John Ross presses the claims of disappearing languages in When a Language Dies:
Because just a few people speak most of the world’s languages—4% of the world’s people speak 96% of its languages—most linguistic systems are extremely vulnerable to the vicissitudes of life and death.
Linguistic diversity flourishes in the south—half of the world’s languages are concentrated in just eight countries: Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Australia, India, Nigeria, Cameroon, Brazil, and Mexico. Mexico’s Oaxaca state, smaller than Portugal, is host to 16 distinct ethnic groups and speaks more languages than all of Europe.
“Cuando muere una lengua
todo lo que hay en el mundo,
mares y rios,
animales y plantas,
ni se piensen, ni se pronuncian
con atisbos, con sonidos,
que no existan ya.”
“When a language dies,
all that there is in this world,
oceans and rivers,
animals and plants,
do not think of them,
do not pronounce their names,
they do not exist now.”
If each language was a room than Mexico would be a great mansion of 62 rooms, linguist/poet/historian Carlos Montemayor reflected at a recent presentation of a newly translated volume of Mexican indigenous poetry. “These languages are not dialects but rather complete linguistic systems. Purepecha is as complete as Greek, Maya as complete as Italian. There are no superior language systems. All have grammar and syntax and vocabulary and etymology. It is an expression of cultural racism to consider indigenous languages to be dialects.”
Of course it’s not necessarily a huge tragedy every time a language dies, but it is a shame if you enjoy diversity, and if it can be prevented or delayed by helping people record and pass on their own languages, I’m all for it. And I do enjoy rants on the subject. People should be passionate about language! (Yes, even the people who are wrong-headedly passionate about changes in English; I deplore their ignorance but admire their passion.)
Via wood s lot.