Half of the worlds estimated 7000 languages will die in the next 50 years. Alarmed linguists from all continents are concerned about the rate of extinction of endangered languages. It is higher than ever before. On average a language dies every two weeks. We talk about the melting of the ice cap, the extinction of species but we hardly ever hear about the death of so many world languages. A comparison of endangered species and languages show distressing figures. While 5% of fish species, 8% of plants, 11% of birds and18% of mammals have been classified in danger of extinction, over 40% of languages are doomed to disappear in the near future (D.Harrison, When Languages Die, 2007).
Should we care? Cynics don’t because they view the phenomenon as a positive simplification of the world and they dare fooling themselves with a black and white dream of a day when everyone will speak the same language, a sort of the Tower of Babel played in reverse.
Yes, we should care! The death of a language is the erosion of human knowledge. “ Most of what humans know about the world is encoded in oral languages. When we lose a language, we lose centuries of human thinking about time, seasons, sea creatures, reindeer, edible flowers, mathematics, landscapes, myths, music, the unknown and the everyday” says Harisson. The information that has been gathered throughout centuries is woven in languages and most of it just cannot be translated. The classification of species of plants and animals for example shows that local inhabitants possess a unique understanding of the world around them. Many tribes and isolated human groups have lived in harmony with nature for centuries and they understand their environment better than the best scientists of the Western world. When we hear the argument that many plants and species still haven’t been discovered, do we ask ourselves if the local tribes already know them and have given them a name? Folk knowledge is often extremely sophisticated but has not been classified or taxonomised by Western science. Indigenous people know their environment intimately and have a wealth of knowledge fields such as medicine. Nevertheless their knowledge of plants and cures is often embedded in their language. This is the “invisible problem” that most people do not realize when they hear that languages are dying out.
Field linguists around the globe have embarked on a race against the clock to find the last speakers of languages on the point of extinction. Their job is to document, describe and classify their language. When there is still enough time, they try and understand the vision of the world that is encapsulated in their language. To complete such missions, linguists need to be multi skilled. They need to be able to land anywhere in the world and quickly adapt to a new environment, make friends with the people, find ways of understanding them and apply their scientific knowledge to document the dying language. When they share a common language with the local inhabitants, the task is relatively easy. When there is no common language though, linguists often need years of work to obtain scientific data. Initially, they have to take a census to find out how many speakers there are left. One of the difficulties is that last speakers of endangered languages are often elderly and it takes skills to make them focus on what is not always perceived by the elders as good intentions. Field linguists often have to live with these populations in harsh conditions and adapt to their way of life in order to record the language in action. Despite the hardships, their testimonies are often moving because they build personal relationships and their job is rewarding. The movie The Linguists (Ironbound Films), featuring Dr Harisson and his colleague Greg Anderson records their efforts to document and preserve endangered languages and enlighten the public about this admirable profession. It was an official selection at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and was acclaimed at the opening of the Unesco International Day of Mother Languages in 2008.
“We don’t even know what we are losing,” says Harisson. What we do know is that indigenous knowledge of the world will not only be lost for the local population but for the whole of humankind. Most of these languages are not written and what they know can only be found in their memory.
Reasons for languages death can vary. To identify endangered languages, scientists use three main criteria: the number of speakers currently living, the mean age of native speakers and the percentage of the youngest generation acquiring fluency in that language. Many people assume that a language disappears simply when there are no more native speakers. That is not always true. In the case of our country Indonesia, some languages may have tens of thousands of speakers but may be endangered because children are no longer learning them. The Indonesian government, in a strong effort to unite its 13 000 islands, introduced Bahasa Indonesia and made it the official language of the country. The result is that this has created pressure to use the new national language in place of local languages. With such a strong unifying language policy and the widespread use of it for education, Bahasa Indonesia has become the dominant language. The most frequent reason for extinction is the marginalization of local languages. Here, Bahasa Indonesia is associated with chances of economic success and the pressure to assimilate is strong. Local languages are still used in the various provinces of Indonesia but the danger is that more and more of them are becoming marginalized and perceived as useless by its speakers. Furthermore, local languages can be associated with low social status and poverty, and speakers might consciously decide not to pass it on to the next generation.
In Indonesia the Unesco has identified 147 languages either in danger of extinction or recently extinct. Up to this day, India has the greatest number of endangered languages (196), followed by the United States (192) and Indonesia comes third.
This is disheartening news for the incredible diversity of this country. Currently, the number of living languages listed for Indonesia is 719 but this number could quickly drop in the next few years for the next generation of speakers of local languages. With the growing influence of tourism and the influx of foreigners, English becomes another threat to the Balinese language.
Locals see the acquisition of English as an opportunity to secure better jobs and have more opportunities to succeed economically. Parents want their children to speak English and see this possibility as an added value to the family group. If the new generation can obtain better jobs by speaking English, the whole family will benefit from this achievement. Currently Bahasa Indonesia and English are putting pressure on Balinese language and it will most probably be losing ground in the future.
It is interesting to note what happens with children of mixed marriages. The majority of them do not speak Balinese. Many understand it because they have picked it up from the Balinese side of the family.
Most cannot speak well, read or write because many Balinese parents do not use it to converse or educate their children. Sometimes it is because the other parent doesn’t understand it or often they simply value English or Bahasa Indonesia more than the local language. Some parents even say that their children do not need to speak Balinese.
For these families, Balinese will be lost in only one or two generations. The national language and English are perceived as more prestigious and more modern so Balinese becomes the victim of a bilingual culture.
Linguists do not only document endangered languages. In some cases they try to revitalize them. In the case of Indonesia, the main obstacle is financial. It costs money to carry out research and gather accurate documentation. Unfortunately this country has already lost some of its languages, however it is not too late to save others from extinction. The autonomy of the provinces is an asset and each region needs to review its educational policies and develop programs and policies to raise the awareness of the importance of local languages. Literacy programs are essential for language survival and budgets have to be allocated for the development of resources and the training of teachers.
Some say that the death of languages is the unavoidable consequence of globalization. Diversity is being lost in many areas and the trend seems to be towards unification. However, being aware of the invisible problem of the loss of folk knowledge is a step forward. Language policies are not just documents that are filed and forgotten. They are powerful weapons towards language survival or language death. Language is power and the loss of a language can be the loss of the rights of its people. All languages are intricate systems allowing their speakers to function day to day. It is a tool to forge their identity, express their wisdom, refine their knowledge of the world and dream. Languages are a way of thinking and it holds the history of people. Like DNA, it carries the information of who we are. Value your language; it is the depositary of your culture.
