As the world becomes increasingly globalized, indigenous languages become more and more at risk of becoming extinct. Given the increasing industrialization and wider communication of superpowers such as the United States and China, the increasing presence of both Western and Eastern major languages and cultures has meant the overshadowing of many local and indigenous languages. This makes them fall into the realm of 'endangered languages,' languages and ways of speaking that threaten to become obsolete in the face of a modern communicative age. This phenomenon is known as 'language shift,' and indicates the moving of some languages into prominence over others. Despite these dangers, there are efforts to exercise 'language maintenance,' or means of preserving and holding the indigenous languages of a people as their primary (or continually present) form of communication. In this essay, the ideas of language maintenance and language shift will be examined in detail, particularly as they pertain to endangered languages.
Language shift can be defined as the instance when a community slowly loses its ability or desire to speak their native language and/or its functions in lieu of a majority language - one spoken by a greater number of people outside the community (or provides them with greater communicative and socioeconomic opportunities). This shift occurs for many reasons - a desire to join a greater community, a need or want for the material resources that majority culture outside the enclave wants, etc. This results in the language, and many cultural and symbolic associations that go with it, becoming much less of a factor in these smaller native cultures (Pauwels, p. 720). Sometimes, legislation and official policies can be created to ban or restrict the use of some languages, facilitating assimilation into other cultures at the expense of the native culture's unique language (Romaine, p. 2). These types of policies ostensibly create a more globalized community, but also induces homogeneity and dilutes the unique facets of indigenous and minority cultures at the behest of the majority. As a result of these policies and cultural shifts, endangered languages are created.
There are many examples of language shift, both big and small, that have occurred throughout world history. The diminishing of the Irish language started in the mid-20th century, when Irish was traded for English as a means of achieving economic mobility in England (Romaine, p. 8). Many African languages, including that of the Lenape tribe and its Unami language, are also beset with language shift due to the increasing Anglicizing of Africa (Hoffmann, 2009). In these societies, powerful languages have been traded for more economically sensible ones, and smaller cultures are in the process of being usurped by bigger ones.
According to reports, there are fewer than 7,000 languages left in the world; nearly four-fifths of the earth's population speaks one of 83 languages (Hoffmann, 2009). The remaining 6,000 are considered endangered languages. Endangered languages are defined as languages that are "at risk of losing all of [their] speakers" (Hoffman, p. 12). Often, endangered languages are not being learned by new generations of speakers, either due to the influx of more prevalent languages or the slow decline of new language teachers. It is theorized that most of these 6,000 languages will die out by the end of the century (Hoffmann, 2009).
One interesting distinction that must be made is that, unlike endangered species, "extinct" languages can be reawakened if there is sufficient historical documentation of that language. To that extent, some languages can never truly die. However, this also sequesters the presence of said language from endangered into "sleeping" status, where it becomes a nonexistent part of the current culture of its indigenous speakers. To that end, a piece of the native culture is said to die along with the language, as many reawakened languages are not brought back by the native peoples who spoke it, but by language scholars who are not using it to provide communication.
Endangered languages are said to be important due to the value they provide to the linguistic research community. Forms and styles contained within endangered languages are often unique and not found in more prevalent and well-studied languages. By examining endangered languages, subtleties and new discoveries in intonation are often found, providing new ways to communicate that are not shared among majority languages. Furthermore, endangered languages are seen from a historical point of view as being essential to the essence and culture of many indigenous peoples, and provide a link to their past. With that in mind, endangered languages must be maintained as best as possible.
How can endangered languages be preserved so that they do not end up extinct or sleeping? Language maintenance can be defined as "a situation in which a speaker, or group of speakers, or a speech community continue to use their language in some or all spheres of life despite competition with the dominant or majority language to become the main/sole language in these spheres" (Pauwels, p. 719). It is closely tied with language shift as one of the two facets of language contact, and represents the active fight against language shift. Without language maintenance, language death occurs, in which the community stops using the language completely.
Language maintenance is often promoted by a number of factors and forces, which by extension slow down the process of language shift altogether (Pauwels, p. 725). First, language maintenance often depends on whether or not there is an early point of immigration of the native language into an individual. The earlier the introduction of an endangered language into the people of a society, the more likely it is that they will adopt that as their dominant language. Linguistic enclaves must be maintained in order for language maintenance to take hold; these self-sufficient communities keep these languages alive. The presence of parochial schools within a community also lends itself to a religious or community based language education as opposed to the secular majority found outside these enclaves. Finally, language maintenance must be exposed to people before they emigrate out of an enclave and into environments dominated by other languages, in order to preserve that connection to the previous language.
In conclusion, the process of exploring endangered languages depends greatly upon the tightly-knit relationship between language shift and language maintenance. Language shift occurs because of societal factors and increasing globalization, dwindling indigenous languages down into endangered status. Language maintenance includes the methods by which these languages are prevented from becoming sleeping or extinct languages, and keeps an important aspect of indigenous cultures alive through the promotion of language maintenance.
Works Cited
Hoffmann, Maureen. Endangered Languages, Linguistics, and Culture: Researching and
Reviving the Unami Language of the Lenape. Bryn Mawr College, May 2009.
Dissertation.
Pauwels, Anne. "Language Maintenance." Handbook of Applied Linguistics. ed. Alan Davies,
Catherine Elder. Blackwell Publishing. pp. 719-737. Print.
Romaine, Suzanne. "The Impact of Language Policy on Endangered Languages." International
Journal on Multicultural Studies vol. 4, no. 2, p.1. 2002. Print.
