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Languages Are Vanishing: So What?

By Roy F. Baumeister
Created Nov 19 2008 - 10:03am
http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/laughter

Most of the world's seven thousand languages will no longer be spoken by the end of this century. So what?
Should we moan, resist, or say "Good riddance!"? This post was stimulated by a story in the news
magazine The Economist on the extinction of languages. It notes that 200 African languages have recently
died and another 300 are endangered. In Southeast Asia, another 145 are on the verge of disappearing. And
so forth.

Any loss can seem threatening, and so the knee-jerk reaction to warnings about languages is an urge to
conserve them. The Economist article editorialized liberally, such as by saying the acceleration in the rate
of language extinction is "alarming."

But what's to be alarmed about? The disappearance of a language is not like, say, a local crop failure that
augurs starvation. In other words, if some obscure language ceases to be spoken, it is not as if millions or
even dozens of people will be unable to talk. All it means is that the people who would have spoken that
language will speak a different language.

I can readily understand alarm about overfishing and the extinction of various fish species. The
disappearance of varieties of fish is linked to a disappearance of fish, period. It bespeaks a genuine danger
that future generations will not be able to find, see, enjoy, or eat fish.

But there is no danger that we will end up with zero languages.

Let me play devil's advocate for a moment here. Maybe we should celebrate the disappearance of obscure
languages. Wouldn't there be considerable positive value if everyone in the world spoke the same
language? Imagine how easy it would be to communicate with everyone else.

I am not the only one to see linguistic diversity as more trouble than it's worth. As one distinguished
precedent for this point of view, the Bible depicts the emergence of multiple languages as a punishment
God inflicted on people. In that story, life was better for all when everyone spoke the same language. The
creation of linguistic diversity was a curse and punishment visited upon us, so that we could not understand
each other as well.

Americans may find it especially difficult to

appreciate the value of a universal language, because thanks to a variety of lucky breaks, much of the world
now speaks English. Americans can travel almost anywhere without spending six months learning the local
language. They can trust that when they get there, they will be able to communicate -- because someone
there will speak English to them. But this is a bit rude of us. In effect, we expect the rest of the world to
learn our language so that we don't have to learn theirs. We get the benefits of a world language by being
fortunate enough to be born in the country whose native language is also a world language. It would be
considerate of us to want to extend those benefits to the rest of the world.

Let me comment further on the Economist article, not because it was unusual, but rather because I think it
is fairly typical of how the media and the scholarly world have treated the topic. It seems to assume that the
disappearance of languages is a bad thing, though it fails to present much in the way of actual harm that has
come. Indeed, and to the magazine's credit, the article does acknowledge that "plenty of languages - among
them Akkadian, Etruscan, Tangut, and Chibcha - have gone the way of the dodo, without causing much
trouble over posterity." But then it goes on with the handwringing, alarmist tone.

Toward the end, the article says there are ostensibly "strong arguments" in favor of linguistic diversity. As
examples, there are three. If these are strong arguments, I don't know what lame ones would be.

First argument: a claim that multilingual children do better than monolingual ones. Is this worth spending
billions of dollars in a futile effort to keep various obscure tongues alive? Even if the data on children are
correct - and I can imagine they are confounded by having smarter children or more sophisticated parents -
the world only needs 2 or 3 languages, not seven thousand. In fact, the future I foresee is that there would
be two or three world languages, such as English and Chinese (Mandarin), and every child would learn
both. Hence everyone would be multilingual. Getting rid of the other languages would just facilitate this
process.

Second argument: rejects the argument that a common tongue helps to avoid war, citing examples of
Rwanda, Bosnia, and Vietnam. Citing counterexamples is no substitute for statistics. Have more wars been
fought between groups that share a language than between different language groups? Besides, even if
language is irrelevant to war, so what? That's not the argument for having a common language.

The third argument is even more absurd. The article notes that an Australian turtle was recently found to
have two varieties, and a local language had two different words for the two types. I don't see how that is
relevant to anything. It is easy enough to make a new word for the new type of turtle; one hardly needs a
separate language. The argument that this links preserving languages to "protection of endangered species"
is utterly illogical.

The purpose of language is communication. Communication requires mutual understanding. A language

only works if speaker and hearer both understand it. Sharedness is the essence of language. The more
widely shared, the more effective. Hence a single world language facilitates communication.

There are those who care about language, and I am one of them. Putting this into practice by preserving
near-dead languages on some kind of technologically boosted life support is of dubious value. Instead, we
should work to conserve the effectiveness of language to communicate. This means respecting grammar,
syntax, writing style, and other hallmarks of a strong, useful language, because they contribute to clarity
and precision of communication.

Source URL: http://www.psychologytoday.com/node/2405

Comments on "Languages Are Vanishing: So What?"

Submitted by Ben2501 on November 19, 2008 - 10:08am.

I still want to say sombrero and hey you are one cold hombre.

Reasons for preserving

Submitted by A.Linguist on November 19, 2008 - 2:00pm.

Reasons for preserving languages:

(a) Cultural heritage and traditions: much cultural practice is bound up in linguistic knowledge. Ceremonial
traditions, oral history, myths, views of the world, geographic and botanical classifications. This is
obviously important to the community whose language it is, but also has scientific value in anthropology
and potentially in other fields, such as biology.
(b) Preservation of communities, ethnic and cultural pride: the language one speaks is (often) an important
part of cultural and ethnic identity.
(c) Preservation of linguistic diversity. Much like some of the arguments for protecting endangered
animals, anyone who has any interest in the range of beautiful and surprising things that are found in the
natural world should recognize that linguistic diversity has its own value. Both animal species and
languages have always been dying out and being replaced. However, the rate at which both species and
languages are disappearing has increased dramatically in recent years. We can’t stop it, but some efforts at
preservation may well be worthwhile.

Finally, the reason for at a minimum thorough documentation of endangered languages (though not
necessarily preservation): Science. Linguistic diversity is crucial to scientific understanding of the human
capacity for language. What is a possible language? What is not? How are linguistic structures products of
(a) the human brain and (b) the functions of language as a communication system?

And documentation by itself might not be sufficient to answer some of the more interesting questions
linguists pose about the structure of a language, such as: What does a speaker actually have to know about
his/her language in order to produce only the grammatical structures of the language, to be able to make
uniform grammaticality judgments about sentences s/he has never heard before, etc.?

it's about culture

Submitted by derek andrey on November 19, 2008 - 7:09pm.

i know that one world language could help us a lot, but i think that language is a part of culture. that's the
main reason why protecting this diversity.
but i also think that history will follow its course, and this global community is going to that direction: the
vanishing of languages.

it's scary to think that in the future there will be no more Spanish, Portuguese, Korean and so on, but just
one world language. but if that is the tendency, nothing's gonna stop it

Against Language Conservation

Submitted by colin on November 20, 2008 - 8:06am.

I, too, am going to play the devil's advocate.

I agree that language is an element of culture. Is it not that culture's responsibility to preserve the language,
if they choose? Every community and person decides to what extent their cultural preservation is important
to them, and languages/traditions will reflect the choices of those people.

Interesting, also, in the study of language, is the convergence of languages, no? Languages borrow and lend
so many words from each other, and if some die out, they will still be present in other languages. I would
argue that this is an inevitable product of a global society, and an interesting scientific study in and of itself.

To the first post: I seriously doubt Spanish is in any danger of dying out, so I will also continue to say
sombrero, and greet my friends with a saucy 'hola.'

In defence of Minority Languages

Submitted by Brian Barker on November 21, 2008 - 1:15pm.

I think that the possible extinction of "minor" languages is due to growth, in use of the "major" languages

Certainly the promulgation of English as the world's "lingua franca" is unethical and linguistically
undemocratic. I add that I am a native English speaker!

Unethical because communication should be for all and not only for an educational or political elite.
English is now used, at an international level, in this way.

Undemocratic because minority languages are under attack worldwide due to the encroachment of majority
ethnic languages. Even Mandarin Chinese is attempting to dominate as well. The long-term solution must
be found and a non-national language, which places all ethnic languages on an equal footing is essential.

An interesting video can be seen at http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_YHALnLV9XU

A glimpse of Esperanto can be seen at http://www.lernu.net

English is horribly inadequate for an international language

Submitted by jj on November 29, 2008 - 8:13am.

Somewhat on a tangent here, and admitting that I am *completely* biased as I say this, but English is
absolutely the pits for an international language. BTW, it's not my mother tongue.

It has too many quirks and irregularities in it. To speak English, one always has to keep up with the
"vocabulary du jour", or what the jokes and cultural commentaries are. For instance: I remember when
"germane this" or "German that" was very much in fashion. Or take "401K". Unless you watch US news
every night, it's just an incomprehensible term.

An international language should not be tarnished so much by specific cultural contexts, but should be a
space where a plurality of influxes from many contexts are created. This will never happen with English (or
any other natural language - I'll get to that).

Furthermore, even for a person accustomed to English, it's a very hard language to comprehend. Now, I'm
perfectly fluent - to the point where I blend in perfectly (I don't have an accent). However, I always have
difficulty with English accents and pronunciation - this is because there are simply to many semi-vowel
sounds in English - depending on the speaker's origin or even articulation. Not all languages are like this -
take Italian or Japanese, for example, are much, much easier in vowel and semi-vowel phoneme detection.

The other aspect is that a foreigner is always in an inferior, non-expert position when talking to a native
English-speaking person - he/she being the expert.

That all being said, I am currently hoping that Esperanto will come out as a true international language - at
least for written material on the Web (such as the Wikipedia). Although it's an artificially created language
(an "auxiliary language" we like to call it), unbeknownst to many, languages by "dictat", as it were, are not
without successful precedents. The examples are many: Norwegian (created via a consensus), modern
spoken Hebrew (resuscitated by a linguist), and the many orthographic reforms in Portuguese. The point is
that "pushing" a "working language" is an agenda that has worked before. Esperanto has many desirable
features, and currently it has more speakers than some natural languages, such as Welsh. But let's leave it
here, as this is getting much too long...

I'll just say that, at least for the European Union legal documents, it would be a rational choice, English
being unacceptable, for political and cultural reasons.

I'm surprised to see a

Submitted by Tokoloshe on April 7, 2010 - 11:36pm.

I'm surprised to see a non-native English speaker saying that English is a difficult language to comprehend.
I have many friends in Europe who are almost disdainful of the ease with which English can be adopted,
and used almost immediately. With the absence of genders and article dependent suffixes etc... it is a
language that can be used almost as soon as a vocabulary is developed, regardless of syntax. Anyone with
even the most basic grasp of English can understand that "I are too can like to have a sandwich", conveys
exactly the same meaning as "I would also like to have a sandwich". "The post office is where?" is the
same as "Where is the post office?" That's one of the many complex reasons why English is the
international standard.

As for the non-native speaker being inferior to the native speaker, that will always be true in any language.
Being half Greek I travel to Greece every year. My Greek is very poor and I am constantly lost in
conversations between locals, and I get very frustrated feeling like my own self-expression is stifled. It's
like having a gag over your mouth.

Also it is bizarre to say that English is inadequate as an international and political standard, by arguing that
it's colloquialisms are too many. While the rich vocabulary of English and the legion of dialects and
colloquialisms make it a complex and varied language, the international standard spoken between
politicians, businessmen and friends is devoid of such culturally specific terms as "401K". Until I moved to
America I had never heard of a 401k... it was not necessary for me to know what it is.
Anyway, in my opinion the main reason for the widespread use of English as a political and business
standard across the world, is due mostly to the political and Geographical conquests of the British Empire,
and the subsequent cultural and political hegemony of the United States, through Media Broadcasting.

It may be a fleeting thing. Per Capita the most used language in the entire world is Cantonese, simply by
virtue of the fact the more individuals speak this language than any other. If the China continues to prosper
the way it has thus far, we may see billion dollar business transactions and Global Peace summits being
conducted in Cantonese before 2100AD gets too close! :P

Dear Professor I would like

Submitted by Manuel Maqueda on May 25, 2009 - 1:52pm.

Dear Professor

I would like to hear what you would say it was your mother language that was threatened with extinction.
Language is inextricably linked with cultural heritage, literature, identity, and with many other essential
elements of human existence.

Your article is so fundamentally ethnocentric and revels such a spectacular ignorance of cultural diversity,
that it deserves no further comment.

Thank you for providing a perfect example that will allow many of us to illustrate perfectly the worst of
American cluelessness, cultural isolation and navel gazing.

Caput tui ubi sol non lucet est.

Death of Thoughts
Submitted by Samantha Sloane on November 16, 2009 - 12:50pm.

Have you ever had difficulty expressing a thought or idea in another language not because you lacked the
vocabulary, but because the very language didn't have an identical, exact translation?

The language you know dictates what and how you can think and express yourself. Therefore, the death of
language is also a purging of ideas and thoughts that are incapable of being expressed in an alternate
language.

Interesting.. True. On the

Submitted by Dinesh on November 16, 2009 - 7:27pm.

Interesting.. True. On the Same hand I will go on and argue we will be much better off having One or 2
religions, One or two nationalities, because ignoring the "frenzied imagination" there is nothing that is
different that what makes people belong to a group in them too.

Then the obvious question is, Who gets to choose? Which survives and which dies?

This is, in fact, the same as Endangered species. Survival of the fittest is the pattern applicable to every
power struggle. People do some last minute time buying on the hope the species will survive somehow,
even if it has lost all relevancy and competitiveness for survival for whatever reasons..
On the same now, I will add English, Chinese (Mandarin) and Hindi.
Now lets get Japanese, German and the French to agree to this. Good luck on that one dude!

Not to be hard, But it is pretty obvious a language is for communication only and apart from the cultural
and historical value and the "my language - I protect" mind set, there isn’t really anything much to it..

Language beyond communication

Submitted by L.N. on November 16, 2009 - 10:10pm.

1. Losing languages could mean a narrowing of worldviews, thought patterns, and interpretations of
information:

Does anyone know of hard experiments done on how language might be linked to cultural thought
patterns? i.e. the idea that if your native language does not have a phrase for something, or emphasizes
several words for an idea, it is related to how you view the world - possibly as a causal relationship. I
remember an example from a textbook of a bilingual speaker explaining how their actual thought and
behavioral patterns differ depending on what language they are speaking. If language has a direct influence
on how we structure our thoughts, then a loss of linguistic diversity would decrease our ability to produce
various interpretations of how the world works.

2. Losing a language may not be inherently alarming, but if it is a symptom of social injustice, then it is a
harmful phenomenon.

If a language dies, I feel it is important to evaluate why it is no longer in use. Arguments for efficiency in
communication (the most usefully structured languages survive) are inaccurate when considering English's
irregularities and simultaneous popularity. Likewise, it is simplistic to speak of cultures "choosing" to keep
a language alive or not, since this simplifies the forces at work and makes it seem like this was completely
within a minority group's control.

Instead, why not consider how imperialistic, dominating relationships interplay between cultures and how
this affects what languages "live" and "die." Most of today's "world" languages are widespread due to
conquest and expansion of some variety (economic, physical, political). There is much to be said about the
social justice issues involved in the characterization of "native" peoples, their "native" tongues, and the
more "useful" world languages that have only become useful through, historically, aggressive and
domineering force. (English - the British Empire, Spanish - colonialism in South America, etc.) Instead of
arguing about whether the death itself is good or bad, it might be more beneficial for society to examine
why these languages are dying, and what that means about the global interactions occurring between
cultures.

Think Different...
Submitted by Ian Kirk on November 17, 2009 - 11:03am.

I have been confronted by the ways different languages develop different thinking patterns. While someone
who lives in Florida could care less that the Inuit have 10s if not 100s words that differentiate snow, it
would be helpful for people who experience snow to have the ability to differentiate without an endless
series of adjectives. I have been informed, that songs written in English and translated to Spanish may
overall present the same sense of message, they communicate it very differently, sometimes in such a way
that the weight of the thought in English doesn't translate in Spanish at all, and vice versa.

As much as language and culture frame our ways of thinking, language is a tool. Just like a tool, there are
times when a job can be done using one tool, another tool might be better and more efficient.

The singular advantage of English is that it encourages new words, versus languages like French which
tries to use new combinations of old words to express new things or thoughts. The advantage of a language
like Esperanto is that it is a manufactured language, thus add vocabulary shouldn't be too hard, and
hopefully (though I don't know), it has rules that people can rely on to always work, versus English
(especially the American variety) which is unreliable in that regard.

I suppose, that is another thing to add to this. What about regional dialects? Canada, the USA, Australia,
the UK all have significant differences is their speech. I don't see those disappearing. Maybe, one day, we
will all officially speak the same language, but we'll have a huge variety of dialects.

Many interesting points were

Submitted by Anonymous on April 8, 2010 - 1:42am.

Many interesting points were brought up in the comments above. Language is also a means of storing
traditional knowledge such as knowledge of flora and fauna, arts, crafts, and music, poetry, myths, recipes,
etc.

Loss of language can go hand-in-hand with loss of knowledge developed over millennia. Perhaps the loss
of cultural knowledge is more important than the loss of the language itself.