More Than Half of All Languages in the World Are in Danger of Disappearing (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

More Than Half of All Languages in the World Are in Danger of
Disappearing

Written by Marilyn Christiano
25 October 2005
http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/2005-10-25-voa1.cfm

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VOICE ONE:

I’m Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Faith Lapidus with Explorations in VOA Special English. Today we
tell about the loss of languages and attempts to save them.

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VOICE ONE:

About six thousand languages are spoken in the world today.  But experts
estimate that more than half of them are in danger of disappearing.  The
endangered languages are spoken by some older members of native groups,
but not used for everyday life by younger members.  As the old people
die, the language dies with them.

VOICE TWO:

Until recently, most people were not worried about the loss of
languages. There was much more concern about the loss of different
kinds of plants and animals.  Now, scientists, cultural experts and
many other people are concerned about protecting the different
languages in the world. They know that when a language is lost, the
culture and much of the knowledge of the native community may be lost
with it.

Languages are the means by which people seek to explain the world they
live in. Information about the natural world, such as plants that can
be used to heal, often is lost when the language dies.  Some experts
say the death of any language is a loss for everyone, not just for the
native people who once spoke it.

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VOICE ONE:

During the last century, government suppression of native languages was
common around the world, including the United States.  In eighteen
sixty-eight, Ulysses S. Grant appointed a federal committee to try to
make peace with American Indian tribes.  The tribes were fighting to
protect their lands.

The committee decided that language differences were the problem.  It
said that all people in the United States should speak the same
language so they would think the same way.  It said American Indian
children should be taken from their homes and sent to live in
government boarding schools where they would speak only English.

The federal government established its first boarding school for
American Indian children in eighteen seventy-nine.  Children were
punished if they spoke their native languages.  For fifty years,
thousands of Native American children were sent to these schools to
live, work and be educated in English.  By the late nineteen thirties,
many of the schools had closed. But their effects on American Indian
languages continued.

VOICE TWO:

In the nineteen sixties, interest in saving native cultures and
languages grew.  Government policies changed.  By nineteen sixty-eight,
the American government helped start some of the first tribal language
programs in the public school system.

In nineteen ninety, a Native American organization reported to Congress
about the importance of saving and using tribal languages. It said
information about the past and about spiritual, ceremonial and natural
worlds is passed on through spoken language.  Without the language, the
group said, a culture can be damaged beyond repair.

That year the United States Congress passed the Native American
Languages Act.  It established a federal policy aimed at saving the
languages of American Indian tribes.  But the years of government
attempts to force American Indians to speak English meant many tribal
languages were in danger or dead.

VOICE ONE:

Government suppression is not the only reason languages are lost around
the world. Younger people leave their native communities to get jobs in
cities where they use only the language of the majority.  Wars, floods,
lack of rain, or loss of land to development can force members of a
community to leave their traditional homelands. They flee to other
countries to live with speakers of other languages.  And in recent
years, television, movies and the Internet have made English a
worldwide language of communication.

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VOICE TWO:

The United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization is
trying to solve this problem.  It has been taking steps to develop
international policies to support native cultures and save endangered
languages.  In two thousand one, Unesco passed the Universal
Declaration on Cultural Diversity.  It has several goals: To protect
all languages.  To support the use and teaching of native languages at
all levels of education. And to help provide other languages on the
Internet.

VOICE ONE:

Unesco has a new project to help save languages.  It is called the
Register of Good Practices in Language Preservation.  It is collecting
reports of successful experiences of communities in creating new
speakers of their languages. These include developing school programs,
training teachers, creating pride in a community and developing
computer programs in a native language.  The information gathered will
be shared through the Internet.

VOICE TWO:

The Indigenous Language Institute is a center in the United States for
efforts to save native languages.  It began in nineteen ninety-two. 
The headquarters of the institute is in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Inee Slaughter is the director of the organization.  Miz Slaughter says
the guiding principle of the institute is to help create speakers of
native languages.   Miz Slaughter says a language is not a living
language unless it is spoken.  She says the Indigenous Language
Institute must act quickly because within ten years it may be
impossible to save many of the languages.  Speakers of native languages
are dying faster than new speakers are learning the language.

VOICE ONE:

The Indigenous Language Institute has worked with about one hundred
tribes to help them find ways to keep their languages alive.  Miz
Slaughter says the institute is reaching out to all tribes through its
Internet Web site, www.indigenous-language.org.  On the Web site, there
are examples of successful language programs, reports about conferences
and links to other organizations working to save languages.

VOICE TWO:

One of the Indigenous Language Institute’s projects is the publication
of a series of books called “Awakening Our Languages.”  A team of
tribal language experts visited fifty-four tribes in the United States.
 The team wanted to find out how many members of the tribe spoke the
native language and what was being done to increase the number of
speakers.  Information about successful programs and methods of
teaching languages are included in the series.

Another project is the Language Materials Development Center.  Experts
are developing and testing language materials as models for communities
to use.  The institute is also providing technical training so Native
language speakers can use computers as tools for teaching languages.

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VOICE ONE:

Experts are trying many methods to increase speakers of endangered
languages.  Some projects are small.  For example, a language speaker
and a learner meet every day for an hour to talk.  Other projects are
large, such as schools where students are taught only in their native
language.

Miz Slaughter says that one success story is in the American state of
Hawaii. In nineteen eighty-three Native Hawaiians began to teach their
own language to very young children.  They started creating an
immersion school where only the Hawaiian language would be used.  The
idea was based on a school established by the Maori people in New
Zealand.

VOICE TWO:

Hawaii’s Punana Leo or “language nest” project began with a group of
young children in pre-school.  Now there are eleven pre-schools in the
Punana Leo project.  And there are several schools where students from
ages three to eighteen are taught all subjects in Hawaiian.  When the
project began, fewer than fifty children in Hawaii spoke Hawaiian.

Today, almost two thousand children are able to speak their native
language. Parents of the students are very involved in the Punana Leo
schools.  Some of them are learning the language along with their
children so they can speak Hawaiian at home.  Miz Slaughter says family
involvement is important so the language is used outside of the school
walls.  A language needs to be used and spoken in all activities of
everyday life to be alive in the future.

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VOICE ONE:

This program was written by Marilyn Christiano.  It was produced by
Mario Ritter. I’m Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Faith Lapidus.  Join us again next week for EXPLORATIONS in VOA
Special English.