Language Death: Part Two

VITALITY OF THE LANGUAGES

There are ways to assume the vitality of a language. One of them could be looking at the number of speakers; speaking that language. For example, the vitality of a language would be quite strong if the number of people speaking would be in thousands in a region. Whereas, the language might suffer adversely to survive in a region where only 100 speakers speak the language.

UNESCO has given nine parameters which it uses to evaluate the vitality of a language based on as follows:

1. Vulnerable languages: Languages that are spoken by adults and children.

2. Severely endangered languages: Languages that are spoken by older generations only.

3. Extinct languages: Languages that have lost all its speaker.

4. Critically endangered languages: Languages that are no longer spoken by elderly speakers who rarely converse in it.

THE NEED TO BE WORRIED ABOUT LANGUAGE DEATH

“Our language is the reflection of ourselves. A language is an exact reflection of the character and growth of its speakers,” says Cesar Chavez, the civil rights activist. Language is not a way of speaking or giving meaning to your words, thoughts, or opinions. Language is identity. Identity of a person, community, and even culture. Language is deeply rooted in every culture whether vast or small. Language and culture are interrelated without the other; there would be a missing factor. It gives a sense of belongingness to the person speaking. It is something to take pride in but alas, more and more languages are dying; losing their speakers.

Without a language that represents your own identity; is as if a part of your identity missing. Language also provides information about humankind. Linguists have learned a lot from them e.g., endangered languages do expose various intellectual profundity than the known languages. Loss of language can affect human knowledge too. There were so many ancient cities that have perished into nothing with no trace left behind. If looking from a historical perspective, with no trace of its civilization, language seems to be the important factor to know about the ancient city. Pompeii was the city that had Oscan as the official language before Latin replaced it. Language plays a vital role in a culture. It defines many cultural aspects that consist of poetry and traditional songs that are written in a language. So, the loss of a language can affect a communities’ culture.

METHODS FOR LANGUAGE REVIVAL

Due to dying languages that disappear every 14 days, it is vital to revive the lost language for the economic, social, and cultural aspects. One question that does come to mind when we consider a revival of a language is—Do we want to revive a language alone or a language with its culture?

Language does play a pivot role in developing and transmitting culture so language and culture go hand-in-hand and they are inseparable (Amery 1994). Traditional cultures can be revived through their various activities like fishing, pottery, singing which will also boost the aim of the revival of the language.

• Total immersion method

The total immersion method uses the threatened language and teaches it to learners; exposing them to only hear and speak that language in conversations. It is said that this method can be beneficial for producing a fully fluent speaker of the extinct language. e.g., Māori is an example of the total-immersion method.

• Bilingual method

This method has been significant in the revival of the language due to its feature of maintaining both the endangered and dominant language. Tsunoda (2006) further divides the bilingual approach into two models: Transitional and parallel. The transitional model deals with teaching the minority language to the learners then gradually moving to the dominant language. The parallel model deals with using the minority and dominant languages been used simultaneously in teaching. E.g., the Tapirapé language from central Brazil is an example of the bilingual method.

• Language reclamation method

This method is concerned with extinct languages. After the loss of language, this method is used to revive the language through the recorded database available. Language revival and language reclamation are two different things. Language revival focuses on revival from the native speakers of the endangered languages while language reclamation is based on revival through recorded documentation of the endangered language.