the language way better because the letters/ symbols are created to fit each distinguished sound. Sometimes you do not even have to make a new script but find an existing one that can transcribe your language well. Cia-Cia, a language spoken by 79000 people in Indonesia, uses the Hangul script (used for Korean) because the Latin script does not fit their phonology.
Overall, we need to be optimistic about language preservation. If you speak a dying language or a language that is slowly losing its speakers in favour of another one- promote your language, archive it, and inspire younger people to learn it. At the end of the day, saving your language is up to you and your people. Organisations like Living Tongues Institute and Wikitongues will archive your language for free and young learners can access your materials for free too! All you need to do is find like minded people, and if you cannot find them, then follow Tagore’s words, “যদি তোর ডাক শুনে কেউ না আসে তবে একলা চলো রে।” (if no one hears your call, walk alone).