“A different language is a different vision of life”
August 13, 2018 8:35 AM Subscribe
Endangered Languages
By the turn of the century, it is estimated that at least 50% of the world’s current spoken languages will be extinct.
When we lose a language, we don't just lose words; we lose a whole perspective.
By the turn of the century, it is estimated that at least 50% of the world’s current spoken languages will be extinct.
When we lose a language, we don't just lose words; we lose a whole perspective.
I agree the selection of languages is odd. Ojibwe (locally we call it Anishinaabe language though), for example, is listed as having 7,000 speakers in the USA, but in Canada we have close to 50,000 speakers and almost all the Universities and Colleges I know offer formal courses (and it isn't even the most common First Nations language in Canada). My youngest's elementary school teaches it, alongside the also required French and it is not unusual to hear phrases from it in public or in mainstream media. So, that made me look askance at it, as well as a few other languages I don't consider overly endangered (Irish - more properly called Gaelic is more common now than in the past century). The exclusion of languages in Africa, India, and China that are threatened was also a weird choice.
posted by saucysault at 9:31 AM on August 13, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by saucysault at 9:31 AM on August 13, 2018 [3 favorites]
I would imagine that national languages have a much better chance of surviving than languages that aren't, but I would also assume that some of these languages are going to stop being living languages at some point in the future. That doesn't have to be the end of the story, however. Classical Latin is long dead, but still doing just fine in its own way. We have the ability to record these dying languages in unprecedented detail - not just the academic grammar and vocabulary, but recordings of actual living speakers and songs, poems, books, everything. They might die, but they can have a very active and vigorous afterlife.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 9:54 AM on August 13, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 9:54 AM on August 13, 2018 [4 favorites]
Seconding that the selection is odd. West Friesian is listed in the Netherlands, where, as the description notes, it has been taught as a required subject since 1980 in primary schools in the province of Friesland. (It is required in secondary schools as well, since 1993.) Per Wikipedia, "Friesland has 643,000 inhabitants (2005), of whom 94% can understand spoken West Frisian, 74% can speak West Frisian, 75% can read West Frisian, and 27% can write it." So it is hardly endangered — as long as present policies continue it will not be among the 50% of languages that is projected to disappear by 2100.
It is also odd that this limited treatment of the important subject of endangered languages is presented as part of the travel insurance section of GoCompare, a UK insurance price comparison site. (If you start at GoCompare's home page or sitemap, I don't think you can menu-navigate your way to it. But there are other "infographics" on random topics.)
posted by beagle at 10:06 AM on August 13, 2018
It is also odd that this limited treatment of the important subject of endangered languages is presented as part of the travel insurance section of GoCompare, a UK insurance price comparison site. (If you start at GoCompare's home page or sitemap, I don't think you can menu-navigate your way to it. But there are other "infographics" on random topics.)
posted by beagle at 10:06 AM on August 13, 2018
yeah the language selection is so arbitrary that it feels like they said "who here knows someone who speaks any foreign language" and just went with that
posted by poffin boffin at 10:26 AM on August 13, 2018
posted by poffin boffin at 10:26 AM on August 13, 2018
The selection is odd, but it's worth pointing out that it's intergenerational transmission that really matters, i.e. whether the language is being passed down to children. Classes are not enough, and often do not lead to proficiency. Ojibwe is doing much better than Irish in this regard - despite official status and classes, the number of children learning Irish is still decreasing, not increasing or holding steady. Many linguists do consider Irish to be in real trouble, even though its numbers of L1 speakers are currently higher than many other smaller languages.
It seems like they might have confused "minority indigenous language" with "endangered language"? It's true that they often overlap, but not always.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 10:34 AM on August 13, 2018 [5 favorites]
It seems like they might have confused "minority indigenous language" with "endangered language"? It's true that they often overlap, but not always.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 10:34 AM on August 13, 2018 [5 favorites]
I'll echo the weird choices of languages. Is Basque technically endangered?
saucysault: Not to be too pedantic, technically the language is anishinaabemowin rather than Anishinaabe (which is a person who identifies as Ojibwe rather than the language). That's great that your child's elementary school offers teaches it though. I wish we had something similar locally for the groups in our area.
posted by Ashwagandha at 10:38 AM on August 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
saucysault: Not to be too pedantic, technically the language is anishinaabemowin rather than Anishinaabe (which is a person who identifies as Ojibwe rather than the language). That's great that your child's elementary school offers teaches it though. I wish we had something similar locally for the groups in our area.
posted by Ashwagandha at 10:38 AM on August 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
Here is a link to a film made by poet Bob Holman on the subject. I haven't seen the movie, but I know him slightly and I know it's a passion project for him.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 10:39 AM on August 13, 2018
posted by Lawn Beaver at 10:39 AM on August 13, 2018
" Is Basque technically endangered?"
No. Euskara has been growing as more young people are learning it.
And, of course, the central government is no longer suppressing it as "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is dead".
posted by davebarnes at 10:50 AM on August 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
No. Euskara has been growing as more young people are learning it.
And, of course, the central government is no longer suppressing it as "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is dead".
posted by davebarnes at 10:50 AM on August 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
Fiction by Suzette Haden Elgin: We Have Always Spoken Panglish
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 11:48 AM on August 13, 2018 [3 favorites]
The Lavender Lamp Cafe had food that was different. We kept calling the young waiter back to ask him what this was and what that was and how it was made. And then, as we were talking to him about a soup that he told us was made with three different kinds of flowers, I asked the wrong question. "I understand that in Panglish this is called Three-Flower Soup," I said. "But what do you call it in your language?"(Original LJ discussion - US Corps of Linguistics followup - Other topics followup)
The boy frowned at me, looking baffled; I was sure he couldn't be more than fifteen, and it was disgraceful that he was working. "Panglish is my language," he said.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 11:48 AM on August 13, 2018 [3 favorites]
That doesn't have to be the end of the story, however. Classical Latin is long dead, but still doing just fine in its own way. We have the ability to record these dying languages in unprecedented detail - not just the academic grammar and vocabulary, but recordings of actual living speakers and songs, poems, books, everything. They might die, but they can have a very active and vigorous afterlife.
Like we can read the Yiddish literature of the 1920s?
It's true, in a sense, but I don't think that's a good example and I think this perspective minimizes the cultural damage that accompanies language loss. Most of these languages are going extinct because their cultures are rapidly changing, the languages are going along with their cuisine, dress, religion, and everything else that makes a culture, and these are not the languages of a dominant culture that conquered many a smaller group and left writings and artifacts across half the world. And, afterall Latin-->Italian, in a slow process.
Because we can record them, does that make these changes OK? And are we recording them, all of them, as quickly as we would need to given how fast things are changing?
posted by epanalepsis at 12:02 PM on August 13, 2018 [3 favorites]
Like we can read the Yiddish literature of the 1920s?
It's true, in a sense, but I don't think that's a good example and I think this perspective minimizes the cultural damage that accompanies language loss. Most of these languages are going extinct because their cultures are rapidly changing, the languages are going along with their cuisine, dress, religion, and everything else that makes a culture, and these are not the languages of a dominant culture that conquered many a smaller group and left writings and artifacts across half the world. And, afterall Latin-->Italian, in a slow process.
Because we can record them, does that make these changes OK? And are we recording them, all of them, as quickly as we would need to given how fast things are changing?
posted by epanalepsis at 12:02 PM on August 13, 2018 [3 favorites]
I don't know if the changes are okay or not. We can be concerned about species going extinct today, even though species have always gone extinct, because maybe we can do something about it now. We can definitely be concerned if they are going extinct more rapidly than they were in the past. But sometimes I wonder if it's really worth the enormous effort to save the lesser three toed ibex from extinction when the greater three toed ibex is still doing great.
I can be concerned about local languages being stomped out or suppressed due to colonialism or racism (cultural or otherwise) while also recognizing that there is a certain inevitability to it. I wonder if the attempts to revive Cornish and Manx will ever have much success (Manx seems more likely to me, because AFAIK the people of the Isle of Man have a fairly strong sense of ethnic and cultural identity and they might make it work out of sheer stubbornness).
I would imagine that the amount of work required to bring a language back from the brink could also be used to record and preserve dozens of dying languages. If you want to "save" these languages, what's the best way to do it?
Like we can read the Yiddish literature of the 1920s?
Sorry, I don't understand the point you are making. I can't, because I'm your basic mostly-monolingual American (even if I was born in England), but I assume some people can.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 1:26 PM on August 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
I can be concerned about local languages being stomped out or suppressed due to colonialism or racism (cultural or otherwise) while also recognizing that there is a certain inevitability to it. I wonder if the attempts to revive Cornish and Manx will ever have much success (Manx seems more likely to me, because AFAIK the people of the Isle of Man have a fairly strong sense of ethnic and cultural identity and they might make it work out of sheer stubbornness).
I would imagine that the amount of work required to bring a language back from the brink could also be used to record and preserve dozens of dying languages. If you want to "save" these languages, what's the best way to do it?
Like we can read the Yiddish literature of the 1920s?
Sorry, I don't understand the point you are making. I can't, because I'm your basic mostly-monolingual American (even if I was born in England), but I assume some people can.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 1:26 PM on August 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yiddish is far less dead than people assume. It's treated as a curiosity in US culture, where it's assumed to be dead, and its not-death is complicated, but it's still kicking.
posted by hoyland at 2:43 PM on August 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by hoyland at 2:43 PM on August 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
Sorry, I don't understand the point you are making. I can't, because I'm your basic mostly-monolingual American (even if I was born in England), but I assume some people can.
Yiddish is far less dead than people assume. It's treated as a curiosity in US culture, where it's assumed to be dead, and its not-death is complicated, but it's still kicking.
Sure, Yiddish certainly isn't dead, but secular Yiddish culture is. There was a huge community of Yiddish speakers across the world, both religious and secular, who published newspapers, satires, raunchy plays, works by women, everything a full culture does. That's been gone since the 1940s, because a large number of the native speakers were killed in the Holocaust and most of the rest assimilated into US/Israeli culture within two generations and now speak English or Hebrew. The language is alive in two places: academia, where nobody is coming up with new slang, and ultra-orthodox communities, where it is evolving in interesting ways but they aren't exactly producing the next Broadway play. So yes, it has a huge number of speakers compared to many on the above list, but I think the situation is the same...the culture is gone. I think that's a tragedy. I haven't even heard of half these cultures and I think it's actually a genuine shame that the great-grandchildren of these folks will only be able to read about their own culture in a library, and never actually live in a neighborhood where people speak that language.
We can definitely be concerned if they are going extinct more rapidly than they were in the past. But sometimes I wonder if it's really worth the enormous effort to save the lesser three toed ibex from extinction when the greater three toed ibex is still doing great.
Yes! Because diversity is important in both a biological and social sense. And because all the ibexes are beautiful and have intrinsic worth. And I guess I just can't accept that colonialism, racism, etc are inevitable, or at least that it has to happen this fast. It's just not the same to sit in a museum as it is to live in a neighborhood, something major is lost there.
posted by epanalepsis at 5:57 AM on August 14, 2018 [3 favorites]
Yiddish is far less dead than people assume. It's treated as a curiosity in US culture, where it's assumed to be dead, and its not-death is complicated, but it's still kicking.
Sure, Yiddish certainly isn't dead, but secular Yiddish culture is. There was a huge community of Yiddish speakers across the world, both religious and secular, who published newspapers, satires, raunchy plays, works by women, everything a full culture does. That's been gone since the 1940s, because a large number of the native speakers were killed in the Holocaust and most of the rest assimilated into US/Israeli culture within two generations and now speak English or Hebrew. The language is alive in two places: academia, where nobody is coming up with new slang, and ultra-orthodox communities, where it is evolving in interesting ways but they aren't exactly producing the next Broadway play. So yes, it has a huge number of speakers compared to many on the above list, but I think the situation is the same...the culture is gone. I think that's a tragedy. I haven't even heard of half these cultures and I think it's actually a genuine shame that the great-grandchildren of these folks will only be able to read about their own culture in a library, and never actually live in a neighborhood where people speak that language.
We can definitely be concerned if they are going extinct more rapidly than they were in the past. But sometimes I wonder if it's really worth the enormous effort to save the lesser three toed ibex from extinction when the greater three toed ibex is still doing great.
Yes! Because diversity is important in both a biological and social sense. And because all the ibexes are beautiful and have intrinsic worth. And I guess I just can't accept that colonialism, racism, etc are inevitable, or at least that it has to happen this fast. It's just not the same to sit in a museum as it is to live in a neighborhood, something major is lost there.
posted by epanalepsis at 5:57 AM on August 14, 2018 [3 favorites]
I would imagine that the amount of work required to bring a language back from the brink could also be used to record and preserve dozens of dying languages. If you want to "save" these languages, what's the best way to do it?
Documentation of a language isn't the same as saving a language, because the documentation isn't the language. A linguist documenting a dying language is like a biologist studying the last white rhino. You'll know more about what it was like when it's gone, but it's still gone.
Furthermore, preservation or revival efforts always involve the community that speaks the language. They're the ones who do the bulk of the work. If they gave up those efforts, it would have basically no impact on documentation projects. They're not stealing attention away from documentation efforts. It doesn't work that way.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 7:44 AM on August 14, 2018 [2 favorites]
Documentation of a language isn't the same as saving a language, because the documentation isn't the language. A linguist documenting a dying language is like a biologist studying the last white rhino. You'll know more about what it was like when it's gone, but it's still gone.
Furthermore, preservation or revival efforts always involve the community that speaks the language. They're the ones who do the bulk of the work. If they gave up those efforts, it would have basically no impact on documentation projects. They're not stealing attention away from documentation efforts. It doesn't work that way.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 7:44 AM on August 14, 2018 [2 favorites]
During the winter of 2016/17 I worked on the revitalization of Halkomelem, a Coast Salish language spoken on Vancouver Island (and a dialect that died out on the mainland). I sorted through about forty years of my supervisor's field research and put together a glossary in HTML and Javascript that you can search in both Halkomelem and English. The community really appreciates it, according to my supervisor, but I can't imagine how much more work needs to be done to create useful teaching tools.
posted by WizardOfDocs at 1:23 PM on August 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by WizardOfDocs at 1:23 PM on August 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
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posted by Nelson at 8:55 AM on August 13, 2018