By: Emilia MacDonald
Edited By: Lauren Breen
Language is the foundational aspect of human society, spanning centuries of development and growth. Fundamentally, humans are represented by language, and there is no hierarchy in how language operates. Despite these unchangeable factors, languages are also inextricably linked to colonialism, and as our world continually expands towards each other, the languages we use are constantly facing new threats to their existence. However, these threats have not gone unnoticed – communities, activists, and linguists are fighting to ensure that endangered languages not only survive but thrive in the long term.
There are approximately two hundred countries across the globe, with around seven thousand languages currently operating. Within this diverse world of languages, a perceived hierarchy has been created, where linguistic superiority is determined by the power, class, and status of a language’s speaker. Often, users of Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Mandarin, and English have proclaimed these languages as superior in comparison to languages and dialects that are unwritten and unstandardized. Despite this hierarchical system, it is essential to note that about half of all languages in the world are spoken in communities of ten thousand or less, and hundreds have just ten speakers or fewer. Though a small language can remain stable for centuries, when a traditional community is placed at risk, parents, grandparents, and other caregivers will refrain from passing a language on to their children for fear of societal, political, or religious condemnation.
But why is the diversity of languages important? For many smaller communities and Indigenous groups, language acts as a link to their cultural existence, and often, the language is at risk of being forced into extinction as a result of colonial conditions and relationships. Furthermore, it is primarily oral languages that are at the most risk, despite their potential to be the ones with the most to teach academics about the nature and the reach of human communication. Additionally, languages are the vessels for poetry, literature, proverbs, oral histories, local and environmental knowledge, and wisdom, which will never be fully translatable into other languages.
The continued state of globalization that our world is in following centuries of imperialism, capitalism, urbanization, environmental destruction, and nation-building are all contributing to the destruction of languages and our linguistic legacy. There are a few dominant languages that are also known as “killer” languages, including English, Spanish, Chinese, Nepali, and Brazilian Portuguese, which are continually spreading across the globe via the pathways of political, economic, and cultural conquest. Additionally, it is a constant narrative reproduced by dominant language speakers that the world would be a better place if everyone spoke their particular language, but it is important to remember that language does not guarantee the unification of a community.
Despite the language-based oppression that many Indigenous communities are facing, there has been a growing movement for Indigenous language revitalization, where groups of linguists and language activists are using new technologies to record and preserve the world’s at-risk languages. Among the 1500 known languages that are expected to die out by the end of the century, many still have fluent speakers, and it is vital to invest in supporting communities in the reintroduction and renormalization of Indigenous languages to ensure they can be passed onto future generations. Additionally, this issue is being tackled on a global scale and is being embedded into the function of global agendas, such as the creation of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages by the United Nations. This initiative has been created to insulate and protect Indigenous languages around the world from extinction, noting that languages are key to the survival of culture and identity for Indigenous communities.
Though research has suggested that the expansion of the internet is partly to blame for the death of some Indigenous languages and dialects, activist groups and communities are looking to create niche apps to teach endangered languages to new users or to provide a platform for native speakers to preserve their knowledge. One example includes the Rosetta Project, which is a collective of language specialists and native language speakers working to create an open-access digital library of human languages, thus drawing attention to the rapid loss of languages across the world and the importance of conserving this knowledge for future generations.
Concerning language loss in the Canadian context, the creation of the residential school system led to the institutional ban on Indigenous children speaking their traditional languages, often leading to corporal punishment if the language was used. Despite this, Indigenous communities are working tirelessly to create programming and platforms that make language accessible once more. For example, Tsi Tyónnheht Onkwawén:na Language and Cultural Center was established in 2000 and was built by community members to work towards the revitalization of the Mohawk language by offering youth and adult language classes, as well as online resources to help reestablish the language. This is an incredibly important initiative as there are only approximately one thousand people who still speak Mohawk fluently as a first language. At the same time, the accessibility of language programming has helped younger generations to reconnect with their cultural identity and language. Many are also among the first in their families, in generations, to speak the language—an outcome shaped by events like the Sixties Scoop.
These movements towards language reclamation are a step towards combating colonial legacies that remain and are embedded within global communities. The diversity of language is foundational to the health and well-being of a community, even on a global scale, and to believe in a language hierarchy is to dismiss the traditional knowledge and cultural identities of individuals and communities. Speaking the same language does not guarantee communication, and by supporting the diversity of languages and dialects, we are assisting in the preservation of a rich cultural tapestry that is currently in jeopardy.
References:
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