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This figure shows how many different factors go into determining the vitality of a language. endangerment is proceeding at an unprecedented rate. Globalization, urbanization, and nationalism are forcing indigenous peoples to abandon their mother tongue in favor of a dominant language, and these abandoned languages are disappearing at a rapid pace. As we shall see below, estimates vary as to the extent of the problem, but it is possible that more than half of the languages spoken across the world today will be extinct by 2100 if the international community does not act now. The loss of over 3,000 languages will have a crippling effect on a number of academic disciplines, including anthropology, history, and literature, as well as on the preservation of local knowledge and the proliferation of indigenous cultures. The problem of endangered languages therefore far surpasses issues of linguistics and requires an international solution to prevent this devastating loss to humanity. Causes of Language Endangerment the causes of language endangerment are as diverse and varied as the endangered languages themselves and encompass a range of political, economic, and psychological factors. in some situations, determining why a language is losing speakers is easy; in others, the causes may be more subtle and gradual. Usually, a number of different factors interact to lead to the endangerment of a specific language. Historical Factors Before the 20th century, the most prominent cause of language endangerment and death was the elimination of the entire population of speakers. The elimination of a population could occur through an invasion by another population speaking a different language or through natural disasters. 14 european colonization, for example, has had a major impact on the diversity of languages in the rest of the world through the spread of dominant european languages such as English, French, and Spanish. These languages serve as lingua francas, or common languages, between individuals who otherwise could not communicate, but, in the process, the development of international lingua franca has led speakers to abandon their indigenous languages. Before the Spanish arrival in Latin America, for example, the two 12 Melbourne Host Directorate PTY LTD | Office of Media and Design
most widely spoken languages were Nahuatl of the Aztec Empire and Quechua of the Inca Empire, and small communities employed thousands of other unique languages; over the course of two centuries following the Spanish colonization, many of these smaller languages became extinct, and the number and prestige of Nahuatl and Quechua speakers dropped significantly. 15 Originally, the Spanish conquerors used Nahuatl or Quechua as a lingua franca only for their colonial administration and missionary work, but as more Spanish settlers came to Latin America, Spanish gradually replaced these indigenous languages in most public domains. 16 Invasion and colonization are often quickly followed by the spread of disease, which can have a deadly effect on a population and its languages. Approximately 90% of the indigenous population of the Americas died because of diseases that the Europeans brought with them, most significantly smallpox; the death of the vast majority of the indigenous population was accompanied by a drastic drop in the speakers of all of the native languages and the disappearance of many language communities. 17 While no longer accompanied by colonization, the spread of disease remains a major threat to the existence of many minority languages today. The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa, for example, disproportionately affects minority populations, many of whom have their own languages. In Nigeria, many of the smallest of the 470 languages have seen a drop in the number of speakers in the past thirty years because of deaths related to the HIV virus. 18 types of natural disasters that can lead to language endangerment and death include those that kill speakers and force a population to relocate such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and famine. The Irish potato famine of the 1840s caused the death or emigration of about one-quarter of the population, the majority of which came from rural areas where Irish was more commonly spoken. A similar situation may be occurring in Sudan today, where the ongoing famine is threatening the population of about fifteen languages that have fewer than one thousand speakers. 19 On 17 July 1998, an earthquake in the mountains of Papua New Guinea, a country known throughout the linguistic community for its bounty of indigenous languages, killed over 2,200 rural villagers and displaced more than ten thousand. These victims came primarily from four small language communities, and as they have relocated to other locations, these languages have undergone a drastic reduction in the number of speakers. 20 As evident from these examples, the effects of natural disasters on language endangerment are closely related to other factors like urbanization and economic opportunity, further discussed below. Finally, the spread of religion has also been a factor that has historically led to the extinction or endangerment of certain languages. the spread of islam throughout the Middle east and North Africa, for example, replaced a number of ancient languages, like Aramaic, Coptic, and Berber with Arabic, which remains the predominant language across the region. While the invasion and colonization of Muslim raiders contributed to this phenomenon, the spread of Arabic was accomplished primarily through the conversion of local populations to islam. 21 the endangerment of languages via the spread of religion also occurred in many european colonies, where, after gaining their first converts through the indigenous languages, missionaries proceeded to convince the native populations to switch to the european language that they felt was better suited for the study of Western religion. Modern Factors A major cause of language endangerment in modern times is an attitude among most states favoring the use of one or a small number of official languages. This 13 Melbourne Host Directorate PTY LTD | Office of Media and Design
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