In Class Essay - Should we be saving the world's languages?

 Here's the in-class essay that I wrote today, responding to an article that I read in the past week about language.

Should We Be Saving The World’s Languages?

Language is one of the things that make us human.  No other creature on this planet has such an extensive range of communication as we do.  Even beyond that, humans have a multitude of different languages that are used around the world every second.  From the two major dialects of Chinese in China (Mandarin and Cantonese) to Italian in Italy and English in America, the world is a hotbed of different languages.  There are, unfortunately, languages that have not been able to stand the test of time and have died out, becoming “extinct” languages.  The most prominent of these extinct languages is Latin, which is no longer used conversationally anymore, learned mostly for scholarly practices.  There are hundreds of other languages that have died out as globalization has spread, most of these being small languages known only to a specific tribe or region.  Some languages are on the brink of extinction, and a lot of these can be found in New York City, where researchers are trying to preserve the languages.  We should take steps to preserve dying languages, but ultimately, let them follow their natural course and go “extinct” from human speech.

            These languages need to be preserved in one way or another, most probably through audio recordings and some examples of the writing, if there is any, for a multitude of reasons.  Language is intimately connected to culture – without a culture for it to rest on, or vice-versa, the other generally dies out.  By documenting these dying languages, we can revisit the roots of more commonly spoken languages.  In the article Listening to (and saving) the world’s languages, a speaker of the dying language Garifuna says that “Here, I teach [my children] their history…The fact that they’re speaking it is empowerment in itself” (Roberts).  This man is teaching his children their culture through their language, which shows that language is tied to culture, and the bond is very powerful.

            However, this heartwarming story is part of a losing battle.  Experts worldwide predict that this hotbed of languages will die out anytime from 20 to 30 years from now.  No matter what resources are put into this, these languages are inevitably going to go out of use.  The teacher of the language will die, the students will marry others who do not share this language, disallowing it to be passed on to the next generation.  A linguist expert, Juliette Blevins, says that this extinction is “the inevitable consequence of globalization”, while the United Nations agrees that “a language will probably disappear…if the population of native speakers is too small and in decline” (Roberts).  Sadly, this is exactly what’s happening – the populations are isolated and in massive decline, with almost no hope of growth. 

            The sad truth is that these languages are going to die out from speaking existence.  In a hundred years at the most, the languages mentioned in the article, such as Garifuna and Mamuju will have no speakers left.  A descendant may know a couple of phrases or words picked up from their parents, but that will be the extent of it.  Instead of pretending the inevitable death of these languages is not going to occur, there needs to be an effort to preserve them while we can, for cultural purposes. An example of this would be a museum exhibit, showing the origins of these defunct languages and how they died out.  Languages have a life expectancy, just like humans, only longer.  English has only been around for a little while, relatively, who knows, English could become an extinct language as well.