Should Endangered Languages Be Saved?

Endangered Cultural Artifacts and Sites

Ishi was the last member of the Yahi, a band of the Yana people, who were indigenous to the central Sierra Nevadas in California. When Ishi died on March 25, 1916, the Yana language died with him. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The exact number of languages spoken in the world today is unknown, but it is undisputed that the number is declining at a high and accelerating rate. Two sets of statistics are commonly reported. First, of the approximately 6000 languages currently spoken, somewhere between 50% and 90% will have become extinct by the end of the century. And second, approximately 97% of the world’s people speak about 4% of the world’s languages whereas approximately 96% of the world’s languages are spoken by about 3% of the world’s people. These findings raise urgent questions about the causes of language endangerment, the means by which at risk languages might be preserved, and the responsibility of anthropologists to engage in efforts to safeguard languages as essential elements of individual and universal cultural heritage.

UNESCO, which is active in the protection of endangered languages, recognizes six major factors as impacting what it refers to as “language vitality”: intergenerational language transmission, absolute number of speakers, proportion of speakers within the total population, shifts in domains of language use, response to new domains and media, and availability of materials for language education and literacy. Of the six factors, most of those who have studied the matter regard intergenerational language transmission as the most important.

UNESCO has assessed the vitality of approximately 2725 languages to date. Although endangered languages are found “in almost every country in the world,” those regions “with the greatest linguistic diversity are also the ones with the most endangered languages.” The problem is especially acute in parts of Africa, South America, Melanesia, and Indonesia.

Anthropologists, linguists, and other social scientists appear to be in general agreement that language endangerment most often accompanies broader social changes in the community. Such social changes can be caused by economic, cultural, and political marginalization as well as war, genocide, colonization, disease, and natural disasters. There also appears to be a general consensus that, when a language becomes extinct, cultural diversity is diminished, unique and invaluable cultural information is lost, and native speakers of the language experience a dramatic change in their cultural heritage, traditions, and worldview as well as in their social relationships and sense of self.

Although no social scientist advocates the destruction of languages, there are two very different points of view when it comes to whether and how endangered languages should be protected and preserved.

The opposing perspective is that languages evolve over time. The death of languages is seen as a natural and inevitable consequence of social change. Proponents of this view support efforts to document, describe, and scientifically analyze endangered languages. However, they do not support active interference in what they regard as a normal language cycles. Peter Ladefoged’s “Another View of Endangered Languages” and Salikoko Mufwene’s “Language Evolution: Contact, Competition and Change” provide theoretical and factual arguments for the non-interventionist approach.

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