Endangered Languages: The Threat of Extinction

Endangered languages. Human languages are very much like biological species – biologists say. Languages germinate with the formation of a nation, they develop and mutate for better accommodation to changing environment, they have their areas of habitat, which may expand or shrink, they can be endangered and they become extinct. By now there are around 7 thousand known languages in the world. Some are spoken by just few people. By the end of the 21st century 90% of them will become extinct. The smaller is the number of people using a particular language the more endangered it is – just like endangered species – the fewer specimens of this species left the closer it is to extinction. This is a natural process – almost no one wants to learn languages spoken by only few people. Often even parents of small nations don’t want their children to learn their native languages because parents understand that it will be difficult or impossible for their children to get modern education in those languages and then to make a career. Linguists and culturalists are alarmed. Every language is a part of a culture, and every culture is a part of the treasure of knowledge accumulated by the humankind. Linguists make sound records of stories spoken by people native to the endangered languages, copy written texts when they exist, try to preserve folklore stories and legends. However, linguists are not native speakers of those languages, therefore a considerable part of the information coded in those languages will be lost when they become extinct. Scientists believe that modern technologies can improve the situation. For instance, if there are only few native speakers of a language remain alive, but they live in different countries and on different continents and have no one around to talk to in their mother tongue, it is essential to help them find each other on the Internet and let them chat with other people knowing this endangered language. This text is based on the information presented in the BBC popular science programs. September, 2014.