There are around 7,000 languages spoken in the world, but that number is shrinking. Unesco estimates that half could disappear by the end of the century. So how are languages lost, and what does that mean for the people who speak them?
There are around 7,000 languages spoken in the world, but that number is shrinking. Unesco estimates that half could disappear by the end of the century. So how are languages lost, and what does that mean for the people who speak them?
Just because you have none who speaks your language, doesn’t mean you’re dead or don’t exist. Language is lost in pockets, not all at once. Communities dwindle until it’s just a few, then practicality of life makes them use their language less so language can even die while multiple speakers still engage in dialogue, of that dialogue isn’t in that language.
If there’s someone who speaks the language then it isn’t lost yet.
I suppose it’s interesting to muse about what it means for the last person to speak a language before it becomes lost, but that’s still just one person so it’s kind an abstract, academic concern.
I speak – badly, but I’m fluent with my limited vocabulary – Low Saxon. Fuck I can do with it but embarrass supermarket cashiers whose skills are worse to non-existent. I could pass someone who knows the language perfectly, a true native speaker without the burden of generational gap in native proficiency, be asked for directions – and never know we could have talked in Low Saxon because the default language is the local Standard German.
It means that a mode of expression is dying. For us, as a people, it means that the natural expression of culture, of our modes and habits of interaction, is diluted due to the overwhelming influence of Standard German.
All this talk about “probably deserves to die”, “languages can’t be lost before there’s no people who speak it”, whatnot… point of interest: Do you happen to be monolingual.
Okay…
There is nothing academic about it, this is as much a question of humanism as there is.