"Linguistic Suicide"
A New Coining for an Old Concern.
Tariq Khan
safertariq@gmail.com
Introduction:
Languages are said to be born, flourish in their life time and decay finally. "A language is said to be dead when no one speaks it any more. Its a situation when a given language ceases to have a single fluent speaker" David Crystal. However, language death is a generic term and the focus of my presentation is "Linguistic Suicide" to be exact. Suicide may easily be distinguished from death in terms of agency and autonomy. "Linguistic Suicide refers to a situation wherein parents, who are the speakers of a minority language, deliberately choose not to teach this language to their children and instead adopt a majority language in their homes" . "Linguistic Suicide occurs when an older generation of speakers dominant in a minority language adopts a majority language as the language of child rearing, thereby willfully interrupting the transmission of their language to the next generation" Beck and Lam.
Presentation Outline
After giving an introduction I have tried to explain the issue of Linguistic Suicide and Language Death in more details. For the purpose I have used the contents of David Crystal's book 'Language Death' and have also tried to incorporate from Denison 's perspective on the subject. I have assembled some commonly agreed causes for this problem and listed down the evident consequences. Keeping the sensitivity of the issue I have freely borrowed some quoted texts from the likes of David Crystal, Norman Denison , Nancy Dorian, Yvonne Lam and David Beck . There is a list of some Active Organisations followed by the Reference List at the end of this handout.
Description
The term " Linguistic Suicide" was introduced by Norman Denison in the year 1977. Denison argues that languages die not for the loss of or decay of formal rules, but instead are lost when parents cease transmitting the minority language to their children. And incidentally India which is so rich and diverse linguistically faces an equally precarious situation. Here that which is indegenous is endangered and that which is endangered is indegenous. Lets us see some queries which contemplate on Linguistic Suicide and Language Deaths:
What is Linguistic Suicide ?
How is it different from Language Death?
Why do languages have to die?
Is language death really bad or a sort of boon for humanity?
What are some of the predominant factors behind linguistic suicide?
How can we alter the situation ?
Is language death or linguistic suicide assimilating evolution of languages ?
Language is the mirror of mind. Linguistic suicide would mean curtaining over this mirror. Any reduction of language diversity diminishes the adaptation strength of our species because it lowers the pool of knowledge from which we can draw. The balancing between identity and intelligibility has failed and needs to be worked out again. This issue is significant as it is not about mere observing sound change or vocabulary preference or stylistic shifts and contextualizing them. It is about death, self-annihilation called suicide of language as well identity and with the catastrophic loss of knowledge system embodied in the languages that cease to be. Naturally, this endows with our ethical responsibility, to act in the best of out capacity.
Causes
Languages are not like people. So, its not possible to write a single cause on the death certificate for a language. Broadly speaking the causes are socio-economic and socio-psychological. Economic progress through other languages, influence of other dominant languages in the vicinity etc. However, single major factor like quest for economic prosperity is plausible but not as relevant as the effects of Educational System, Mass Media, Government's Policies and Business Environment. Some the very pressing causes are as following.
Shifting of identity.
Switching over to prestigious tongues.
Prejudice against the native tongue.
Displacement of the community.
The march of civilization.
Impact of regional media.
Negligence from the government and industries.
There is an agreement among the linguists that over half of the world's languages are moribund that is not effectively being passed on to the next generation. We are at that point of history where, within perhaps, two generation most languages will die out.
Consequences
Like the causes the consequences of Linguistic Suicide is also multifaceted. A native language is like a natural resource, it cannot be replaced once it is removed from the Earth. just as the extinction of any animal species diminishes our world, so does the extinction of any language.
Loss of identity.
Social disintegration
Lack of cultural continuity between generations.
Loss of indigenous and traditional knowledge systems.
Attack on tribal ethnicity preserved in language structure e.g. Lexicon and Grammar
Loss of repositories of ancient wisdom, worldview and philosophy of life.
Loss of tribal lore, oral literature in the form of tales, songs, ballads, epics, proverbs, riddles and myths.
"Having waited too long before undertaking to rally support for the threatened languages, we may find ourselves eulogizing extinct languages whose living uniqueness we had hoped to celebrate" Nancy Dorian.
Conservation
Language diversity, like a gene pool, is essential for our species to thrive. If we are to prosper we need the cross fertilization of thought that multilingualism gives us. To fight to preserve the dying languages may turn out to be the struggle to preserve the most precious things that make us humans before we end up in the land fill of history.
Spreading awareness.
Persuading agencies like government and media.
Activism through electronic means (digitization).
Solidarity for the organisations engaged in the acts of conservation.
Documentation of language and literature by recording digitizing etc.
Descriptive grammar with phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics highlighting the uniqueness of each language.
Involve native speakers in material production.
The list may go very long. But we in the given situations and compulsions can be at least as honest with our course as we can. This is required in order to acquire the skills being imparted perfectly.
Conclusion
Languages are dying at an unprecedented rate. There is a possibility of losing half the world's languages within next hundred years and survival of only one language in it a few hundred years hence. "Language death is a terrible loss, to all who come into contact with it. Facing the loss of language or culture involves same stages of grief that one experiences in the process of death and dying" Crystal. We don't have to be members of an endangered linguistic community to sense this grief, or respond to it. Now, given the situation we have too contrasting choices. One, we can sit back and do nothing. Are we willing to shoulder the blame for having stood by and done nothing? Alternative, we act using as many means as possible to confront the situation and influence the outcome. Among the active people and agencies there is a need for convergence of efforts and solidarity with all who are involved in the act of conservation.
List of Organisation
Ad Hoc Committee On Endangered Languages (M366050@er.uqam.ca)
Ethnologue (www.sil.org/ethnologue)
The Endangered Languages Fund, Inc (www.sapir.ling.yale.edu/~elf/study.html)
UNESCO Study of Endangered Languages (unescopv@eurosur.org)
Universal Declaration Of Linguistic Rights (ciemen@tros.es) (www.indigo.ie/egt/udhr/udlr.html)
Logosphere (logosphere@aol.com)
List of Reference
'Language Death' by David Crystal. Cambridge University Press. Year 2000.
(Available in IGML library Call No. 417.7 C88L, Accession No. 198897
'Concise Encyclopedia of Sociolinguistics' Rajend Mesthrie.
'Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics' Keith Brown.
(Volume 7, Pages 199 & 200)
'Language Loss and Linguistic Suicide' David Beck and Yvonne Lam.
Welcoming your ideas and appreciation
With Regards
