Disappearing Languages (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Disappearing Languages

Native tongues facing extinction on a global scale; British Columbian
languages among those at greatest risk

By Joan Delaney
Epoch Times Victoria Staff
Oct 05, 2007
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-10-5/60393.html

[photo inset - Mary John Senior's death in 2004 meant there was one less
person left speaking the endangered Carrier language in Prince George. In
her long and accomplished life, John wrote Stony Creek Woman, co-founded
the Yinka Dene Language Institute, and received the Order of Canada and the
Queen's Jubilee Medal. (Bill Poser)]

Around the world, hundreds of indigenous languages, some as old as 10
thousand years, are dying off at an alarming rate.

In many regions, languages are heading for extinction at the rate of one
every 14 days. Some are hanging on by a thread, being spoken by only one or
a few people.

A National Geographic project called Enduring Voices has identified five
global "hotspots" where a large number of languages are in danger of
disappearing: the Pacific Northwest, Oklahoma southwest, northern
Australia, central and eastern Siberia, and central South America.

The Enduring Voices researchers found that more than 500 of the world's
languages may be spoken by fewer than 10 people. The current rapid decline,
they say, is without precedent in history.

The threat level in the Pacific Northwest, which includes British Columbia
and parts of Washington State, Oregon and Alaska, is rated in the study as
being severe. Only northern Australia and a region of South America are
facing a more rapid language loss.

Linguists lament that as a language disappears, it takes with it a vast
storehouse of irreplaceable knowledge about the natural world, eco-systems,
and cultural traditions that have been accrued over thousands of years.

"A host of linguistic structures are also lost," says linguist Gregory
Anderson. "It's a collective loss to humanity that's going on here."

Director of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages in Oregon,
Anderson says the Haida language of B.C.'s Queen Charlotte Islands and
Alaska, with only about 50 elderly speakers left, is "absolutely in a
desperate situation."

Anderson says the Haida language, which consists of two dialects, is
"fascinating" because it appears to be unrelated to any other language in
the world. This makes it unique. "When it goes, that's one whole lineage
that goes out with it," he says.

British Columbia is home to over 60 percent of Canada's indigenous
languages. However, of the 36 languages remaining in the province, 13 are
spoken by fewer than 50 people each, none of whom are under the age of 15,
according to Bill Poser, an adjunct professor at the University of British
Columbia.

"Once children stop routinely learning the language it's gone. Even
languages that have thousands of speakers left, if they're all beyond
childbearing age then the language is on its death bed," says Poser, a
linguist who studies the Carrier language in Prince George, which is also
endangered.

While all the native languages in B.C. are in serious decline and three have
already become extinct, several other native languages continue to be passed
down elsewhere in Canada, such as Cree, Inuktitut, Ojibway, Slave and
Dogrib.

Although the reasons indigenous languages and are vanishing are many and
varied, it is generally agreed that the greatest blow was dealt by
colonialism. Many regions where languages are most threatened are located
in countries where colonial-era governments punished natives for speaking
their own tongue.

Because the dialects formed the territorial boundaries of the different
nations and established who owned what land, destroying those dialects was
an integral part of the "colonial takeover," says Kevin Annett, author of
Hidden From History: The Canadian Holocaust.

In the last 500 years, it is estimated that half of the world's languages
have become extinct. Researchers say that local languages are now
disappearing faster than at any time in history; of the remaining 7,000
languages in the world, at least half are expected to disappear by the end
of the century.

However, efforts are being made in many communities around the world to
record and preserve their language before the last speakers die. To support
such efforts, the Living Tongues Institute provides help at the grassroots
level to communities of various sizes.

In British Columbia, First Voices, which provides a selection of web-based
tools and services designed to support aboriginal people engaged in
language archiving, language teaching and culture revitalization, currently
has 26 communities archiving their languages.

One of the tricky and time-consuming parts is writing down a language that
has only ever existed in oral form, as is the case for many native
languages.

"It was recognized in the relatively recent past that in order to be able to
keep a record of these languages they would need to be written down, so
various forms of writing systems were devised," says Peter Brand,
coordinator of First Voices.

"We cater to all of those and they're all quite unique—every single language
that's currently documented at First Voices uses a different writing system
of one kind or another."

The Queen Charlottes Haida run the Skidegate Haida Immersion Program, where
the elders teach the language and share legends and oral history with the
younger generations.

In Alaska, a range of Haida classes is being offered in several Haida
communities, and the University of Alaska Southeast offers Haida classes.
The University of British Columbia is currently offering courses in
Musqueam, Plains Cree and Dakelh.

During his 10 years at Kuper Island Residential School, Duncan resident
Delmar Johnny was strapped and had his mouth washed out with soap if he
spoke his Coast Salish language of Hul'q'umi'num.

Now, however, along with his children, 61 year-old Johnny is re-learning the
language, which he says "really creates meaning" that can't be explained in
English.

"I stayed away from anything to do with my language until my later life," he
says. "Then I started to realize that I needed my language. I'm an Indian, I
need to be that."

One of Johnny's nephews who speaks Hul'q'umi'num fluently was taught
one-on-one by an elder. He now has the honour of speaking at longhouse
functions.

However, while efforts to learn, document and archive languages ensure their
survival as "written vehicles of culture," they have no hope of bringing
back a language that's on the brink of extinction into common use, says
Poser.

Hebrew and Welsh were endangered in the past, but they survived because they
had large populations and received state support. State support also allowed
a revival of Hawaiian and the Maori dialects of New Zealand. However,
neither had been reduced to the point where they were no longer spoken by
the children.

To boost a language that has been reduced to a few elderly speakers, Poser
says a full immersion program above the pre-school level is necessary, and
the only place that's currently happening in British Columbia is at the
Chief Atahm School in the Shuswap community in Adams Lake.

The program has been "an outstanding success" in that five classes have so
far graduated students speaking fluent Shuswap, and if they continue to use
the language outside of school they'll retain it, says Poser.

Even so, it takes much more than that to ensure the survival of a language.

"The problem is that these kids are a minority in their community. The
question is then will they stay there and marry each other and bring up the
kids in the language. Unfortunately, the odds are not very good that that
will happen."

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