Let Them Die

By Kenan MalikFrom Prospect, November 2000

Words and Structure expressing the extinction of language

• When she dies, so will her language.• Die• Take…to the grave• Kill off• Pass away• Disappear

Para. 1: When does a language die?

• Common sense – when the last speaker dies: Some endangered languages are listed.

• Language Interaction Produces Bilingual Speakers.• Bilingual Individuals: “Drop” Language if not economically

useful• people stop speaking a language and start speaking

another – language shift• Most frequently – all speakers shift to other languages –

Australia and Americas• If every speaker shifts and the original language is no

longer spoken anywhere – language death

Statistics show that some languages are on the verge of extinction.

How do languages become extinct?

• Languages become extinct when a community finds itself under pressure to integrate with a larger or more powerful group.

• The community is pressured to give up its language and even its ethnic and cultural identity -- ethnic Kurds in Turkey, are forbidden by law to print or formally teach their language. Younger speakers of Native American languages, as recently as the 1960s, were punished for speaking their native languages at boarding schools.

• Outright genocide -- When European invaders exterminated the Tasmanians in the early 19th century, an unknown number of languages died.

Why do languages die out?

• official language policies: Occasionally by force – boarding school policy for American Indians from 1890s

• Sometimes disease (Tasmania), flood, earthquakes, AIDS in Africa

• Acceleration with rise of modern empires – French, English, Russian -- and migration

• Socio-economic competition: Spread of an imperial language ---colonization, globalization

Many englishesNew Englishes Older Englishes (English-based) Pidgins,

Creoles and Decreolized varieties

AfricaKenyan EnglishNigerian English

South AsiaIndian EnglishLankan EnglishPakistani English

Southeast AsiaFilipino EnglishMalaysian EnglishSingpore English

Etc.

North AmericaAmerican EnglishCanadian English

Great BritainEnglish EnglishScots

Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland

Irish EnglishSouthern Indian and Pacific Oceans

Australian EnglishNew Zealand

EnglishEtc.

AfricaWest African Pidgin

Papua New GuineaTok Pisin

Sierra LeoneKrio

USABlack English

VernacularHawaii English

CreoleVanuatu

BislamaEtc.

Source: p. 9, Kandiah, T. (1998) Why New Englishes?

Reasons for many varieties of English

– Development of language in “new and unfamiliar contexts”

– Contexts marked by different ecological, cultural, linguistic, social, etc. characteristics.

Para.2-4:campaign to preserve linguistic diversity

• Consequences of language death: --language death results in the loss of unique

biological and ecological knowledge.– Reduces knowledge about human language and

mind– Death of unique cultures

Can dying languages be maintained?

• Serious attempts from mid-20th century in US, Australia, Europe

• Subjects in school, media, education• Success is limited – economic and

cultural factors

continued

• Absence of realistic domain except ceremonial and political

• Requires motivation to overcome economic disadvantages

• At best – will be used in formal situations

continued

• Success requires political support – usually absent with small languages

• Success stories – French in Canada, Welsh, Maori, Hawaian, Catalan, Irish

• Becomes a taught second language

Examples of success stories

• Modern Hebrew was revived as a mother tongue after centuries of being learned and studied only in its ancient written form.

• Irish has had considerable institutional and political support as the national language of Ireland, despite major inroads by English.

• In New Zealand, Maori communities established nursery schools staffed by elders and conducted entirely in Maori, called kohangareo, 'language nests'.

• In Alaska, Hawaii, and elsewhere, this model is being extended to primary and in some cases secondary school.

William Hague

• William Hague is the Foreign Secretary and MP for Richmond in Yorkshire. He is a former leader of the Conservative Party.

• He argued for “saving the pound” in his 2001 election campaign because he is Euro-skeptic.

Roger Scruton

• English philosopher who specializes in aesthetics• Conservative• He supported Ray Honeyford’s view on the future of multi-ethnic

Britain: multi-cultural education was actually harmful for immigrant children.

• His latest book, England: An Elegy tries to show England as reflected in its own ideals.

• he claims that England died about the time he was at university. He got a pessimism about the fate of rural England and had a melancholy sense that western civilisation was doomed.

• He claims English culture has become mediocratised in the last 10 years: the legitimisation of pop music and football as genuine manifestations of the nations culture being prime examples.

Para 5-12: The author’s counter-arguments

• Some languages lose their function of communication. (para.5-6)

• The preservers based their argument on the romantic notion of human differences and cultural differences, but the author believed that such belief is also the basis of a racial view of the world. (Para.7-10)

• The confusions of the preservers: (para11-12)

Contrasts: Two kinds of argumentsCampaigners for linguistic diversity

The author

Linguistic diversity is a benchmark of cultural diversity: A particular language is linked to a particular way of life.

Preservation of diverse languages is reactionary, back-looking, and nostalgic.

Homogenizing monoculture reduces the diversity of cultures.

Like William Hague’s “pound-saving” movement or Roger Scruton’s paean to a lost Englishness, preserving linguistic diversity is impossible.

They defend for minority rights, preventing the vulnerable against global capitalism.

The dying languages lose their function of communication.

There are human differences and culture differences.

They are confusing individual rights and group rights. They also confuse political oppression and the loss of cultural identity.

Structure AnalysisParagraph(s) Main Idea

1 Introduction of the topic: Language Extinction

2-4 Some promote the campaign to preserve linguistic diversity

5-12 The author’s counter arguments

13 Conclusion: leave well enough alone.

Language revitalization

• focuses on getting people to learn and speak a dying language and teach it to their children

What can we do to preserve dying languages?

• To conduct humanitarian aid work and recruit the young

for the language revitalization project.

• To express our desire to keep the indigenous culture and

language alive.

• To document endangered languages and doing all that

can be done to maintain their use.

• To approach the municipal government for help in not

only preserving the disappearing language, but also in

revitalizing it.

• To create a dictionary with all the possible entries for people to resort to.

• To work out a concrete lesson plan for the younger generation the to use throughout the years.

• To begin teaching classes to many of the community’s

children and adults. • To apply for funding from the Endangered Language

Fund so as to pay the workers in the community.• To let the government take action toward the extinction

of their precious heritage.