Linguist Warns of Language Extinction (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Linguist Warns of Language Extinction

By Patrick Sheridan
Special to The Hoya
Tuesday, November 23, 2004; Page A1
http://www.thehoya.com/news/112304/news5.cfm

Oxford University English Language Professor Suzanne Romaine emphasized
the importance of preserving endangered languages in a speech Thursday
evening at the Leavey Conference Center.

"We should think about languages as other natural resources that require
preserving," she said.

Much of Romaine's speech focused on the diversity of languages around
the world, which she said was threatened by the emergence of global
languages like English.

"We are crossing a threshold of extinction for certain languages," she
said.

Romaine said that it was not until the 1990s that professional
linguistics began to be concerned about language death.

She identified three possible responses to this problem.

"One, do nothing. Two, document endangered languages. Or three, sustain
or revitalize endangered languages," she said.

Romaine noted that there are some linguists who claim that language
death is a natural process that should not be interrupted.

Romaine also said that most language death affects indigenous peoples
that are poorly-equipped to prevent it.

"Language death does not happen in the privileged communities, it
happens to the dispossessed and disempowered," she said.

While indigenous peoples make up only 4 percent of the world's
population, they speak 60 percent of its over 6,000 languages, Romaine
said.

Though many dismiss language death outside the industrialized world as
unimportant, Romaine said the loss of language diversity in the world
is a significant problem.

To emphasize that point, she described an analogy between language death
and building destruction.

Romaine said that if one-fifth of the world's buildings were endangered,
architects would care. Linguists should therefore care in protecting
languages, no matter where or by whom they are spoken, she said.

She insisted that at the very least there should be an effort to
document endangered languages. According to Romaine, even if these
languages no longer serve a practical purpose they should still be
recorded because knowledge is valuable in itself.

Romaine cautioned, however, that while technology has made documentation
of languages easier, it has also made the data more vulnerable and less
likely to endure for future generations.

"We will record more data than any other time but will probably lose
more data than any other time," Romaine warned.

Romaine also said that attempts to preserve and revitalize endangered
languages did not require the isolation of indigenous peoples.

"It is not about isolating endangered peoples and languages but at least
giving them a choice to continue their way of life," she said.

Romaine pointed to the Inuit people of North America as an example of an
endangered culture and language. She said that over the years, efforts
by the Canadian government to assimilate them had produced shame about
their cultural and linguistic identity.

In closing her speech, Romaine reasserted the need to stem language
death and said that steps need to be taken to empower local
populations.

Romaine is a visiting professor for the year at Georgetown, serving in
the Linguistics Department. She is this year's recipient of the Royden
B. Davis, S.J., Chair in Interdisciplinary Studies.

Her speech was delivered as the annual Royden B. Davis, S.J., Lecture in
Interdisciplinary Studies.