Esteemed linguist John McWhorter has published an article on the coming century in language evolution. Working on the idea that 90% of the world’s 6,000 languages will not survive to be in use in 2109, Mr. McWhorter then tells us why that’s not such a bad thing for him.
The basis for his argument is that the desire to keep these remote languages, such as the recently-extinct Eyak language, which had been spoken in Alaska, alive and in use is the product of purely aesthetic motives. Basically, keeping a language alive does not keep a culture alive and a culture does not completely die off when its language is considered dead. The argument is quite cogent and the article is well worth a read.
However, I do have to disagree with some of what he said. The first is that reducing the desire to preserve languages that are moving toward extinction is not merely an “aesthetic” approach. Mr. McWorther alludes to the idea that imperialism and expansionism are the ugly forebearers of today’s hegemony of English around the globe. But it would appear that he doesn’t appreciate how crucial it is to the psyche of people whose native language has not traditionally been English. Though the fact that knowledge of English is so prevalent throughout the world means that there are billions of potential readers of this blog, but when it reaches the point of obliterating the traditional local language (and this applies to any dominant language in a region, of course), then it is NOT simply a matter of aesthetics; instead it is yet another example of the wasteful destruction of indigenous resources through the philosophy of “might makes right” (here: we dominate you culturally, so you must abandon everything your culture has built over centuries).
Granted, my approach is a bit romantic and the more pragmatic and realistic perspective would be that unifying global communication through the proliferation of English benefits more people throughout the world than isolating people with language barriers. But I also believe that it is undeniably true that the development of languages over the course of centuries is a reflection of a volksgeist that cannot be brushed away with the notion of aesthetics.
For now, I will leave my thoughts at that…I have a feeling I will return later with more.
Tags: dead language, endangered languages, English, expansionism, languages, linguist, local language, McWhorter
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To add more controversy to McWorther and Scott J.´s opinions I would like to quote the famous aphorism: “A language is a dialect with an army and navy”. Regards, AT
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1. What’s being destroyed?
If language death is indeed an example of the “wasteful destruction of indigenous resources,” I fail to see just what resources are being destroyed here. It is a mistake to imagine that the death of a language as a native tongue somehow amounts to the death of all the knowledge that can be gleaned from it, or all ability to access it. All that McWhorter concerned himself with in the article was the death of languages as an everyday medium for communication. The question of whether a language remains *spoken* as a first language is entirely separate from a language being *known.* Many dead languages (such as Coptic, Classical Arabic and, before the 20th century, Hebrew) remained accessible and valuable to the groups and cultures that once used them without being spoken *natively* by anyone. Moreover, they retain their value and usefulness to linguists by having been well-described or well-attested.
2. Who’s really the imperialist?
On a further note, the idea (which this post seems to take for granted) that groups, nations and cultures are somehow having English foisted on them without their getting a say in the matter is simply not true.
Many of those worried about language death will say that it is a language’s speakers, not any external authority, which should decide whether the language should be saved. I couldn’t agree more. The problem is that many times a language’s speakers simply do not care, at least not in sufficient numbers. For example, fewer and fewer Maltese speakers are likely to keep passing the language on to their children, not because the government is forcing them to, not because kids are being beaten in school for speaking Maltese, but simply because some Maltese (particularly of the upper classes) do not see fit to speak the language to their children. Moreover, Maltese, with all its proverbs, folk songs and typological quirks, is extremely well-documented, so the language’s death probably wouldn’t rob the world’s collective storehouse of knowledge. Nonetheless, if, in a century or three, Maltese is on the verge of extinction as a result of this process, it would surprise me greatly if the relevant scholarly communities didn’t wag their proverbial finger at the Maltese government for not preserving an indigenous linguistic treasure.
The same is true of many minority languages in the world today, which are dying simply because their speakers, for one reason or another, no longer see the point. Scolding these communities and the governments under which they thrive for allowing this to happen seems supremely arrogant, and, from a certain perspective, imperialistic. I would ask what gives anyone the right to declare that they have any authority to decide what should happen to a language community that they do not themselves belong to. What makes *anyone* better equipped to decide a language’s fate than the language’s speakers themselves?
And no, not all language communities want to let their language die out. And they’re not letting it happen either: Cornish has recently been brought back from the dead (literally) by a sizable group of people who have raised their children to be the first native Cornish-speakers in a century. Occitan-speakers are beginning to make a comeback as well. And yes, there are other language communities (like Ainu, for example) which *do* suffer oppression and stigmatization to such a degree that they’re *afraid* to speak it to anyone, even their children. But to pretend that language death is always bad, or always an unwanted violation of cultural integrity, or always destructive, is quite simply specious.
3. It’s not just English
English isn’t the only language which is swallowing others up. Many languages which have recently died have been replaced not by English, but by other non-European languages. In Tanzania, almost all Ongamo speakers have abandoned their native language in favor of Chagga, a more prestigious Bantu language. The erstwhile Kore speakers of Lamu Island have abandoned their ancestral language in favor of Somali (the language of the people that enslaved them in the 19th century.) This isn’t a phenomenon unique to Europe’s colonizing powers, but something far more universal. Is anyone wagging their finger at Chagga-speakers for having a more prestigious language than Ongamo? Should they?
4. Today’s imperialistic hegemony is tomorrow’s cultural diversity
Furthermore, many minority languages (some dying, some marginalized, and some vibrant) are only spoken today because of past imperialism. Would Occitan and Aragonese even exist if the Roman empire had overwhelmed the Celtic and Paeleoiberian languages of Gaul and Hispania? Would Scottish Gaelic exist if a Gaelic-speaking elite had not colonized Scotland, displacing languages like Pictish? Would Mayan languages have nearly as many speakers as they do had a sizable number of those speakers’ ancestors not been subjugated by the Mayan empire?
One could respond by saying that it does not matter, that two wrongs don’t make a right, and that English is obliterating languages that people have historically considered to be their own. But groups that forsake their native languages for English are *also* making the language their own. People haven’t changed all that much.
Indian English-speakers, whose country adopted English as a result of imperialism, manifest this phenomenon today. They create their own idioms like “Himalayan blunder” (meaning roughly something “Epic fail” in American English) or “tiffin box” for a snack between meals. Sometimes they use existing words in a new way as when they use “brother” to describe any male relative of one’s own generation, be it a sibling or a third cousin (a practice which makes sense in cultures where people live in large extended family households and the distinction between sibling and cousin is of minimal significance.) This is hardly western hegemony at work.
Moreover, this poster seems to ignore the fact that imperialism and colonialism have not just resulted in language-death, but language-birth as well. The myriad creoles spoken throughout the former colonial world wouldn’t be here *either* but for imperialism. They are just as much the legacy of colonialism as the obliteration of Tazmanian.
Languages do not have cultural essences, and do not conquer cultures. It is cultures that conquer new languages by adopting and adapting them to suit their own needs and realities.
5. In conclusion
Wringing one’s hands about the proliferation of English doesn’t help anyone except English speakers who need to feel like they’re doing something to make up for the past wrongs of colonialism. It is a kind of unproductive self-flagellation, a selfish form of masochism.
A.Z. -
You have certainly given the blog a wealth of thoughts, facts, and opinions through your contribution. I think you sincerely.
I did, in the section where I clarified my thoughts on the issue, expressly state that this issue is not limited to English–Though the fact that knowledge of English is so prevalent throughout the world means that there are billions of potential readers of this blog, but when it reaches the point of obliterating the traditional local language (and this applies to any dominant language in a region, of course). So when you talk about this post as being written from the perspective of an English speaker who feels guilty for the “past wrongs of colonialism”, that is not 100% true. Obviously, colonial guilt may shade my thoughts on the issue as a whole, but this post was not written strictly in relation to the proliferation of English per se.
Also, the languages that are being swallowed up around the world all have their own specific circumstances surrounding the change. It may be true that some speakers may not “see fit” to continue speaking their mother tongue as they prefer another language, and by all means they have the choice to speak whatever language best suits their wishes and purposes. However, these anecdotes are not related to the core of the post, which is simply to reflect on it…become aware and reflect. Obviously, all opinions are part of that process.
Regarding the contributions of Indian English speakers (and, stretching further back in time, American English speakers), I don’t think the adaptation of one language by the speakers of another is part of this issue. “Himalayan blunder” may or may not be the direct translation into English of an expression in one of the regional languages there. That, in fact, would be an argument for desiring its continuity in the world.
Finally, no one doubts that “dead” languages will always remain available for consultation and extraction of knowledge, however these languages that die no longer evolve, which (and I clarified that I am a romantic in the original post) prevents future generations from appreciating the changes that would take place in the future. These changes, of course, can only occur when the language is left in the hands of living speakers and writers.
Again, the point of the post is to generate a fruitful conversation, not to pass down judgments or proclamations abotu what is “right and wrong” or “good and bad”.
Thanks again.
Scott
It’s not entirely true that dead languages can’t evolve. They very much can. When a language ceases to be spoken natively, it will still evolve if people use it as a creative literary, liturgical or philosophical medium. This is what happened with Hebrew, a language whose literary tradition was continued by *exclusively* non-native speakers from about 100 B.C. to the turn of the last century. At the end of that period, when the native Yiddish-speaker Haim Bialik recited his Hebrew poems to Jewish audiences in Eastern Europe, he did so with an accent, vocabulary and grammar which an ancient Israelite would have had immense trouble with, had he been present, due to the multiple layers of evolution which the language had acquired since ancient Israel. And yet Hebrew had not been a spoken language since then! The same ended up being true, by the way, of a great many other dead languages, such as Latin, Classical Arabic, Syriac, Classical Greek, Coptic, Old Church Slavonic, Sumerian, Akkadian and Sanskrit. (Though a small number of people do actually grow up as native Sanskrit speakers in places like Mattūr.) All of them underwent significant evolutionary changes by being continuously *used* for literary or liturgical purposes long after they ceased to be spoken.
But, that notwithstanding, if your regret is that language death “prevents future generations from appreciating the changes that would take place in the future,” then why is it so important to you that the changes being appreciated are non-Anglophone? English in India (as is the case in a great many newly Anglophone regions from the Carribean to Cameroon) *is* evolving divergently from the forms used in older historically Anglophone countries. For a bit more on this see the Wikipedia article on Indian English, part of which I authored. I seriously doubt that the English speakers who live in the newly developing Anglosphere in the coming generations are going to be deprived of the opportunity to see their adopted language develop in interesting ways peculiar to their region.
Nor are things like Indian English the half of it. English, when it has a heavily foreign grammatical substratum, can (and does) evolve in ways so divergent from literary norms as to become separate languages, and are then called Creoles. Go read up on Tok Pisin, or Bislama for more on that.
-Alex
Alex -
Thanks again for your attention and contributions.
I don’t disagree with you about anything, yet I feel that you are approaching it like a disagreement. I have never proposed a “plan of action” to prevent languages from “dying” (and a few isolated examples of languages that were consciously preserved over the course of centuries does not change the nature of the issue) and anything other than a laissez-faire approach isn’t fair to anyone.
I also fail to see what you are looking to say in the second to last paragraph about “non-Anglophone” changes. Again, I brought up the evolution of Indian English as a positive thing and I have never stated that a creole is a blight on the world…there seem to be a lot of blanks that you are creating and filling in on your own.
I repeat, your passion is wonderful and thank you for your contribution.
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