LL-L: "Language death" LOWLANDS-L, 13.FEB.2001 (01)

[Lowlands-L]

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 A=Afrikaans, Ap=Appalachean, D=Dutch, E=English, F=Frisian, L=Limburgish
 LS=Low Saxon (Low German), S=Scots, Sh=Shetlandic, Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
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From: Kahn, Gabriele [GKahn at easy.de]
Subject: Article on abcnews: Languages in danger of extinction

This is an Internet news article of Feb 9
(http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/language010209.html).

Word to the Wise
Languages Are in Danger of Extinction
In 1974, Ned Madrell died on the Isle of Man, and with him died the Manx
language, lost to the world - forever. A similar end awaited the Ubykh
language. When farmer Tefvik Esemic died in rural Turkey in 1992, so did
Ubykh.
As the world's youth increasingly shun native languages in their bid to fit
in to mainstream society and the languages that dominate, the future of many
languages rests with older members of tribes and communities. In the next
100 years, experts estimate 90 percent of the world's languages will be
extinct or virtually extinct.
A UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) report released Thursday warns
thousands of languages may disappear and with it, vast reserves of the
world's culture and traditions. The world currently houses between 5,000 and
7,000 spoken languages, with more than 2,500 estimated to be in very real
danger of extinction. Of these, says Graham Dutfield of the Oxford Center
for the Environment, Ethics and Society and one of the authors of the
report, more than 553 are in imminent peril as they are spoken by only up to
100 people. "When you reach a situation where there are 1,000 speakers or
less who speak a mother tongue, the language is in danger," says Dutfield.
Forced Off the Globe
But most people who are born into one or two of the world's "mega-languages"
such as English, Spanish, French or Arabic understand just how imperative
the pull of these languages can be. As globalization ratchets up the volume
of trade and the mass media spreads a culture packaged in televisions, CDs
and walkmans, the death bells of indigenous languages have been pealing
louder than ever before. "Language has always changed throughout history,"
said Dutfield. "But the commercial pressure to assimilate has never been
stronger than in the past 10 years."
A number of the world's languages have disappeared thanks to conquerors,
colonizers, dictators and individuals with a zest to change things. In some
of the more notable cases, Welsh schoolchildren at the start of the 20th
century were beaten for not speaking English, and many young Australian
Aborigines were taken away from their parents and adopted by whites to
"help" them assimilate. Last year, both the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs
and the Canadian government formally apologized for preventing native
inhabitants from speaking their languages. But a cultural resurgence in many
parts of Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand has seen concerted
movements to preserve languages. On the Isle of Man, for instance, there has
been a movement to teach young children Manx.
Losing More Than Language
The problem, said Dutfield, becomes pressing among indigenous peoples who
are increasingly coming in contact with the outside world and are in danger
of being swallowed by it. Nearly 4,000 to 5,000 of the world's languages are
classed as indigenous. The real danger, according to experts, is that when a
language dies, not only does the world's linguistic diversity receive a
blow, but entire systems of knowledge are lost. "Languages are repositories
of vast systems of knowledge," says Dutfield. "When a language dies, we do
not know how much we are losing with it."
However, the Internet has enabled a number of languages in the throes of
death to live to cyberspace. With audio files and embedded texts, a number
of languages are being given a chance to survive, even if it's only in a
virtual world.

Greetings,
Gabriele

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