[lg policy] New York Today: Our Disappearing Languages

[Fierman, William]

New York Today: Our Disappearing Languages

New York Today

By ALEXANDRA S. LEVINE JUNE 21, 2016

Ross Perlin, master linguist. Credit Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Updated, 10:22 a.m.

Aloha kakahiaka ma kēia Poʻalua nei!

That means “Good morning on this Tuesday” in Hawaiian.

But you’ve probably never heard that, or any Hawaiian, at your corner bodega or on the subway platform.

Though New York City is one of the most linguistically diverse spots on Earth, Hawaiian — along with roughly half of the world’s six or seven thousand languages — has been in danger of going extinct.

According to research from the Endangered Language Alliance, a local nonprofit that identifies, documents and teaches dying languages, many of the 600 to 800 languages spoken in New York are endangered.

(Not a surprise: Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Korean and Haitian Creole are the Big Five in the five boroughs, after English.)

The dwindling is less about numbers than it is about “intergenerational transmission”: Endangerment happens when children are no longer learning the language.

“It’s an ongoing process that’s akin to the loss of diversity of plant and animal species,” said the alliance’s assistant director, Ross Perlin.

Take Gottscheerisch, for example: It’s a variety of the Germanic language from what is now Slovenia.

Some of the last speakers in the world live in Ridgewood, Queens, Mr. Perlin said.

Or Judeo-Kashani, spoken by the Jewish peoples of the city of Kashan in Iran, which lives on here among just a few individuals around Great Neck and Roslyn on Long Island.

Himalayan languages are also hanging on by a thread in Elmhurst and Jackson Heights, Queens, and Ditmas Park, Brooklyn.

And the Arawakan Garifuna language in the Bronx and Circassian languages in pockets of New Jersey.

In many cases, a culture dies with its words.

“Language is the bellwether,” Mr. Perlin said. “It’s hard to maintain the full richness, depth and complexity of a culture without its languages.”

You can learn more about vanishing mother tongues this evening at the New York Public Library. 6:30 p.m. [Free, register here]
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