Neolithic Objects: Ancient Language, Engraved Stones found in Glozel (8000-10,000 BC)
10,000 years ago the population was between 5 and 10 million
Leading anthropologists estimate that nearly 12,000 languages (or more) were spoken at that time.
Today our population is 6.5 billion
Approximately 7,000 languages are spoken today
At this rate in 100 years from now, in the year 2108, only 2,500 languages may be spoken.
One language goes extinct every month.
In lecture you may have heard me comment on these facts: "While it is important, for the sake of biodiversity to have a variety of languages spoken, what about the fact that more people are communicating?" This may not be a fact at all- sadly, we are loosing many indigenous cultures.
What does this mean?
What do you think about this data and the potential future of lost languages?
6 comments:
Maggie Baczewski
Section 5
This topic really caught my attention. I just had a lesson on Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and I thought a lot about dying languages. The question I’ve been asking myself the most is what defines biodiversity. I don’t think the amount of languages spoken by a species makes them diverse. I think of the genetic differences among a species when I think of diversity. Dogs for example are much more diverse than people. All dogs look so incredibly different. They’re all different sizes, color, have different fur, but people all look pretty similar when compared to how different other groups of animals look. Yet they all speak the same language as far as we know. I also believe if there are fewer languages then more people are communicating. We are always encouraged to communicate with other people around the world to learn about other cultures and blend them together to create new ones. It is a problem that languages are disappearing but I don’t think it affects biodiversity. To me it means people are neglecting trying to remember older traditions. How did the statistic count a language as having disappeared? Latin is considered a dead language but I know there is a very small population of people in Switzerland that still speaks a form of Latin.
Globally we have experienced a rapid increase in population over the past one hundred years. This is primarily due to our new and improved medical advances and our enormous increase in agricultural productivity. Learning that the number of languages is decreasing over the past 10, 000 years from 12,000 to 7,000 languages should be seen as a positive. Living in an area with its own small, unique dialects or specific languages allows these people to only communicate with each other thereby forcing these people to become isolated and unable to speak with other neighboring societies. Everyone should be proud of their own heritage and own uniqueness, but being able to communicate and work with others with varying backgrounds would force others to get along. One would think if you learned to speak German, you could communicate with everyone else that speaks German. But unfortunately, that isn't the case. There are many different dialects within the German language, so even though you live in the same country as other German-speaking citizens, you might not be able to communicate. Keeping the lines of communication open will encourage more people to work side by side. Speaking the same language within your community will provide benefits in all facets of living such as in the business world, medical field, government, all legal issues, even in their social lives. Streamlining languages can have its positives.
Just like in the survival of the fittest, languages can be seen in the same way. Small, specific languages just encourages isolation. These small groups should learn the language of fittest, strongest nearby groups. These individuals can still follow their own traditions, beliefs and customs and should feel proud to celebrate their heritage. Having the skills to communicate with bigger, strong societies will open the doors to new and bigger opportunities. Leaving behind your own language and embracing another, shouldn't be a negative, but rather a positive.
As a nerd, I get excited when I hear about things like this. Why? Well, it's like good science fiction fodder. Ancient unknown languages, one dying every month. It's just interesting for languages to have existed that no one now knows. There is so much involved in every language that for something that big to be forgotten is almost unimaginable. I think there's a huge downside to the fact that everyone on Earth can communicate with each other, and to explain why, I'll use a Star Trek reference.
So, I'm a huge star trek fan. Probably the biggest female star trek fan under 45 you're bound to come across. I was practically raised by the principles of Star Fleet's Prime Directive. Annnd, they're all about exploration, and discovery. The whole thing is very romanticized and wonderful, all the different species they come across and deal with, all the deep-space anomalies they involve themselves with. It's all fantastic, go watch it. My favorite part about it, though, and this is especially true of the Voyager series, is that you could never really know what was going to happen next. Well, that's not what I really mean, because every episode had a really predictable plotline. What I mean is, on a starfleet ship, you never really know what's "over the horizon" and that always attracted me. That sense of adventure/doom. I imagine that's the way, to give an obvious example, Lewis and Clark must have felt about their cross-country trek. I'm so envious of the people on star trek, because they're out doing the only exploring that's really left to do: poking around the far corners of the galaxy. I feel like I'm stuck directly in a time where no exploring is necessary. I'm past the time when we were still cresting the rocky mountains, but I haven't yet reached the time when we can all go planet hopping and drink pan-galactic gargle-blasters. Maybe thats why I feel so damn sad all the time. Because I always know what's going to be over the horizon. With all our technology, exploration and wonderment have been killed off. I'm never going to go around with a deerskin pack, crossing a mountain range to find a small tribe of people who speak with...I dont know, their hair, or whatever. Something totally weird. That just doesnt happen anymore. We all know where everything is, we all have maps, we all know about rosetta stone (Thanks, Michael Phelps!). Augh life is so empty of danger.
Shoot.
Carolyn Nowak
Here's another star trek reference.
Probably the best episode of all time is called "Darmok and Jilad at Tanagra". In it, the crew of the Enterprise are sent on a diplomatic mission to another planet (duh). But when they get there, they find themselves unable to communicate with the humanoid life forms that populate the planet. See now, the federation has equipped itself with these universal translators that can basically recognize syntax and verb use immediately and translate it right into English. But that was impossible for this race, because their entire language consisted of references to mythology. So basically it was all metaphors and colloquialisms.
And yeah, that was so totally relevant to this post.
I was taking a linguistics course concurrently with ADP III, and found out a lot about language endangerment and language death. Really, language death is inevitable for most minority languages, because majority language-speakers could care less about them. A lot of people are leaning toward the idea of “linguistic efficiency,” which implies that they wish for only one language to be spoken within their nation.
Some people also believe that “national unity” automatically translates to using only one language in a country, but this isn’t true at all. In actuality, requiring all citizens to use one language could actually tear the nation apart. Consider this: if we instated English as the sole language of the United States, what would happen to all those who spoke Spanish as a first language, and had minimal fluency in English? How would they assimilate? It would be a very long process, for sure. A group of Spanish-speakers may revolt against the United States government, and we could have a civil war on our hands.
So, really, it’s pretty silly to let languages die out, just as it’s silly to let species die out. Many linguists are working to preserve indigenous languages, such as Montana Salish (which is only spoken fluently by 20 people in Montana). Cultural heritage is something that should be preserved, and this is one motive for protecting endangered languages. Some efforts may be in vain, though—if a language has only 20 fluent speakers, and if they are all elderly, it may be useless to make them teach their grandchildren the dying language. It’s really unfortunate, but several of these minority languages will undoubtedly disappear over the course of the next century. People are doing the best they can to keep this from happening, but more people really need to give a damn. Linguists can’t do all the work.
—Eleanor Schmitt
Tae Hyung Kim
12/13/08
ADP 3: Section 5
I have never realized that the number of languages spoken in year 2018 will be 2500. This can indicate how the local languages, either spoken by tribes or natives, are likely to go extinct. I recently hear about the news that there are "undiscovered" tribes in Amazon forest in Brazil and are in the danger of going extinct; deforestation is happening rapidly in Brazil, and their habitat will get destroyed. Another factor for the extinction of languages is globalization. As the population on our planet reaches high, communication is essential and that is when the major languages such as English, Spanish, French and Chinese become useful. More people are learning these languages so that they would be able to communicate with others easily. For this reason, it is likely that those languages will rule over the fewer-spoken languages to go in extinct. In fact, it is "very" common to see English as a required classes in schools all over the world and this may trigger a fast extinction of languages.
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