Nearly Extinct Languages

Languages are not just for communication

Languages are not just for communication. It is a social product and the transmitter of culture. It means that languages are the reflection of the songs, stories, traditions of the current generation as well as the past. It is a reflection of the society and the culture we live in. Linguists would often say that to understand language, you would need to immerse yourself on the culture behind the language, and vice versa.

Languages change along the changes that society and culture experience. It is dynamic, new words are being introduced sometimes influenced by other languages. The life of a language can be measured if a population that speaks it as a primary language still continues to live. But when the population of the native speakers is gone, the language is often categorized or referred to as an extinct language. Even if there are still younger generations left, if they choose to speak a different language as their tongue, then the language could still be considered extinct.

Latin is an extinct language. Before it is included in subjects taught in school, later on, it was removed and modern and more important subjects replaced it. Even if the language is still extinct, it does not mean that nobody can speak it. There are still people who can speak Latin, but it is not used as a language for communication. But Latin inspired or infused with other words to produce more words.

Another situation that may lead to the extinction of a language would be through eradication or genocide of the entire population who speaks the tongue. There could be survivors but they be merged into other cultures and eventually adapt these cultures as their own. This would be the case of Native American tribes.

Linguists and experts have agreed that the rate of extinction of language is becoming alarming. According to the New York Times and National Geographic, there is one language dying in every fourteen days. By 2100, about 7,000 languages would be extinct. This would be more than half of the languages we currently have. There are five places where the extinction of language is happening fast, it is in Northern Australia, Central South America, North America's upper Pacific coastal zone, Eastern Siberia and Oklahoma and southwestern United States. Sad to hear, is that there are about 500 languages which are spoken by less than ten people.

To deal with this, there are projects which aim to help prevent the extinction of languages. The first one would be identifying the places where language extinction occurs. These language recovery programs would include recording of the endangered language, and conduct studies that would help experts and linguists determine how language and cultural diversity affects the endangered language. These programs also aim to increase the awareness of the public about this issue.

Unfortunately, the public are still not aware the effects of language extinction. Some would say that the extinction of a language would be justified enough because the language is obsolete. Actually, the strong link of language to culture and the people's world view are among the things that would be most affected.

The extinction of languages is not just about the death or loss of a different set of vocabulary and words. In a bigger sense, it would signify the loss of a culture and history imbedded on the language itself.

by: Boris C.

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