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Language Extinction / Endangered Languages

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SoundDust

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Half of all human languages will have disappeared by the end of the century, as smaller societies are assimilated into national and global cultures, scientists have warned.

Losing this linguistic diversity will be a blow not only for cultural studies but also for cognitive science, they say. The only option is to record and catalogue these languages before they disappear for good, say the researchers, who gathered at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle, Washington, to issue the warning.

Some 6800 "unique" languages are thought to exist today. But social, demographic and political factors are all contributing to the rapid disappearance of many mother tongues.

"There are fewer languages than there were a month or six months ago," David Harrison of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, US, says. "Human languages are literally disappearing as we speak."

Harrison gives the example of the language Middle Chulym, now spoken by only a handful of Siberian townsfolk, all of whom are all over the age 45. Integration into Russian society has reduced the need for the language and once the last fluent speaker has died the language itself will be extinct.


Other worlds

"What is lost when a language is lost is another world," says Stephen Anderson, of Yale University. He says valuable ethnographic and cultural information disappears when a language is lost.

Harrison adds that each language lost leaves a gap in our understanding of the variable cognitive structures of which the human brain is capable. Studies of different languages have already revealed vastly different ways of representing and interpreting the world. Some Native American languages, for example, reveal a completely different understanding of the nature of time.

But just as many minority languages are dying out, the languages that dominate the globe, such as Chinese, English and Spanish, are becoming increasingly varied and complex, says David Lightfoot, a language researcher at Georgetown University. And new languages may even spring up. For example, new versions of Chinese are likely to emerge that cannot be understood by some other Chinese speakers.
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& Puzzled monkeys reveal key language step
 
Linguistic Darwinism?

Do you think we may one day reach the point where the dominant language is a bizarre patios mix of the main four we see today and all other languages have died out?

Incidentally - I wonder how many new languages have arisen during the same period of time.
 
A thread for the general topic of the increasing pace of language loss across the world (although we will be ocusing on the more strange or ironic aspects of it ;) ). Some general reading:

Language Death
by David Crystal (2002)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521012716/

Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World's Languages
by Daniel Nettle, Suzanne Romaine (2000)
PB:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195152468/
HB:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195136241/

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Last inheritress of China's female-specific languages dies

http://www.chinaview.cn 2004-09-23 17:56:40


CHANGSHA, Sept. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- China's last inheritress of the mysterious Nushu language, probably the world's only female-specific language, died at her central China home earlier this week. She was in her 90s.

Yang Huanyi learned to read and write the language as a little girl. Chinese linguists say her death has put an end to a 400-year-old tradition in which women shared their innermost feelings with female friends through a set of codes that were incomprehensible to men.

Yang was born in Jiangyong County, where many people believe the language originated. Before her marriage, she used to exchangeletters in Nushu with Gao Yinxian, the eldest of the seven sworn sisters in the county who were the most authoritative speakers andwriters of the female-only language.

Though Yang herself did not join the sworn sisters, she did spend three years with them to learn the language, and became its only surviving inheritress by the end of the 1990s, after all the seven sisters had passed away.

Since then she had been dubbed "living fossil of the women-specific language" by linguists.

Until her death on September 20, it remained a mystery as to how old Yang was. During an interview with Xinhua in the summer of2002, she said she was 94. Authorities in her hometown, however, said she was 98 when she died. Zhao Liming, a specialist with Qinghua University, said Yang was born in 1909.

It is often hard to tell the actual age of elderly Chinese people because many are accustomed to giving their "nominal age," which is one to two years ahead of the actual age. A baby's "nominal age" is considered to be one year old at birth and becomestwo at the beginning of the very next year.

Yang was invited to Beijing in 1995 to attend the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. The letters, poems and prose she wrote were collected and compiled by linguists of the Beijing-based Qinghua University into a book that was published early this year.

Though some linguists are working hard to learn the female language, experts say Yang was more authoritative and her writing was more standard, original and unaffected by Putonghua, or standard Chinese or Han language, in which she was totally illiterate.

None of Yang's children and grandchildren inherited her proficiency in the unique language. The gracefully-written rhombicNushu characters are structured by just four kinds of strokes, including dot, horizontal, virgule and arc, and can be spoken in dialect to describe women's misfortunes and inner feelings.

Some experts presume that the language is related to inscriptions on animal bones and tortoise shells of the Yin Ruins from more than 3,000 years ago, but no conclusions have been reached as to when the language originated.

Besides the central Hunan Province, the language was also used in some areas of southern China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Nushu manuscripts are extremely rare because, according to the local custom, they were supposed to be burnt or buried with the dear departed in sacrifice.

The language, among the first to enter the national list of China's ancient cultural heritage, has aroused keen attention fromworldwide scholars. At least 100 surviving manuscripts are abroad,according to archive keepers in Hunan Province.

China has stepped up preservation of the language since the 1990s amid assiduous efforts to better protect the country's traditional culture in a globalized society.

The Hunan provincial archives have collected handkerchiefs, aprons, scarves and handbags embroidered with Nushu characters, manuscripts written on paper or fans, and calligraphic works.

"We have collected 303 artifacts bearing the rare language during five trips to Yongjiang County, birthplace of the female language, over the past year," said Liu Gening, head of the provincial archives. "The oldest of them dates back to the late Qing Dynasty in the early 1900s, and the most recent pieces are from the 1960s or 1970s."

Among their collections are calligraphic works by Zhou Shuoyi, a retiree in Jiangyong County who is believed to be the first man to learn the language in China. Zhou, after half a century of study, compiled a dictionary of Nushu last year at the age of 79.

The dictionary, which contains all the 1,800 ancient charactersof the language, has complete stylistic rules and a layout with pronunciation, glossary and grammar and is arranged in international phonetic symbol order. Each Nushu character is followed by phonetic notation, notes, a corresponding Chinese character and example sentences.
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http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-09/23/content_2012172.htm
 
Yang Huanyi learned to read and write the language as a little girl. Chinese linguists say her death has put an end to a 400-year-old tradition in which women shared their innermost feelings with female friends through a set of codes that were incomprehensible to men.

Not so unusual really, a lot of what women say is incomprehensible to men even though they're speaking the same language.
:(
 
China has stepped up preservation of the language since the 1990s amid assiduous efforts to better protect the country's traditional culture in a globalized society.
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How ironic.

Nevertheless, I always find it really sad to hear about the death of languages, and there are plenty closer to home. How many people still speak Cornish, or Ulster Scots for example?

What's really interesting to me is that this language had a writing system though. Or is it a code? The article uses both words. Who came up with it in the first place? If it's only 400 years old, was it 'artificial'? Did someone go and research Yin Ruins inscriptions to 'create' a writing system? Why?
 
Surely a language can only survive if it adapts to the world around it English seems currently to be very good at this, words drift in or change their meanings to suit the requirements of day to day usage.
 
As far as I'm aware, any language can change or adapt. They can only survive if enough people learn them and use them.
 
Male keeper of secret female language

Agence France Presse

Jiangyong, November 7:



In China’s Hunan province lives a 79-year-old man who is the keeper of an ancient, enigmatic language used only by women. “People say I’m the first male in the world to inherit a female language,” jokes Zhou Shuoyi. Behind him are scrolls he has written in a mysterious script of characters made up of soft dots and simple, elegant strokes.

How Zhou came to know Nushu, the language Chinese linguists believe is the only script in the world exclusively used by women, is a serendipity of two separate but intermingling fates.

In the 1920s, Zhou’s aunt was married off to a young man. With her she took the family etiquette book — which for centuries had taught Zhou brides proper manners. The women in the aunt’s new family were Nushu speakers and translated it from Chinese.

The aunt later showed the language to Zhou. Zhou began research on the language in 1954. But his life was changed forever by Mao Zedong’s 1960s Cultural Revolution. Nushu was deemed feudal and anyone associated with it was denounced. Six weeks ago the death of Yang Huanyi — the lone survivor of a generation of women who were bequeathed Nushu lexicon — marked the passing of a phenomenon. Nushu, which means women’s script in Chinese, is believed to have originated in Jiangyong.
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http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/fu...&folder=aHaoamW&Name=Home&dtSiteDate=20041108
 
I do not find it saddening at all when a language dies, it is all part of evolution of a kind. If it were not for languages changing we would not have advanced much in the last thousand years. Language is the basis of civilisation and just as in nature the weakest dies out leaving the stronger/more adaptable to take its place.

Then again, I consider human language to be completely inefficient in describing any real emotion.
 
I'm more inclined to believe that as human civilisation has developed over the past thousand years, languages have developed in step, rather than changes in language enabling cultural change. Although possibly there's an interesting debate to be had on that subject.

I agree with your analysis of a 'survival of the fittest' evolutionary process, but even so, I still find it saddening; just as, if we follow that analogy through, the extinction of a species is a loss, even if that species no longer has an environmental niche to live in.
 
LemonPie, you do make a point there. It's always sad to see something of 'heritage' go. Just like ancient monuments becoming derelict due to neglect, or animals being wiped out, or in this case, a language going extinct.

But I see a good side to this. With the propagation of computers, as they enter our daily lives, more and more people will need to accept English. The world over.

So this is something like... bringing people closer. We're not united in our beliefs or race or culture, but hey, language is a nice little step isn't it?

I speak from a programmers POV, btw, so I Feel it's US english which will obliterate UK English. :D

*runs from crumpets and teacups being hurled at him*
 
*lobs wedgwood teapot*

That is a point - a step closer to cultural understanding by virtue of linguistic understanding??

While I agree with you about US English squishing UK English, I reckon International English could stamp on even US English eventually...

so maybe we're seeing the birth of a language, even while others are in their death throes? :)
 
Surely the best way to preserve a dying language is to publish a dictionary, nice and quick. Once the language is set down in black and white, it is preserved. People can then study, learn and write more material. This is what happened with the Cornish tongue, not so many years ago. Unfortunately the Manx tongue was lost I think.
Personally I do think it's a great pity when any language is lost. Surely these languages are part of the cultural heritage of humankind? However, it is a bit silly when two intelligent people cannot communicate, so I suggest everybody learns to speak two languages if possible. Auf diesem Grund, ging ich in Deutschland zu wohnen letzte Sommer, um Deutsch zu lernen.

Bill Robinson
 
Big Bill Robins said:
Personally I do think it's a great pity when any language is lost. Surely these languages are part of the cultural heritage of humankind?
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I agree - people may also argue that we probably won't miss a few beetles in the current wave of extinctions we are living through but both languages and animals give us a potentially unique insight into our diversity and into the mechanisms of evolution, etc.

Given the spread and ubiquity of English and the decline in tribal diversity, etc. this kind of thing will be inevtiable but they need to be studied now before they are gone - there is no way to store DNA and reclone these thigns down the line ;)
 
Big Bill Robins said:
Surely the best way to preserve a dying language is to publish a dictionary, nice and quick. Once the language is set down in black and white, it is preserved. People can then study, learn and write more material.
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it would help to preserve the translations maybe, but maybe not in things like sentance construction. I have a german dictionary, for example, but being able to translate the words wouldn't be much use in understanding any differences in the order these words are supposed to go in, in some cases.

for example, Sprechen Sie Englisch? (Do you speak English?) would come out as "Speak You English?" (I think, it has been over 10 years since I did GCSE German ;)).

A Dictionary would be useful, although some guide on how to use the language would be too
 
I agree with rjm, languages dying is nothing to be sad about. The stronger languages, with the biggest depth of meaning and choice of words, will always prevail. English has absorbed the best features of other languages and discarded pointless elements, making it stronger than ever. Soon it will dominate the world.... and then the UNIVERSE! MWHAHAHAHAHA!... er, yeah, nothing to worry about... :D

What I find sad is people trying to preserve languages that would otherwise die "of natural causes" (eg. gaelic), when the money spent on this pointless and unnatural activity could be better directed to saving lives rather than imposing fascistic ideals of 'diversity'.

*hides*
 
Yes taras, I agree with you, but on the point of US English being dominant in the future, I think it will probably settle in the middle ground, quite a few Brit words seem to be finding their way into US English thanks to tv and t'internet.
 
I think it can be contended that for languages to survive, there has to be a genuine determination on the part of the speakers of that language to preserve it.

For example, Basque and Welsh have both, comparatively recently, been subject to what was an effective ban. Franco outlawed the use of Basque altogther - you could be arrested for speaking it, literally - and Welsh was banned from schools and all public institutions for years.

But, they survived. And now Welsh is (probably) the most heavily subsidised minority language in the world (I use the word advisedly - IIRC fewer than 20% of Welsh people are native speakers, making the total about 3% of the population of the UK). But, Welsh is freely taught in schools, has it's own TV station in S4C, and is going from strength to strength. But, ultimately, it's survival lies in the people that speak it, and more importantly actively want to speak it.

As to which version of English will prevail, in many ways it can be argued that the two are diverging again - for instance, much of the slang that would be mutually incomprehensible even thirty years ago is now common currency in both countries. Mass-media and it's ubiquity have in many ways standardised the language: regional varaitions in both the UK and the US are gradually subsiding. Perhaps you can say that rather than one strain dominating the other, it's more a case of give and take.
 
taras said:
I agree with rjm, languages dying is nothing to be sad about. The stronger languages, with the biggest depth of meaning and choice of words, will always prevail.
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I would say this is more a consequence of empire, accidents, etc. rather than any intrinsic qualities of the languages involved.
 
I think it can be contended that for languages to survive, there has to be a genuine determination on the part of the speakers of that language to preserve it.

Another good case history is Lazuri.

Lazuri is the 'hearth' language of the Laz, a people originating on the Black Sea coast of Georgia who were displaced into North Eastern Anatolia during the 18th century, where they converted to Islam and made a living as fishermen, hill farmers and pirates.

Their language belongs to the Southern Caucasian group; like Basque, the Caucasian languages defy categorisation, and are probably on the ancient side. Lazuri lacked a written form until the 1980's, when a German linguist invented an appropriate alphabet, and became a vocal advocate of Laz cultural renewal and regional autonomy. Interestingly (and characteristicly) the Laz largely regarded all this as a bit of a joke.

Lazuri is still a spoken language, but it is diminishing due to the steady movement of young Laz people into the melting pot of Istanbul, and the prejudice the Turkish educational system has towards the minority languages. For example, my wife is Laz; her father is a Lazuri speaker from the hills, but her mother hails from a family that made the move into Trabzon (Trebizond) a couple of generations back, and assimulated into the Turkish speaking majority. Consequently, my wife cannot speak Lazuri fluently - other members of the family of her generation cannot speak it at all.

I speak a little. ;)

Population movement and the pressure to assimulate might well restrict Lazuri to its mountainous heartland in the North East within a few generations; I don't believe it will die out, but it will certainly vanish among the diaspora, largely due to the lack of a written culture.

On another tack, last year Ankara grudgingly conceded language schools the right to offer courses in Kurdish. One school immediately advertised the opportunity, but within a few months closed the course down due to a lack of resources and, more significently, a lack of students. It seems that Kurds who do not already speak one of the dialects of the language would rather invest their time and money in English or German as it is more likely to improve their careers.
 
Emperor said:
I would say this is more a consequence of empire, accidents, etc. rather than any intrinsic qualities of the languages involved.
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I admit I am not a linguist and apart from a spattering of GCSE Latin and French am completely monolingual. But I struggle to think of another language that has the depth of English - of course it is far from a pure language, indeed, it is a nice bastard tongue almost indistingushable from its orgins, but the fact that it has evolved and changed must surely point to some intrinisic quality that it holds. Its adaptability is the key to its success.

And, thanks to the mass media I doubt English will ever die out. Of course it will change but it will still be 'English'.
 
Emperor said:
I would say this is more a consequence of empire, accidents, etc. rather than any intrinsic qualities of the languages involved.
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If it was, we'd all be speaking a descendent of Old French rather than Old English. The "ruling" language isn't always the one that gets chosen.
 
And now Welsh is (probably) the most heavily subsidised minority language in the world
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Ah, but do all your Prime Ministers have to be Welsh? Do they award lots of fat, hard-to-trace contracts to his buds in Wales? Do you send Welsh separatist MPs to the nation's Parliament? Does Welsh have to be larger than English on all signage in Wales? :rolleyes:

English, for all its glorious complexity, isn't utilized all that well by the average native speaker; is it worth still trying to maintain the distinction between, say, "less" and "fewer" or do we give in to the sort of people who write "i want 2 give this 2 u" and call it a lost cause?
 
Leaferne said:
Ah, but do all your Prime Ministers have to be Welsh? Do they award lots of fat, hard-to-trace contracts to his buds in Wales? Do you send Welsh separatist MPs to the nation's Parliament? Does Welsh have to be larger than English on all signage in Wales? :rolleyes:

English, for all its glorious complexity, isn't utilized all that well by the average native speaker; is it worth still trying to maintain the distinction between, say, "less" and "fewer" or do we give in to the sort of people who write "i want 2 give this 2 u" and call it a lost cause?
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:rofl: sorry bout that

nope! (most if not all have been english)
nope again!
you mean plaid cymru?(1) yep we do (lets put it this way anything the welsh assembly/am's(2) would like. they still have to ask london for permission)
in theroy on documents/traffic signs/utillity bills are in welsh first then english. doesnt allways happen tho



(even less than 50yrs ago some kids in parts of wales who spoke welsh in school were made to wear a piece of wood with the words "dim cymru:- welsh not" on a string around their necks as a mark of shame/punishment).
there was even a legal case in wales about 5 yrs ago. where kids in nw wales were taught exclusively in welsh!, until someone complained about it)

basically all native tongues are basically 2nd class

but hey! all old regional british accents are interesting, but not when they swamped/bastardised by one accent eg esturine (of eastenders fame :furious: )
blame the the power of us films/uktv/laziness of the govt/parents etc

but i think what ive and others have said has been covered else where on the mb


(1)trans. the party of wales
(2)assembly members
(if youre interested heres? the website for plaid cymru:- http://www.plaidcymru.org/ )

wales has even got its own passport, but its not reconised by the england or the rest of the world :( )


i oppoligise for the party political broadcast and now return you to your regional thread :D
 
A lot of Prime Ministers have been Scottish actually (for some reason). In fact, the leaders of Labour and the Liberal Democrats are both Scottish (Gordon Br... er, Tony Blair, and Charles Kennedy), and Tory leader Michael Howard is Welsh (believe it or not!)

In the last 150 years, there have been six PMs Scottish by birth/upbringing - The Earl of Aberdeen, The Earl of Rosebery, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Andrew Bonar Law (born in Canada!), Ramsay MacDonald and our Dear Leader Mr Blair.
 
And still they moan about being un-represented by parliament and harp on about devolution...

Is there an English Devolution Party?
 
...which is surely a topic for another thread. :)

The surpression of languages to political ends is a relevent topic though. During the 18th and 19th centuries, gaelic and Welsh where pushed out of public life, from primary school upwards, as a means of integrating the Celtic peoples into the Union. Modern Turkey is emerging (slowly) from a similar period. ınterestingly, in both cases the measures were ineffectual even if they were damaging, and served to intensify the desire to assert difference rather than embrace a new identity.
 
If it was, we'd all be speaking a descendent of Old French rather than Old English. The "ruling" language isn't always the one that gets chosen.
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Aren't we speaking a child of Old French and Old English?

IIRC English re-asserted itself over French when it suited the (Norman) Kings of England to be English rather than French. It was a rallying-point for the nation against France.

Can't remember the king in question though.

I agree with Emperor, that current dominance of English is due to a string of accidents, empire and political power rather than any intrinsic quality of the language itself - which has constantly evolved and changed anyway.
 
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