DYING LANGUAGE

Dying Language

Table of Contents

Introduction1

Discussion & Analysis2

Death of Language and its Impact on Culture2

An Overview of Language Death3

Language shift5

Measures to Preserve Endangered Language11

Language planning11

Language planning Processes12

Language planning goals13

Language planning Activities18

Conclusion19

Dying Language

Introduction

Anthropology is broadly defined as the science of the study of human behavior. The four subdivisions of the discipline of anthropology are archaeology, cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and physical anthropology. Within each of these sub disciplines are smaller interest groups with specific foci and specialization. Behaviors that are studied by anthropologists include the social and cultural behaviors of groups. In fact, an anthropologist is attributed with having first used the term network to describe social structures. Within these behaviors, anthropologists examine the communications and connections of the group. Each of these four subdivisions has its own approach to the study of these social networks within groups (DeCorse & Scupin, 2003). Linguistic anthropologists focus on the study of language and how that language influences and shapes social identity and groups. How a group communicates through language, is an important part of linguistic anthropologists' contribution to the study of social networks. Using current technologies, linguist anthropologists study the new words and language that have been created as a result of social networking tools and their use (DeCorse & Scupin, 2003).

The use of minority languages is declining rapidly throughout the world. Krauss (1992), for example estimates that anywhere between 20% and 50% of the world's languages will die in this century. His assessment for Native North American languages is more severe: of the estimated 187 Native languages in North America, he says that 149 (80%) are not presently being learned by Native children and are thus bound to die. Native languages spoken in Canada are among these languages in decline and are consequently in considerable danger of becoming extinct. McMillan (1995) estimates that of the approximately fifty-three Native languages currently spoken, only the three with the largest numbers of speakers, i.e., Inuktitut, Cree and Ojibway, have a reasonable chance of surviving in the 21st century. In this paper, we will discuss the importance of language with reference to culture, we will further conduct an in depth analysis to evaluate the phenomenon that “A lost language is a lost culture”.

Discussion & Analysis

Death of Language and its Impact on Culture

The death of a language can result in the loss of identity and culture of its entire speech community. For those Native peoples who have an oral tradition of transmitting their history and wisdom from one generation to the next, the loss of language can be devastating. Hale (1992) suggests that losing a language is also part of a larger process of loss of intellectual diversity. Moreover, similar to the extinction of a botanical or zoological species, a dead language cannot be resurrected. (The one exception to this rule is the revival of the Hebrew language which is now commonly used in a modem form.) Unlike immigrant languages in Canada, such as Ukrainian, if Native languages in this country die, there is no place in the world where they can ...