VANISHING LANGUAGES

                                            VANISHING LANGUAGES

INTRODUCTION    

   ­What happen when a language disappears? Language is the keystone of the culture. Unfortunately, the world is in danger of losing much of its linguistic diversity and the majority of people do not think about it, and they do not know the importance of language. This essay deals with some importance points concerning the extinction of the languages, for example: What is the language?

What is the importance of languages for humanity?

 Why does a language disappear?

 Which languages are in danger?

What can people do to avoid this process?

This essay will also provide knowledge in the area of linguistic for modern languages students and other people who have a general interest in the subject.

                                                                                                                                                                                                           ´´The language is the main method of human communication, either spoken or written. It consists of the use of words in a structure and conventional way. It is a system of communication used by a particular country or community ´´. This is why language is the keystone of culture.

    Language contributes to the formation of human personality, it is the most basic instrument for the expression of ideas, feeling and the transmission of social culture. Language is the most important means for the articulation Man´s nature. It also has a cognitive purpose, enabling people to express everything they imagine, and it can be used to persuade, debate, give political speeches, recount stories, act out scenarios, etc. to have one´s own language is to have an identity.

    Many languages are disappearing today.                                Nowadays people abandon their own language for a variety of reasons, and the world is in danger of losing much of its linguistics diversity. Most language became extinct because their speakers are absorbed by a dominant language or culture group. Many languages are squeezed out of existence, usually by a colonial power or their descendants.

    According to UNESCO, vanishing language holds certain stages. When the number of people speaking a language actively growing, it is considered healthy. when children are no longer taught a language, it is considered endangered; when a language is spoken by only a handful of elderly people, it is considered moribund; when no one at all speaks a language as a first language, it is considered extinct. Some 40 to 60 % of the world´s tongues are considered endanger or moribund.

   A language might disappear by many reasons. First let us look at language evolution. Language always change, and evolve into other languages; These subsequent languages start as dialects. Linguistics (Philologists) think there was a mother of all languages, in the way that Latin was mixed with other dialects and produced the Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, and French. But nowadays, an opposite process is going on throughout the world. Many languages are being absolved be others, mainly reasons are related to globalization.

   Another natural reasons might be natural disasters such as volcanoes eruption, earthquakes floods, etc. these events can devastate entire villages leaving large areas desolate, and thus eliminating almost all of its inhabitants, leaving few native speakers of the native tongue, and forcing them to emigrate to other places and adopt foreign languages.

    Diseases, might be another reason for the extinction of a language. They can affect seriously a country´s population and put a language in danger in the same way as the natural disasters outline above.

    Other reasons are the result of human activity like wars. For example. A war can disturb and change the language of a region. It can lead to either the death of languages or the transformation of language into a new one. Survivors become separated from their homeland. Speakers sometimes end up in exile and fear to speak their native tongue.

    Furthermore, the transformation of a language can be undertaken by design, as in the case of native Americans when colonialists arrive from Europe. They adopted Spanish, Spanish, or French consciously, because their lives depended on it. The same thing is occurring with Haitians in Dominican Republic: they learn to speak Spanish rapidly, because their livelihood to depends on contact with Dominicans. They make the effort to learn, and their children grow up speaking Spanish and Creole. I have a Haitian friend who does not speak his native tongue; he is not interested in it.

   A small number of languages predominate in the world.  Governments pressurize minority groups to abandon their native language and adopt the language of the ruling nation. English speakers suppressed Celtic languages such as Welsh, Gaelic and Irish at various times in the British Isles. Similarly, the Norman French suppressed the Anglo-Saxon language after 1066. In the United States, Canada and Austria, young speakers of native language were forced to attend boarding schools where the use of their mother tongue was prohibited. In the Soviet Union in the 1950s, young speakers of minority languages were forced to speak Russian…….

   Globalization is another reason. People move to other countries in search of a better life. Countries are in contact with one another as a result of international trade, communication and travel, and people want to speak the languages which dominate the world economy. The science books are written in English; this causes a specific kind of people (high elite) learn this dominant language. Companies offer better salaries to people who learn English or French.

     Technology provides platform which threatens the original structure of languages.  New language form develops through social networks and mobile telephones, which shortens sentences, avoids complex structures and disobey syntax. New spellings transform written language. Although many people view this as a degradation of language, others think it is a new shorthand form, and it won´t change the speaking form.

        The disappearance of language should be a worldwide concern, because language constitute characteristic of a specific groups of people. Nowadays however, the most important things for people are: money that provide a better life; status for feeling more self·important, technology for simplification of life tasks, and saving time to acquire leisure. People are not worried about language. In fact, many people think that speaking a dominant international language is important for a community´s development.  Speaking English, French or chinese is all very well, but we should not give up native tongue.

     Some people are fighting to retain traditional languages. Many professors at universities are have pioneered programs of teach tribal languages in elementary school. However, this effort will not stop the process. Languages continue disappearing and people does not care it. Many people agree it is well languages change. They view a native tongue as obstacles to communication, but most people though that, when a language disappears precious diversity is lost, because it is among humankind´s most complex creation, and mean the reality differently as linguistic Mario Pei explained ´´Each has unique features´´.   

    For slow down the process of vanishing languages, we should have access to school where our language is spoken in other countries. The right to elaborate original documents, to have interpreters in the most frequented places, transmit languages to our children.

                                         

CONCLUSION

    After this analysis we can conclude that, in the near future, the world will have lost an important among of its valuable languages. Especially governments and globalization will absolve other languages and cultures. It would be great if we wanted to save them, but conversely, we are not interested.