What is Language Death?

The language death is probably the most upsetting loss for a community. Not only it means the death of the language but also the death of a community. It occurs when a language is no longer used by more than one person. Even if there is a person who speaks the language, the language is considered to be dead. The reason it is a most important factor for a language, to be considered as a language, is to be able to make a conversation with that language which requires at least two people. The presence of books or word lists does not affect this criterion. Therefore, we can say if a language is spoken by at least two people, it is considered to be a living language. In this paper, we will try to explain the causes of language death and its effects on communities. 

Speakers usually do not renounce their languages but rather they stop transmitting them. The reason why they stop transmitting their languages is versatile. No matter how sensible the causes are, still, it is still not an acceptable situation for communities as well as linguists.

Language death has various causes such as social, cultural, economic, and military causes involving the mass loss of speakers. As well as these, another important cause is the parents’ tendency to transmit the language to their children.

If we want to examine better the factors of language death, we should commence with the usage of languages in community life. What we call community life is not, we all know, the social life but rather the official part of life. This part contains television, government, education and media. The different use of languages in the different parts of official units has a significant effect on language death. For instance in Iran, Persian is used in education and all the government agencies, yet, in the social life, the society speaks Kurdish Persian and Azerbaijani. Another example is in Morocco, where the official language is Arabic, French is used in government agencies and education. These may not affect elderly people because they tend to be more conservative and persistent about using their mother language. For young people, this case is much more different than others as social and school life are dominant in their lives, consequently, it may lead to the loss of their endangered languages. As well as the deterioration of the language. 

The other factor of language death is immigration, for sure. Immigrant people either stop using their mother language or they speak less than they used to do. People tend to speak the dominant language due to socio-economic reasons. The children of immigrant parents generally avoid using their mother language so as not to be judged or bullied and to be accepted by the natives. For immigrant people, racism is probably the most effective factor for them to abandon their languages as well as their culture. We will call this stage “gradual death”. This emerges from a decrease in the usage of the language and getting forgotten with time. As speakers forget more and more of the language, it becomes more difficult to recall old words. In brief, we can understand that education and social life have a considerable effect on gradual language death.

Another stage of language death is sudden death. Generally, the sudden death of the languages originates from genocides and natural disasters. These factors make society almost completely vanish. For instance, a volcanic eruption in 1815 on the island of Sumbawa in İndonesia, caused the extinction of the whole community with their language. In Ireland, language loss occurs due to be of historical and political reasons as well as population loss, and cultural and physical dislocation. Before the famine that happened in Ireland, the Irish were being used mostly. Famine has killed 1 million people and led to mass immigration of nearly 1,5 million. Another example is the genocide of the Yahi people. The last survivor Ishi is murdered by white settlers in California, unfortunately. It is not known how many languages have disappeared under similar circumstances without even having been recorded. The research about this concern is queasily carried out. 

A great number of endangered languages have been passed down only in a few word lists by amateur linguists. For instance, Elmendorf found the last speaker for each endangered language (Wappo and Yuki). Yet they were no longer using the languages actively. Laura Fish Semersal was the last person who was able to carry on a conversation in Wappo. She was using the language with her sister and mother, which caused the survival of Wappo for some time. She refused to get an education in English, therefore, she lived her life talking in Wappo and took the language with her. Another case is Arthur Anderson, the last person who speaks Yuki, unfortunately, stopped talking in Yuki due to assimilation and getting educated by English speakers. Now we will refer to the reasons why these two languages have died. These two tribes were indigenous and lived in California. They were living in peace, and they were able to carry on their languages until the invaders came. After the long wars between Wappo-Yuki and Europeans, most of them were killed and the survivors were colonized. They had to have intermarriage which consequently led to stopping using their languages and their assimilation.

When a language is highly stigmatized, many become reluctant to admit that they speak that language. Another example of this is the genocide in El Salvador which the Salvadoran soldiers killed every person that is identified as Indian either by dress or physical appearance. 25,000 of them were killed in this way, and eventually, this discouraged people from speaking their languages. Thus, caused the death of some languages such as Cacaopera. Like in these languages, a language may have effectively disappeared from active everyday use without being completely forgotten and rememberers may survive for generations.

Language death in Africa is a different kind of danger than in many other parts of the world. The reason behind this issue, surprisingly, is not globalization but the impact of languages such as English and French. Language loss is not usual but the replacement of languages is. This replacement between languages is not happening with colonial languages but rather between African languages. In this example, the Akie language, a traditional hunter-gatherer tribe in Tanzania, we can understand better the main factors that can be held responsible for language death.

The Akie language of Tanzania is endangered, in addition to that not everyone can speak Akie perfectly but only a certain group of them can. This naturally leads to the use of other languages, especially when one is not able to speak one’s mother language thoroughly, therefore, one can not transmit it properly. This factor is also a reason for language replacement. The main reason why they almost give up on their languages is that they are a minority, they have almost 500 speakers and are surrounded by a dominant language and culture. The dominant language is Maasai, which has over 1 million speakers. Also, the Akie people are economically and culturally dependent on the Maasai people, which is another reason for language replacement.

Despite all of these factors, the Akie language has not died because of the behavior they held so as not to lose their language. They did not let their language die and developed a “defensive culture”. Defensive culture may be the most effective way to protect both language and culture. To have further thought we will approach its manifestations to comprehend the defensive culture in a better way. 

Manifestations of defensive culture are traditional culture, language use, and language planning. Traditional culture is in which other people from other tribes are discouraged from participating in inherited cultural practices such as rituals, singing, and dances. For language use, they tend to keep the language as a “secret code” and therefore avoid using the language around foreigners. Lastly, for language planning, some scholars, inspect the language and try to keep it clean, determine the loanwords and discourage people from using them. Despite all these attempts, the Akie people failed to keep their language clean as their culture of theirs are quite combined and similar to Maasai, which also leads to the form of loanwords.

The things that we can do as individuals are restricted yet what can we do as a society is unlimited. Not to let our language die, we have to embrace the defensive culture. Being bilingual or multilingual is ordinary but the deterioration of the language is inevitable in some cases too. Now we will take a look at some projects and research that have been made to prevent language death.

Akuti APP is an application designed for recording and translating endangered languages in Africa. Akuti Project offers access to the endangered African languages. 

An Encounter with Extinction; with the explanation of Ngasa Land, researchers have made a collection of Kingasa oral literature.

The research Project “The Race Against Time” involves a comprehensive study and documentation of the Olusuba language which is spoken by the Akasuba people of Kenya.

A case study “The El Molo” is a study on the linguistic genocide of the El Molo people of Kenya.

The Benga Project aims to examine the unique oral literature of the Luo people.

So, we tried to explain the reasons for language death and make a brief explanation of the language death itself. There are two types of language death. Sudden death and gradual death. Sudden death is connected with the sudden loss of communities which can be caused by natural or political reasons such as genocides or wars. Gradual death is a longer process that may be the outcome of immigration as well as cultural, political, or economic reasons. In gradual death, the use of language is quite important. If a community develops a defensive culture, no restrictions can affect the language. What we call “defensive culture” has a few manifestations. These are traditional cultures in which foreigners are discouraged from attending inherited cultural practices; language use in which they keep the language a secret; and language planning is the process of inspecting the language and determining the loanwords.

In sudden death, the mass destruction of communities, the natural causes are more likely to be seen yet we should pay attention to genocides which could take a quite number of people. Whatever the case is, the death of languages is, indeed, a fact that is happening, maybe, without our recognition. Luckily, with the dedicated research of linguists or amateur researchers, a few languages are documented and therefore eternalized for instance. Elmendorf found the last speakers for each language which are Yuki and Wappo. Fortunately, languages are inspected before the last speaker’s death. Yet, unfortunately, one of them is assimilated and the Yuki language has eventually died. The person who speaks Wappo, one of the last ones, rejected the assimilation and died carrying the Wappo with herself. 

Then we take a closer look at language death in Africa. One may wonder why we chose this region specifically. In Africa the language death is, indeed substantially, not the replacement with a colonical language such as English or French but rather local languages. Therefore it is an unusual case of language death. We have mentioned about Akie and Maasai people which are rivals both economically and culturally. Despite all the pressures of the Maasai people, the Akie people saved their language with a defensive culture, which we have explained before. In a few words, language death can occur in every part of the world and has quite many reasons. Whatever the reason is, it is still tragic to watch a language die. What we can do about it is questionable but we can see the defensive culture as a solution.