Hieber, Daniel W. 2012. The politically incorrect guide to language death. Invited guest lecture, Anthropology 305: ‘Language & Culture’, Professor Amy L. Paugh, Department of Anthropology, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, Nov. 11, 2012.
Disclaimer: There’s actually nothing offensive or politically incorrect about this presentation. How boring. 2
Overview 1. The standard story 2. Question the received wisdom 3. Reach the same conclusions Why bother with this exercise? 0 Conclusion: Language shift is complicated. Overly simplistic representations don’t give us the insights we need to address the issue. 3
The Received Story 0 Originally 10,000 Responses: 0 languages 4 Document them before 0 0 6,909 living languages they die out left 10 Revitalization and 0 0 50% - 90% of those will go reclamation programs extinct by 2100 14, 7 Government support for 0 0 (Some) causes: endangered languages 0 Globalization 0 Technology 0 Overt political repression 0 Cultural dominance 4
10,000,00 100,000,0 0 to 99,99 00 to 999, 2,014 1,038 9,999 999,999 0% 0% 1,824 1% 0% 339 1,000,000 1 to 9 1% 0% to 9,999, 2% 895 999 10 to 99 133 5% 5% 5% 0% 100,000 t 304 o 999,999 100 to 99 16% 13% 9 8 16% 39% 10,000 to 77 99,999 1,000 to 9 39% 28% ,999 30% Languages as % of World Languages by Speaker Population 10 Population 10 5
Endangered Languages 3 3,167 currently endangered 6
Language Vitality 9 4% 9% Extinct since 1950 Severely endangered 10% Critically endangered Vulnerable 10% 57% Definitely endangered Safe or data-deficient 11% 7
Language Vitality 9 4% 9% Extinct since 1950 Severely endangered 10% Critically endangered ??? Vulnerable Data-deficient 10% Definitely endangered Safe Data-deficient 11% ??? Safe 8
Why worry about language death? 0 Value to linguistic science 0 Irreplacable cultural heritage 0 Loss of indigenous knowledge about the world 0 Loss of indigenous perspectives on the world 0 Loss of cultural identity 0 Concommitant decline in biodiversity 0 Language as a human right 0 Benefits of mother tongue education and bilingualism 0 Language death is happening faster now than before 9
A Closer Look at Language Death “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” ~ Mark Twain 10
The Original Languages ante 8,000 BC 0 Neolithic population estimate: 10 million 9 0 Hunter-gathering can only support small communities 0 Constant fracturing of groups into new branches 0 Each group speaks a slightly different language variety 0 Received wisdom: 0 < ~500 – 1,000 speakers per language 7 0 ~ 5,000 – 20,000 languages as of 10,000 y.a. 11
NSW Department of Education and Communities: 12 http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/shared/abmaps/nations.htm
0 Question: Languages or dialect continuum? 0 Question: Can we meaningfully compare language statistics from today to the Paleolithic? 13
The Agrarian Revolution 8,000 – 5,000 BC Sedentary lifestyle supports larger communities 0 Languages grow and crowd each other out / absorb 0 other speaker communities Received wisdom: 0 Languages have been continuously on the decline 0 Decrease in # of languages offset by population 0 explosion 7 Earliest instance of urbanization 0 Renfew -Bellwood Effect – decrease in deep-level 0 diversity, i.e. the number of language families 7 14
0 Question: Is language death a modern phenomenon? 0 Question: Are the causes of language death today compared to in early history different in kind or simply degree? Is language death today a fundamentally different phenomenon? 15
Counting Languages 0 What’s a language? L1 0 Mutual intelligibility L2 Dialect chain L3 L4 L5 16
Counting Languages 0 What’s a language? L1 0 Mutual intelligibility L2 L3 L4 L5 17
Counting Languages 0 What’s a language? L1 0 Mutual intelligibility L2 0 Politics 0 Chinese L3 = L1 or L2? L3 0 Serbo-Croation 0 Language attitudes 0 Scandanavian languages L4 L5 18
Counting Languages What ’s a speaker? 0 Are the numbers 0 Cultural knowledge = accurate? 5 0 linguistic knowledge 0 Self-reporting Do younger speakers 0 0 Out-of-date data count? 0 Under-reporting Knowledge of quotes, 0 proverbs 0 Australian Native Title 1 Do outsiders count? 0 0 Over-reporting Linguists? 0 0 A few phrases = speaker Non -ethnic community 0 members? 19
Ecological Metaphors 0 Originally 10,000 0 Responses: languages 0 Document them before 0 6,909 living languages left they die out 0 50% - 90% of those will go 0 Revitalization and extinct by 2100 reclamation programs 0 (Some) causes: 0 Government support for endangered languages 0 Globalization 0 Technology 0 Overt political repression 0 Cultural dominance 20
Ecological Metaphors 0 Language death / extinction 0 Competition 0 Language ecologies 0 Preservation / revitalization 0 Question: Are languages like organisms? How so? Why not? 0 Question: Which of these metaphors are useful? In what ways? 21
Language & Ecology 0 Clear correlation between linguistic and biological diversity 16 0 Language ecology – relationship between languages and the people who speak them 5, 6 0 Strong version – theory of language competition 13 0 Ecolinguistics – branch of language ecology 5 0 Discounts notion of competition 0 Focus on connection between language and their ‘habitat’ or social, political, and economic contexts 22
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0 Question: Are the causes of language death and biological extinction the same? 0 Question: Are the metaphors of language competition and ecologies useful? Or do they obscure the issues? 0 Question: Do languages compete/die/have habitats, or do speakers, or both? 0 Question: What terminology could we use that might more accurately represent these phenomena? 0 Question: Do you think any of the terminology we’ve discussed is offensive or denigrating? 24
0 Question: Languages naturally change and differentiate from each other over time. Is the rate of linguistic diversification equal to the rate of language shift / death? 0 Question: Should we distinguish different types of diversity? What types? 0 Question: Will dying languages be replaced by new ones? Will the rate of replacement equal the rate of extinction? 25
Language Birth Chinglish (China) 0 0 Pidgins and creoles Singlish (Singapore) 0 0 Revitalized languages Sheng (Nairobi) 0 Portu ñol (Brazil) 0 0 Linguistic diversification 0 Latin > Spanish, Catalan, Nubi (Arabic: Kenya) 0 Corsican, French, Afrikaans (S. Africa) 0 Gullah (S.E. U.S. coast) Italian, Galician, 0 Krio (Sierra Leone) 0 Mozarabic, Occitan, Kreyol (Liberia) 0 Portugese, Romansh Haitian Creole (Haiti) 0 0 Regular processes of Patwa (Dominica) 0 Ladino (Judeo -Spanish) historical change 0 26
Hunting for the Roots of the Language Shift 0 Question: How true are the following statements? 0 ‘Indigenous languages are dying because they can’t express concepts needed for the modern world.’ 0 ‘Indigenous languages are dying because they’re some of the most complex and hardest to learn.’ 0 Question: What is globalization? 0 Is globalization a cause or a result of language shift, or both? 0 How can globalization actually support linguistic diversity? 27
Overt and Covert Causes 0 Natural catastrophes 0 Linguistic nationalism 0 War and genocide 0 Economic conditions 0 Language policy 0 Political autonomy 0 Compulsory education 0 Language attitudes and associations 0 Revitalization efforts? 0 Technology? 28
Question : How is language shift in autochthonous 0 communities similar or different to language shift in immigrant communities? Question: Which is more important for understanding 0 language shift – the language a person speaks, or the language they teach their children? 29
How should we respond? 0 “it is most urgent to 0 “Let them die in document languages peace.” 11 before they disappear” 7 0 “It is paternalistic of 0 “our global village must linguists to assume that be truly multicultural they know what is best and multilingual, or it for the community.” 8 will not exist at all.” 14 0 “Patwa is keeping back 0 “Language death is a the children.” 15 terrible loss, to all who come into contact with it” 5 30
Subjectivity and Language 0 Question: Is the value of language objective or subjective? (Note: subjective ≠ arbitrary) 0 Question: Are languages mutually exclusive? Are they even in direct competition? 31
Conclusion 0 Language endangerment is complicated. 0 (Sorry if you were hoping for a straightforward conclusion.) 0 Overly simplistic representations don’t give us the insights we need to actually address the issue. 0 A great deal more research needs to be done in understanding the precise causes of language shift, so that communities can best address this phenomenon in the way that is most appropriate for them. 32
Contact Information Daniel W. Hieber Rosetta Stone dhieber@rosettastone.com Slides and other presentations available on website: www.danielhieber.com 33
Further Reading EndangeredLanguages.com 0 Dying Words by Nicholas Evans 0 When Languages Die by K. David Harrison 0 0 ‘Why do languages die?’ by Daniel W. Hieber 34
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