Languages: We must save dying tongues (2014)
Hundreds of languages worldwide are at risk of extinction, with experts estimating that up to 90% of the 6,500 remaining languages could disappear by the end of the century. Linguists and native speakers like Tom Belt are working to preserve endangered languages such as Cherokee, which face decline due to cultural assimilation, historical persecution, and lack of intergenerational transmission. Efforts to save these languages highlight the broader loss of cultural identity and knowledge that accompanies linguistic extinction.
- ▪Around 400 languages have gone extinct in the past century, with one disappearing approximately every three months.
- ▪Tom Belt is a fluent Cherokee speaker who recognized the urgency of language loss when he realized few others in his community could speak Cherokee.
- ▪Linguist David Harrison notes that the smaller the number of speakers, the harder it is to accurately count them, especially as many are elderly and isolated.
- ▪Salikoko Mufwene, a linguist who speaks Kiyansi from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, found his own fluency diminished after decades away from native speakers.
- ▪Historical policies, such as Native American boarding schools in the US and Canada, actively suppressed indigenous languages by forbidding their use.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Languages: Why we must save dying tongues6 June 2014ShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleRachel NuwerFeatures correspondent(Getty Images)Hundreds of our languages are teetering on the brink of extinction, and as Rachel Nuwer discovers, we may lose more than just words if we allow them to die out.Tom Belt, a native of Oklahoma, didn’t encounter the English language until he began kindergarten. In his home, conversations took place in Cherokee.Belt grew up riding horses, and after college bounced around the country doing the rodeo circuit. Eventually, he wound up in North Carolina in pursuit of a woman he met at school 20 years earlier. “All those years ago, she said the thing that attracted her to me was that I was the youngest Cherokee she’d ever met who could speak Cherokee,” he says.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Bbc.
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